School Committee member to be appointed next month

Date: 8/23/2011

Aug. 22, 2011

By Chris Maza

Reminder Assistant Editor

LONGMEADOW — The process to fill a vacant seat on the School Committee has now been developed and a new member should be appointed by early September.

Candidates will be interviewed at a special meeting of the School Committee and Select Board on Sept. 12.

Select Board chair Mark Gold told Reminder Publications that after the interviews, the two committees will vote for a member by roll call, as required by state law.

“To be appointed to fill the vacancy until the next election, an applicant must receive a majority of votes of those eligible to vote, which in this case is 11 — six school committee, five select board,” Gold explained. “Even if there are only nine people present and voting, an applicant would need six votes.”

Six candidates have come forward for consideration for the one-year appointed seat on the School Committee after Thomas Brunette resigned earlier this year. Brunette had finished one year of the three-year term he was elected to.

Appointments can only be made for one-year terms, meaning that whomever is chosen to fill Brunette’s seat this year must run again for a second one-year term. An election at the 2012 Annual Town Election will decide who will serve on the committee for the final year of Brunette’s term. After the third year of Brunette’s term is completed, an election will take place to determine the winner of a three-year seat.

Gold added that he and School Committee Chair Jennifer Jester have finalized a draft of a document of procedures for the selection process. Among the details that had to be worked out were the order in which candidates are interviewed, the order in which members of the Select Board and School Committee can ask questions and the order of the voting.

Members of both the Select Board and School committee have received copies of the draft procedure and a finalized version will be approved prior to the Sept. 12 meeting.

The town is slightly behind the anticipated timetable in this matter. Jester told Reminder Publications in July that applicants would be interviewed at the July 18 meeting and she hoped a decision would be made by early August. She did, however, stress that it was a tentative schedule, admitting that it is difficult to schedule meetings during the summer.