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Last week’s attorney appointments by the Asbury Park Board of Education will stand, the school district’s state-appointed monitor Carole Morris said.

In a 5-4 vote during Tuesday night’s special meeting the board appointed Mount Holly based Riley and Riley Law Offices as its Board Attorney and Essex County based Mizrahi and Associates as its Labor Counsel. A separate motion calling for the appointments of two insurance agencies also was approved.

On Monday afternoon Morris said she has upheld the votes.

Morris had indicated she wanted to review the action after the votes were cast Tuesday. As state monitor, she has the power to nullify the vote.

Morris said she’d review the previous board attorney’s opinion that the action was a violation of the Open Public Meetings Act and that the Request for Proposals for the positions were handled properly.

The New Jersey School Boards Association also issued an opinion that two voting board members had a possible conflict of interest due to their fellow A-Team candidates’ lawsuit following the November election.

The vote was initially pulled from the May 26 regular board meeting. According to that agenda, the appointments call for Riley and Riley to receive $160 per hour from July 1 2015 to June 30, 2016 and Mizrahi and Associates to receive $150 per hour during the same time frame.

The newly appointed Labor Counsel Aaron Mizrahi had represented A-Team mayoral candidate Remond Palmer and Board of Education candidate Avra “Michele” in their lawsuit to open 343 vote-by-mail ballots rejected by the Monmouth County Board of Elections during the election. The case was dismissed in March by Monmouth County Superior Court Judge Dennis O’Brien.

Although Council lost her bid for the board, her A-Team running mates Stephen Williams and Felicia Simmons won seats. The two were part of the 5-4 majority that voted to appoint Mizrahi’s law firm as its labor counsel.

At the time of the lawsuit’s dismissal, Mizrahi said Palmer and Council would seek an appeal but in a Friday afternoon interview he said no appeal was filed.

“Though Mr. Palmer had every intention of seeking further relief, the decision ultimately hinged on finances,” Palmer said. “With just the filing fees, transcript costs and other incidental expenses estimated at several thousand dollars, pursuing the appeal simply became cost prohibitive.”

Tuesday night’s votes called for the appointments to begin immediately.

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