By Lea Kahn, Staff Writer
Murali Aiyar, who lost his re-election bid for a school board seat last month, was chosen to fill a vacancy on the board at a special meeting Tuesday night.
Mr. Aiyar was chosen from among three applicants for the opening, which was created when Josh Wilson who won the seat in the April 17 election withdrew from the contest too late for his name to be removed from the ballot.
The other candidates included Tamara Pommels-Boone and Clifford W. Snedeker Jr. The three candidates were interviewed in public by the school board. The board went into closed session to deliberate and choose from among the three candidates.
Mr. Wilson formally notified the school board after the election that he would not be able to fill out the remaining two years of the three-year term held by former school board member Ginny Bigley, who resigned because of personal commitments.
Although Mr. Wilson gave up the seat, the vacancy did not automatically go to the candidate who received the second highest vote tally, which was Dolores Reid. State law required the school board to appoint someone to fill the vacancy, and who would serve until the next school board election.
Mr. Aiyar, who lives on Port Mercer Road with his wife and three children, will be sworn into office at the school board’s annual retreat June 5. He will serve until April 2013, when the annual school board election takes place.
Ms. Pommels-Boone and Mr. Snedeker each said that while they did not run for the school board last month, they both want to help and believe in community service, and that’s why they applied for the open seat.
Ms. Pommels-Boone, who is a clinician supervisor at Holistic Behavioral Solutions in Lawrence, said her “whole life” has been devoted to serving others.
Mr. Snedeker, who works for the New Jersey Department of Military and Veterans Affairs, said he wants to do what he believes is right for the children. Now that he is close to retiring, he will have more time to devote.
When it was his turn to speak to the school board, Mr. Aiyar said he wanted to come back to serve. He said he spent the past six months learning the job of school board member. He was initially appointed in July 2011 to fill a vacancy until the April 2012 school board election, when he sought election in his own right.
Although Mr. Aiyar lost the election to Mr. Wilson by 42 votes, he told the school board that the people he meets on the athletic fields his children are active in sports have told him that his was the only name on the school board ballot that they knew when they cast their ballots. He acknowledged that he would have to “get out of (my) comfort zone” of people who know him and meet more members of the community.
Mr. Aiyar also said that he would like to push the Academy of Science and Technology at Lawrence High School to work more closely with “private enterprise.” It is one of four academies at the high school that seeks to expose students to various career paths.

