Voters to decide if they want elected school board, budget say

By SUZANNE MARINO
Staff Writer
MARGATE – It is next to impossible to miss the fact that an election is set to take place here in little more than six weeks.
On May 8, voters will choose three commissioners to assume the reins of this rather affluent beach community. The three will then choose among themselves who will serve as mayor for the next four years. There are nine people looking to have one of those three chairs in the front of commission chambers in City Hall May 9.
But the voters of Margate have another reason to go to the polls, and that is to answer the referendum question on the ballot. Margate is a Type 1 school district. Like neighboring Ventnor and Linwood, the voters do not elect members of their school board; they are appointed by the mayor, normally with input from the other members of the governing body after a lengthy interview process.
Likewise, the voters do not vote on the school budget. It is created by the finance committee of the Board of Education and then presented to and voted on by the Board of School Estimate, which includes the three commissioners, at a public meeting. The appointees to the school board serve three-year terms.
As March rolls into April, this election has the markings of a watershed event that could forever change the complexion of Margate.
Mayor Vaughn Reale and Commissioner Sigmund Rimm have said publicly that they are in favor of an appointed school board over an elected one. Reale said he is convinced that changing to an elected school board would result in a change on the board in terms of the kind of people who would consider going through an election process to be a member.
The ballot question is a result of the residents’ petition to the City Commission that voters be given a choice of whether they remain a Type I district or become a Type II district in which board members are elected in April annually and residents vote on the school budget. It took two members of the City Commission to agree to allow voters the choice and to move forward with the referendum ballot question.
Reale and Commissioner John Swift voted back in December to let the issue be resolved at the polls. It then took the signatures of 15 percent of the legally qualified voters who voted in the preceding general election, or 426 signatures, on a petition to get the question on the ballot.
The referendum question reads:
“Should the Margate City Board of Education be changed from a an appointed Board of Education (Type I District) to an elected Board of Education (Type II District) and have its annual budget and other spending submitted to the legal voters of the municipality?”