BCS Budget Passes Easily; Accusations Of Election Violations Cloud School Board Vote

by Thaddeus Flint
The Budget for the Berlin Central School District passed Tuesday night with election results showing 703 for and 126 against. The Budget for the 2011-2012 school year will be $17,374,000, which is $906,316 less than the 2010-2011 budget. There will be no increase in the tax levy.
Interim District Superintendent Dr. Brian Howard was pleased with the results. “I would really like to thank the voters of the District for coming out and approving this budget,” he said.
Voters also paved the way for changes in how the District will vote in the future for School Board candidates. Previously, and in this election, the Board of Education candidates ran for specific seats. With results showing 470 for and 278 against, Proposition 1 passed, allowing voters to elect candidates “at large.” This means that voters will now vote for as many candidates as there are seats. The candidates with the highest total votes in future elections will be the newly elected School Board members.
For the empty one year term seat, voters chose candidate Rachel Finney from Stephentown over Andrew Zlotnick from Petersburgh 547 to 273.
Finally, in races which were not so much races at all, 602 voters elected Jim Willis over no opposition, and 542 voted for Frank Zwack against no formal opposition as well, although Rebekah Hartman received 110 write-in votes for Zwack’s seat.
Accusations Of Election Law Violations
Accusations of improper candidate petitions by Berlin School Board candidate Andrew Zlotnick, clouded the ballots on Tuesday for the elections of Board of Education members.
The polls had only been open less than an hour before the storm front moved in. In an email to several local television stations and newspapers, including the Eastwick Press, Zlotnick stated that he had been “advised that some sort of election fraud may be occurring in the Berlin School District.” When contacted for comment an hour later by this reporter, Zlotnick said he had met Acting School Board President Bev Stewart at a musical concert the night before the elections. She had told him there that some of the nominating petitions required by all candidates seeking election might not be valid.
By law, candidates for seats on the School Board must submit a petition to the District before the election. This petition must contain the names, addresses and signatures of a certain number of residents of the District. The question seems to be what number this certain amount must be. According to legal notices published by the District in the Eastwick Press, “Each petition shall be directed to the Clerk of the District and shall be signed by at least 25 voters of the District…” The number of 25 is also cited on the District’s website on the Board of Education section in a document labeled “Information for BOE Candidates.”
However, according to Zlotnick’s email, the number of 25 is incorrect. Zlotnick wrote, “State education law states that a candidate must fill out a nominating petition with at least 25 eligible voters or 2% of the last election’s actual voters whichever is higher (ours would be 28.5 voters). My understanding is that three candidates, Rachel Finney, Jim Willis and Frank Zwack, neither had the required number of voters or the proper addresses required to count as eligible voters on their petitions.”
So according to Zlotnick, the correct number of petition signatures was 28.5. Zlotnick himself had solved the problem of finding a half of a voter by getting over 60 names.
A call was then made to Interim District Superintendent Dr. Brian Howard. Was he aware of any problems with the vote so far? He said he was unaware that there were any problems. When the accusations of Zlotnick’s email were explained, Howard felt that these were “technicalities” and hoped that voters would still vote for the candidates of their choice and that in the end “the ballot box will decide.” When asked if it would be possible to come to the school to look at the submitted petitions, Howard stated, “To honestly answer your question, I don’t know.” Howard said he would have to check with the District’s lawyer first. So for the moment anyway the public would not be allowed access to the petitions.
Later, shortly after noon, an email was received from Stewart. This was in response to Zlotnick’s email that morning, and it was also sent to the same news agencies. “ I am preparing a statement,” it read, “but I did want to make a correction. There were 1,344 voters last year so each petition needed 27 valid signatures and 3 of the petitions did not meet this criteria. You will hear more from me shortly.”
The correct number of signatures on the petition now seemed to be 27. Without being able to check the petitions, it was unknown if Zwack, Willis and Finney, or Zlotnick either, had the valid amount.
When asked how one would know to get more than 25 signatures if the legal notice stated only 25, Zlotnick responded “It’s in NYSED law, and I don’t know who put or authorized the statement in the Eastwick Press. I would assume that the Board Clerk is tasked with getting that information out to the public.”
The legal notice also states “any qualified voter may object to the voting of the ballot upon appropriate grounds for making his/her challenge and the reasons therefore known to the inspector of the election before the close of the polls.”
