By Matthew Sockol
Staff Writer
MILLSTONE – The members of the Millstone Township K-8 School District Board of Education have elected a new president and vice president for 2017.
The board held its annual reorganization meeting on Jan. 3.
The winning candidates from the Nov. 8 election – incumbents Kevin McGovern, David DePinho, Salvatore Casale and Margaret Gordon – were sworn in to begin serving new terms on the board.
McGovern, DePinho and Casale will serve three-year terms and Gordon will serve a one-year term.
McGovern served on the board from 2007-12 and returned in 2013. He served as vice president in 2016.
DePinho has served on the board since 2009.
Casale served on the board from 2008-14 and returned in 2016.
Gordon has served on the board since 2007. She served as president in 2016.
After the members were seated, the board held elections for the positions of president and vice president. Casale was elected president and Melissa Riviello, who has served on the board since 2014, was elected vice president.
Casale and Riviello were elected with votes from DePinho, McGovern, Gordon, Amy Jacobson, Billy Hanson, Cynthia Bailey and themselves. John Sico was absent during the election of the president and vice president.
In other business, Jacobson was appointed to serve as the board’s delegate to the New Jersey School Boards Association.
Hanson was appointed as Millstone’s representative to the Upper Freehold Regional School District Board of Education and Sico was appointed as a non-voting alternate.
One member of the Millstone school board sits on the Upper Freehold Regional board and votes on issues that deal with Allentown High School because Millstone residents attend Allentown High School on a tuition basis.
In other business, the board passed a resolution advancing a $2.9 million project to replace the roofs on the Millstone Township Primary School and the Millstone Township Middle School.
The project was approved by voters in a binding referendum in December.
The resolution appropriates $351,093 from capital reserve to support the cost of the project and declares the project as “otherwise” eligible.
According to the resolution, the New Jersey Department of Education’s Department of Facilities must approve of all capital projects and can only move forward with the approval of a capital project if the board declares it to be “otherwise” eligible.
By declaring a capital project as “otherwise” eligible, the board is able to declare that the project will be supported in full with local capital reserve funds, according to the resolution.