Sterling Waterman: Epps Contract Vote Should be ‘Postponed Indefinitely’

By • Aug 10th, 2010 • Category: Blog, News, Politics

As the Jersey City Board of Education (BOE) prepares to hold a public hearing and vote on a contract extension for superintendent Charles Epps tomorrow night, confusion abounds and one BOE member is calling for the vote to be postponed, since he hasn’t seen the proposed contract.

“Once again, there is a breakdown in this process,” BOE member Sterling Waterman (at right) says in a statement released this morning.

Waterman, who was elected to the BOE this spring, has been an outspoken critic — along with political ally Steven Fulop — of the Epps contract procedure since it got rolling earlier this summer.

“It is astonishing that I have not yet been given a copy of the superintendent’s new contract on which my fellow board members and I are supposed to cast votes on Wednesday,” Waterman says. “How can I vote on something I haven’t seen?”

As the Journal‘s Ken Thorbourne reports, the school district is under the impression it can’t release the terms of the contract publicly until county superintendent of schools Timothy Brennan signs off on the new pact. But Brennan says the district has it backwards, and the public hearing has to occur before he reviews the proposed deal.

With all the confusion, Waterman is urging the BOE to slow it down.

“The vote on Wednesday should be postponed indefinitely,” he says. “If board leadership rushes this vote through now, then the prevalent perception in Jersey City — that cronyism is more important than improving our schools — would no longer be mere speculation.”

For now, the meeting on the Epps contract is scheduled for Wednesday, August 11 at 6 pm, at the BOE’s headquarters in the 6th floor conference room; 346 Claremont Ave.

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is the founding editor of the Jersey City Independent; he now works for a public-policy nonprofit in Trenton.
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  • Miles Poindexter

    Sterling is absolutely correct. There is total confusion right now as to how this contract needs to be reviewed, adjusted, and adopted so stop this insanity now and look up the rules. The BOE is about to give more than half a million dollars of our taxpayer dollars to Epps. To help prevent a repeat of Epps past failures, most of this money should be tied to performance and goals achieved over the next two years, but I doubt it is.

    See: http://www.news-leader.com/article/20100731/NEWS04/7310373/Few-contracts-tie-pay-to-outcomes