Judge upholds April BOE Election results
Challenge dismissed Monday after three hearings and testimony
A court case challenging the April Board of Education [BOE] election was dismissed Monday afternoon with prejudice, according to the attorney for recently appointed member Dominic Latorraca.
The ‘with prejudice’ decision by Judge Dennis R. O’Brien equates to a finality of proceedings, attorney Monica Kowalski said via a telephone interview.
“The judge considered the arguments of counsel and ruled in our favor,” Kowalski said.
The lawsuit was brought forth by outgoing BOE president Nicolle Harris, who lost her bid for reelection by 28 votes to Latorraca, the next highest vote getter.
Harris could not be reached for comment at time of this posting.
Harris ran with former board member James Famularo and newcomer Derrick Grant on the From the Community, For the Community ticket. They challenged incumbents Connie Breech and former board member Barbara Lesinski, who ran with Latorraca on the Moving Ahead Together ticket.
According to the Monmouth County Clerk’s website, Latorraca garnered 521 votes and Harris, the highest vote getter on her ticket, garnered 493 of the votes.
“It’s good to finally have closure,” Latorraca said via a Monday afternoon interview. “I will continue to do whatever I can do to support the current administration, teachers and staff. This was just an additional [issue] that had to be looked at and resolved. I’m glad we can move forward.”
O’Brien’s decision upholds the decision to disqualify certain block of votes for various reasons, Kowalski said.
“A lot of this was very technical quite frankly,” Kowalski said. “The judge’s determination was based upon testimony that one of the assisters had improperly [cast ballots]. He found that the Monmouth County Superintendent’s decision to reject the ballots was proper based on the assister’s testimony.”
While the challenge called into question up to 46 of the rejected ballots, the judge found 21 of the votes did not meet the statutory requirements, Kowalski said.
“Because of the number of votes in question, I made the motion to dismiss [because] there was no need to go further.”
“We are well aware of sensitivity of these issues and we appreciate the vote of confidence,” Kowalski said. “Mr. Latorraca looks forward to representing the BOE in Asbury Park moving forward.”
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