Schools

Board of Education Vice President Resigns

Scott Martella steps down from his role as Vice President of the school board, citing conflicts of interests with his political career.

Scott Martella, Board of Education vice president for the Smithtown Central School District, announced his resignation Tuesday night, effective immediately.

Martella said conflicts of interest between his career and role on the school board led him to make this decision.

“As many of you know, I recently accepted the position of Suffolk County Representative to Gov. Andrew Cuomo.  The position requires me to recuse myself from discussions when there is a lack of impartiality or conflict of interest. Because of the frequency at which I have already had to exercise this judgment call, I am resigning my position as Board Trustee,” he said in a speech Tuesday night.

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While he announced his resignation Tuesday night, board members said his decision did not come as a surprise.

“We had some discussions about this before, about a week or so before,” said board member Louis Liguori. “He was alluding to it, he felt it was a conflict of interest with him working for the governor, he didn’t want to be in that position to deal with some issues that he couldn’t uphold his obligation to the board.”

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The board now has to make a decision on his replacement. The board could operate with six members until the next election in May 2012, they could appoint someone to the board, or a special election could be held to find a seventh member.

While the board has options, a few board members are ready to take one of them off the table – an election for a new member.

“I would say that the board is definitely not going to look to have a special election because of the cost factor and the timeliness of it, so I would leave that one out,” Liguori said. “I think the other two are open for discussion.”

“I agree with Lou [Liguori] that we absolutely don’t want to burden the district with the costs of a special election,” added board member Grace Plourde. “I think it would be helpful to appoint someone if the board goes that way because the more people that we have the more likely we are to have forums, the more representation we’ll have at committee meetings and that sort of thing.”

Gladys Waldron, president of the board, said there has been no discussion among the board about Martella’s departure, and she thinks the board would go the route of appointing another member.


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