A check with District Clerk Mary Grant at the polling station on Tuesday at around 2 pm found that there had been no objections to the polls so far.
An email was then received from Stewart responding to questions about the petitions. Stewart wrote, “I have to be honest that I was not involved with reviewing the petitions when they were initially handed in or in creating the legal notice. I agree that there is a discrepancy, but each petition should have a minimum of 27 signatures. Most often, candidates tend to get several extra signatures in case any of them are thrown out. That is not to say that they have to but it did not occur this year. It appears to be a series of mistakes/oversights which has led up to this point and seems to have jeopardized the integrity of this election. I have also been told that it is unusual that a district our size would have such a large voter turnout (1,344 last year) that it would increase the minimum number of signatures required from 25 to 2%. I hope to have a chance to type something up shortly which will explain how all of this was discovered and the steps we took to try to correct it.”
Stewart also included a copy of section 2018 of the New York State Education Law which states: “Each petition shall be directed to the clerk of the school district, shall be signed by at least twenty-five qualified voters of the district, or two percent of the voters who voted in the previous annual election of the members of the board of education, whichever is greater…”
So if 1,344 voters did turn out at the previous election the number of 27 signatures would now hold true. Yet it would appear that the number the District required to be collected was 25. According to Zlotnick “whether the District followed the law will have to be hashed out in the next few days to weeks.”
At 10:30 pm Tuesday night the voting results had been tabulated and sent out by Grant. Zlotnick had lost to Finney 273 to 547.
Less than an hour later Zlotnick wrote, “I lost! but I’m not sure that this was a very fair contest. With all the complaints and all the problems with rules seemingly broken at will and poor oversight of the whole process I think that this speaks volumes as to all the other problems that this District faces. And as they say “It’s not over until I hear the Fat lady sing and I don’t hear any singing!”
The next morning Stewart sent out a statement detailing her account of the situation. “Upon my own review of all candidates’ petitions on May 12th, I discovered a few items that raised questions. I immediately brought it to the attention of the Superintendent and the District’s legal counsel in hope that it could be cleared up prior to our election on May 17th. I expressed the urgency of the situation and asked for all the information to be forwarded for a professional legal opinion. I also provided the attorney with as much information as possible so that she could begin the review. It was not until the day before the election that it was confirmed that we had a problem with 3 (Zwack, Finney, Willis) out of the 4 petitions. They simply did not contain the minimum number of signatures required in order to be placed on the ballot. It is clearly an unfortunate set of circumstances which will likely need to be sorted out for weeks to come. Certainly this has exposed flaws in our voting process and measures will need to be put in place to prevent a reoccurrence. I am a firm believer in honesty and transparency which is the reason why it was necessary to bring this issue to light. Given the timing of the event, there was not sufficient notice to make any changes to the ballot.”
Later in the day on Wednesday, the School District itself issued a press release which stated, “The Board of Education of the Berlin Central School District takes full responsibility for the conduct of its elections. This year, the Board followed the same process that has been in place in the past. A notice was posted on the District’s website which stated that “candidates for the Board of Education positions must present petitions with signatures and addresses of at least 25 qualified voters of the school district.” We presume that candidates relied upon that information, and we acknowledge that the full text of N.Y. Education Law § 2018 requires that a nominating petition be signed by at least 25 qualified voters of the District or 2% of the voters who voted in the previous annual election of Board members, as determined by the poll list, whichever is greater. In most years, no more than 25 signatures have been required. Due to an unusual spike in voter turnout at the last annual election, however, there were 1,344 voters on the poll list. The Board acknowledges an error with respect to its notice for candidates this year but respects the will of the voters who have elected the candidates of their choice and overwhelmingly approved the District’s budget. The Board is committed to developing and implementing a new policy and practice to ensure timely review of all nominating petitions, as well as the legal accuracy of information provided to candidates and the public. We thank the voters for their participation in this year’s election.”
A call back to Howard Wednesday afternoon verified that the School District chose the position that the petitions could not be looked at by the public unless a request was received by the District made under the Freedom of Information Law. In regard to the discrepancy of the number of signatures, Howard explained that the intent of the law was followed by everyone acting “in good faith,” and therefore the voters should have every confidence that the vote was valid and legal. He did acknowledge that an objection to the poll had been received before the end of the polling on Tuesday night but would not comment on its details at that time. “Procedures are in place to look into complaints,” he said.