They are Eileen Heinzel, Joseph Lawver, Lee Hermann and Murray Peyton
By John Tredrea
Work on formation of a Valley-wide task force on school busing continued at Tuesday night’s Pennington Borough Council meeting.
At that time, council voted unanimously in favor of council President David Garber’s motion to appoint two council members and two residents to the task force. The council members are Eileen Heinzel and Joseph Lawver. The residents are Lee Hermann and Murray Peyton.
Hopewell Borough Mayor David Nettles said Wednesday that he has appointed borough Councilman Paul Anzano to the task force. Hopewell Township has made no appointments yet, but is expected to do so soon, township Mayor Vanessa Sandom said Wednesday morning.
It was at a recent Hopewell Valley Regional Board of Education meeting that Mayor Sandom proposed forming a task force to respond to the board’s controversial plan to discontinue all school busing next year that is not mandated by state law. This means that an estimated 822 students who get bus rides now won’t get them next year unless the school board changes its mind or another funding source is found for the busing.
Under state law, the municipalities could pay for the busing if the school district won’t. Students slated to lose busing are elementary students who live less than 2 miles from school and secondary students who live less than 2.5 miles from school.
Pennington Council’s discussion of the task force included a testy debate between Mr. Garber and Mayor James Benton on whether the mayor should serve on the task force. Mr. Garber said the mayor should recuse himself because his wife works for the school district as a teacher at Hopewell Elementary School. Mr. Garber said this could be perceived as a conflict of interest if the mayor were on the task force.
Mr. Garber noted that, due to Mayor Benton’s wife’s employment presenting a possible issue of a perceived conflict of interest, the mayor recused himself from the Valley’s three municipal governments’ actions on the defeated school budget last spring. The municipalities inherited responsibility for the budget when it was defeated in the public election.
The mayor told the council president that he flatly rejected the conflict-of-interest allegation. "I will not take a back seat to anyone in the protection of our students," Mayor Benton said. "Therefore, I will not recuse myself."
Shortly thereafter, council approved Mr. Garber’s motion to appoint council members Lawver and Heinzel and residents Hermann and Peyton to the task force.
Immediately after that vote, Mayor Benton said he would serve on the task force as an "ex-officio" member. After a pause of several seconds, Councilman Weed Tucker said: "But that’s not in the motion."
Council then moved on to other business. A voicemail message to Borough Attorney Walter Bliss, asking whether the mayor could indeed serve on task force and, if so, in what capacity, was not returned before press time.
It is not known yet how many people eventually will serve on the proposed task force, what its charge will be and how long it will have to do its work.

