BOE Candidate forums

It’s nice that there are multiple BOE candidate forums happening. 

I copied this out of the Village Green:

1. Wednesday, October 9, 2024, 7:30 PM, at Board of Education, 525 Academy St., Maplewood. Sponsored by: SOMSD Presidents’ Council and League of Women Voters of Maplewood-South Orange. In person and Youtube: @PresidentsCouncil-w6c
2. Wednesday, October 23, 2024, 7:30 PM, the Hilton Neighborhood Association will be holding their candidates forum at The Woodlands, 60 Woodland Road, Maplewood. More details to come.
3. Thursday, October 29, 2024, 7:30 PM, sponsored by the South Orange-Maplewood Community Coalition on Race. Details to come.
   
   
   

It’s unfortunate that these events are happening after mail-in ballots have already been arriving in voter’s mailboxes. Especially this year when I think a lot of people (myself included) are extra eager to cast a ballot in the presidential, Senate and House races. While I understand the importance of local elections I think in the future the organizers of these forums need to take into account that voting starts at the beginning of October for a lot of people. 

mrincredible said:

It’s nice that there are multiple BOE candidate forums happening. 

I copied this out of the Village Green:

1. Wednesday, October 9, 2024, 7:30 PM, at Board of Education, 525 Academy St., Maplewood. Sponsored by: SOMSD Presidents’ Council and League of Women Voters of Maplewood-South Orange. In person and Youtube: @PresidentsCouncil-w6c
2. Wednesday, October 23, 2024, 7:30 PM, the Hilton Neighborhood Association will be holding their candidates forum at The Woodlands, 60 Woodland Road, Maplewood. More details to come.
3. Thursday, October 29, 2024, 7:30 PM, sponsored by the South Orange-Maplewood Community Coalition on Race. Details to come.
   
   
   

It’s unfortunate that these events are happening after mail-in ballots have already been arriving in voter’s mailboxes. Especially this year when I think a lot of people (myself included) are extra eager to cast a ballot in the presidential, Senate and House races. While I understand the importance of local elections I think in the future the organizers of these forums need to take into account that voting starts at the beginning of October for a lot of people. 

With the secure drop box available, I don't see the need to rush to vote a month before Election Day.  While I agree that October 29th is cutting it a bit close for mail in voters, waiting until the League of Women Voters event tomorrow seems perfectly reasonable.  

Voting too far in advance carries its own risks.  There is the possibility that something may happen within the next few weeks that could be significant enough to change some people's vote in one or more of the races being decided on Election Day.  

This is of course a personal decision and not everyone has moved over to mail in voting.

joan_crystal said:

With the secure drop box available, I don't see the need to rush to vote a month before Election Day.  While I agree that October 29th is cutting it a bit close for mail in voters, waiting until the League of Women Voters event tomorrow seems perfectly reasonable.  

Voting too far in advance carries its own risks.  There is the possibility that something may happen within the next few weeks that could be significant enough to change some people's vote in one or more of the races being decided on Election Day.  

This is of course a personal decision and not everyone has moved over to mail in voting.

I think you raise some good points. I’ve certainly dropped my mail-in ballot in the Dropbox on Election Day a couple of times. Ideally I like to get it in a couple of weeks ahead. One year I got an email that I had to cure my ballot. Someone didn’t like how my signature compared to the one on file. Also having the extra time to log into the system and confirm that my ballot has been received is great. 

I do think organizations which want to hold candidate forums really do need to look at the entire voting period now. The percentage of people who cast their votes by mail in NJ is pretty significant: https://www.nj.gov/state/elections/assets/pdf/election-results/other/2022-2003-vote-by-mail-ballot-chart.pdf

This year in particular my emotions outweighed logic when it came to casting my ballot. I couldn’t wait. I dropped it in the box the day after it came in the mail. Perhaps that’s to my detriment, but it was meaningful to me here in 2024. 

Anyone have a link for tonight's meeting or an explanation of how to access the meeting using YouTube@PresidentsCouncil-w6c?   

I did try going to YouTube and searching for that channel. It doesn’t show tonight’s forum … it has several random videos about municipal governments around the country. It’s very confusing. It’s possible the link will appear when the meeting is about to start. 

The Maplewood LWV website isn’t much help. 

 It's League of Women Voters but presidents council is streaming on YouTube. SOMSD Board of Education Candidate Forum sponsored by Presidents' Council and the League of Women Voters

WEDNESDAY 10/9 @ 7:30pm

District Meeting Room, 525 Academy St, Maplewood

https://www.youtube.com/@presidentscouncil-w6c

Taken from FB

I appreciate this debate, but one minute answers just don't cut it.  It took the moderator half a minute just to read the question.  

I was finally able to get a working link from a thread on FB.   Dan's link works and directs one to a recording of the meeting for those who would like to view it now.  Even with one minute answers, I was able to see clear differences between the candidates.  

Is Mr. Latz involved with any of the candidates?

yahooyahoo said:

Is Mr. Latz involved with any of the candidates?

Why? I’m genuinely curious.

mrincredible said:

yahooyahoo said:

Is Mr. Latz involved with any of the candidates?

Why? I’m genuinely curious.

Typically, I do not agree with his agenda.

I've been traveling for a couple of weeks and have almost another week to go, so the ballot was left at home unfilled out so that I can try to get more info on the BOE election upon my return next week. I can walk to the dropbox at the Hilton Library, so I know that I will still have almost a week to get it done.  I will be following this thread and some on Facebook to try to get the BOE info I'm still looking for and be ready to deal with the ballot in plenty of time.

SOMBOE Election Results:

Deirdre Brown: 9,591

Jeff Bennett (former BOE member): 8,986

Bimal Kapadia: 8,053

Qawi Telesford (incumbent BOE president): 6,846

Bethany Joseph: 6,482

Arun Vadlamani (incumbent BOE member): 5,256

Paul Stephan: 3,890

Top-three and second-three finishers ran as tickets. To answer a question above, though I don't know how much, if anything, Steve Latz actually does with the campaign anymore, he endorsed Telesford-Joseph-Vadlamani.

https://results.enr.clarityelections.com/NJ/Essex/122756/web.345435/#/detail/33

A very clear mandate on the performance of the BOE.

yahooyahoo said:

A very clear mandate on the performance of the BOE.

It would seem so. The two-incumbent slate tried to walk a thin line between acknowledging widespread frustration with the BOE and asserting that the answer was to establish “stability” by returning two members, and electing their running mate who took the same positions, to the Board.

Reminded me of “Veep,” when in a similar position, Selina Meyer’s campaign slogan was “Continuity, With Change.”

Anyone who runs for BOE is a saint.  Big Thank You to all seven candidates.