Oceanport and Shore Regional school districts have put the New Jersey Supreme Court on notice they plan to challenge the latest of the three decisions Appellate Courts have made upholding Sea Bright’s attempts to become part of the Henry Hudson Regional School District.
“This is a terrible waste of taxpayers’ money,” said Kerri Wright, an attorney with the Porzio firm representing Sea Bright. “What is worse, they are using Sea Bright taxpayers’ money to continue this fight.”
Principal
Porzio, Bromberg & Newman
Sea Bright taxpayers are paying their attorney, the Porzio firm, to represent them to enable the question of regionalization to be a matter for the residents to decide by a public referendum, at the same time, paying those same attorneys to represent them in the legal actions Oceanport and Shore Regional districts are lodging attempting to prevent the residents from voting on the right to decide where their want their children to be educated.
News came Tuesday, the day after the deadline the school boards had for filing any action against the Appellate Court’s upholding Sea Bright’s right to let the voters decide if they should leave their current districts and join the newly formed Henry Hudson Regional District in Highlands and Atlantic Highlands.
Shore Regional and Oceanport filed a notice in a joint petition requesting the state Supreme Court, the highest court in the state, to review the Appellate Court certification earlier this month. Such a request is rarely heard except under rare circumstances. As an example, the Supreme Court may hear a matter if an Appellate Court had issued its final decision by a divided vote. In the case of the Sea Bright matter, the Appellate Court, in its 34-page decision, was unanimous Sea Bright had the right to put the matter to its voters to decide.
While it is not yet determined if the Supreme Court would hear the matter, it would most likely be several months before a decision is reached if they did.
But the arguments of Oceanport and Shore Regional are more severely limited at this level. They cannot introduce any new evidence, nor can they argue anything other than citations the Appellate Court gave in handing down its unanimous decision. Their arguments are also limited to fewer pages than earlier appeals.
“Not only is this putting a heavy tax burden on residents of all three towns, “ Wright said, “ it is depriving the people of Sea Bright the right to make their own choice on how and where they want their students educated.”
It has not been reported when either of the two boards of education at Shore Regional and Oceanport met in executive session to discuss their intended actions , nor if they held announced open meetings, either jointly or combined, in order vote to approve taking their matter to the highest court in the state.
