JAMESBURG – Acting on a request sent from the district superintendent of schools, the Borough Council voted to remove Councilman Thomas Gibbons as liaison to the school district.
“The Board of Education and I respectfully request that you take into account recent events when you assign a representative to your Education Committee. In particular, Councilman Gibbons, current chair of the Education Committee, has acted in an adversarial manner towards me, [Business Administer and Board Secretary] Beth Brooks, Board of Education President Robert Czarneski and other members of the board,” Mayor Marlene Lowande read from a letter sent to the council from Superintendent of Schools Brian Betz.
The letter cited “duplicitous” OPRA [Open Public Meetings Act] request forms and “calling out” Czarneski in a recent email and on Facebook.
“The board requests Mr. Tom Gibbons be removed immediately from his position as the liaison to the Board of Ed. and be exempt from all future consideration to this valued position on the Jamesburg town council,” the letter concluded.
At the Nov. 18 Borough Council meeting, members voted unanimously to remove Gibbons as liaison to the Board of Education. Gibbons, one of two Republicans on the council, was absent from the meeting.
“We have spent the last four years establishing good working relationships not just with the school, but with everyone in town,” said Lowande, commenting on the letter she had read.
Gibbons, who ran for mayor in November on the platform of outfitting public buildings in town with solar panels, said he filed an OPRA request to obtain a copy of an engineering report that was done on the feasibility of placing solar panels on the roofs of the districts’ schools.
Gibbons maintained that Czarneski may have made misleading statements about the existence of an engineering report regarding Jamesburg public schools and their ability to support the weight of solar panels.
The move to remove Gibbons as liaison comes after a heated Oct. 21 borough council meeting, which had police called in to calm a shouting match that arose between Gibbons, his son Mathew Gibbons and several members of the audience over signage in the borough, according to minutes from the meeting.
According to minutes from the meeting, residents questioned the mayor on why she didn’t attend a local fundraiser as well as her perceived opposition to solar energy, as well as the lack of signage in the borough.
“[Gibbons] stacked the audience with people to come up and harass me. They asked me questions. I tried to explain this is not the forum for campaigning. … It was relentless,” Lowande said.
Gibbons responded by saying, “People questioned her on issues that she had made statements on and they have a right to do that. … There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s part of democracy.”
Gibbons also replied to remarks by the mayor that he had orchestrated the event.
“These people were supporting me, they were supporting the two other candidates that ran with me and they were there trying to make a point, they have a right to do that,” said Gibbons.
During the meeting a member of the public asked Gibbons to resign from the council while another asked him if he would reimburse the borough for legal costs sustained during a lawsuit he filed against the borough clerk.