It’s Only Taxpayer Money
Let’s hope that Shore Regional and Oceanport Boards of Education finally admit that not once, not twice, but three times the court has told them their appeal of Sea Bright’s desire to join Henry Hudson Regional School district isn’t going anyplace,. At the very least, they should at least explain to their taxpayers why it’s so important to spend more than $200,000 in the last two years simply to tell the judges they don’t like their decision.
And that goes without even asking what it is costing Sea Bright, not only to share part of the bills these lawyers are charging all three of those two municipal taxpayers, but also even more to pay their own attorney to defend their position!. The irony of it all is Sea Bright, who simply wants a better education at a better price for their kids, has to finance both sides of this too-often fought fight that is simply delaying a vote to let the taxpayers of these towns have the right to make their own decision.
Let’s remember Sea Bright only made its request to join Henry Hudson after the Legislature introduced and passed a law that was designed to specifically allow towns like Sea Bright to do exactly what they have been trying to do for a few years now.
With it taking so long to get responses for OPRA requests for specific bills and payments for specific reasons like regionalization, it isn’t easy to provide readers with all the information.
But even with only some of the figures, the numbers are staggering for local residents. Oceanport’s bills for their attorney simply for regionalization, not any other work she does, totaled more than $116,000 between February of 2022 and last September. Add that to Shore Regional’s bills for the past one year of more than $80,000, and it all adds up to the attorneys are making out well while the residents are continuing to be deprived of their right to make a decision they want.
To put it in another perspective, one bill for Shore Regional from October of two years ago was for $18,715. That was the month after another bill for $12,500. Most months for the past two years run between $2,000 and $7,000 a month. …just for the regionalization battle. Lawyers got thousands more for all the other jobs they did in addition to the regionalization fees.
That’s in addition to Oceanport. Over two years, those taxpayers paid $143,000 for general services, they only paid legal bills for special education totaling $14,000. Yet they paid $116,377.30 to continue their fight rather than accept the judgement, wisdom and decision of the Appellate Courts.
Isn’t it time to quit fighting judicial decisions and let the law that was designed to make regionalization of towns like Sea Bright an easy and wise choice take its course?
