ROBBINSVILLE: Three school board candidates seek 3 seats

by Peter Geier, Staff Writer
   ROBBINSVILLE — Three candidates are running for three open seats on the Board of Education — a longtime incumbent, a board member appointed just last fall and a board veteran returning after a five-year absence.
   Faith Silvestrov, who chairs the board’s Personnel Committee and is the Mercer County School Boards Association representative, is running for re-election. She could not be reached for comment on her decision.
   Melissa Foy, an elementary school principal at John I. Dawes Early Learning Center in Manalapan-Englishtown Regional School District, is seeking a full term to the seat to which she was appointed in November.
   Ms. Foy, who has a third-grader in the district and a 3-year-old, said she is “happy to run in town” and thinks her background as an elementary school principal makes her an asset to the board.
   Florence Gange, dean of faculty and upper school English teacher at Rutgers Preparatory School in Somerset, is running to fill the vacancy left by board Vice President Maxine Fox, who is not running for re-election.
   Ms. Gange, a former eight-year board member who has been off the board the last five years, said she is running because she feels “many of the same reasons that were front and center when I was on the board five years ago are still around.”
   Among these are issues, she said, arising from Robbinsville’s growing population, such as continually rising budgets that increase the tax burden on residents and concerns over where to put the children that keep expanding the district’s enrollment.
   She said Robbinsville is a wealthy district, but the tax base is predominantly residential rather than commercial.
   ”With what’s going on in the economy right now, we have reached the breaking point,” she said. “This is going to impact the facilities, the programs and the affordability of the township.”