Good evening everyone. Welcome to the board of education meeting Monday, June 16th. Would you all please rise for the flag salute to the stands nationisible? Okay. Our meeting has been posted in
accordance with chapter 231 RL1975. Mr. Paladino, would you please call the role? Thank you, Madam President. Trustee Gillis here. Trusty Leon here. Trusty Monise here. Trusty Majia. Trusty
Pico here. Trust uh Vice President Darrow here. President Bennett Meanie here. Madam President, we have a quorum. The New Jersey open public meetings law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend meetings of this board except where specifically exempted by law at
which time any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon. In accordance with the provisions of this act, the board of education has caused notice of this meeting to be published by having same advertised in the Bible times. Also, notice of this meeting has been mailed to the members of the board
of education, the burough clerk, all elementary schools, the middle school, the high school, and Hornblower Early Childhood Center, and posted on the district website. Also, this meeting is being televised via the district's YouTube and Facebook pages.
Okay, thank you. And could we have an approval of the minutes from our May 19th meeting, both close session and public session? Motion. I'll second it. All those in favor? I [Music]
Mr. Paladino or can I All favor in favor. All right. And good evening everyone again. Uh tonight we have a new student representative. Her name is Joselyn Sepa. So as we wrap up this school year, we welcome you and uh can't wait to hear
what you have to tell us this evening. Thank you. Sorry for technical difficulties. Good evening everyone. Unfortunately, Candi is unable to be here this evening, so I will be stepping in on her behalf. My name is Jasine Sulova and I am honored to serve as the new student
board representative. First, I would like to offer congratulations to all students who will be recognized for their academic achievements tonight. In old news, on May 21st, the spring concert showcased the incredible talent of BHS's music students. On June 5th,
BHS held its annual senior awards nights where several seniors received their scholarships for their outstanding academic achievements and hard work. The evening was filled with their heartfelt speeches and applause as each recipient took the stage. On Tuesday, June 10th,
the graduating class of 2025 participated in the BHS clapout, walking through the halls of their elementary schools and receiving applause from students, teachers, and staff in celebration of their graduation. This morning, BHS held its annual senior
honors event where outstanding seniors were recognized and presented with their cords, stolids in celebration of their hard work and dedication at Belleville High School. In new news, the middle school graduation will be held on Thursday, June 19th. The
high school graduation will be held on June 20th. I would like to offer special congratulations to all students graduating this year. be proud of your hard work and I wish you the best of luck for all future endeavors. Check out the check out and follow the journalism club on Instagram at
Belleville Buccaneer to access Belleville High School's monthly newsletters with school news information, updates, and events for students, staff, and teachers. If you are looking for a place to do homework or receive extra assistance from the National Honor Society, CASA is here for all students grades 7 through 12. The
location is at 522 Courtland Street in Belleville, Monday through Thursday from 5:00 pm to 8:00 pm. Thank you. Very good. Thank you very much. And uh a warm thank you to Candy Dong for being our rep all year long and giving us the
updates for the high school. If you're listening, we really appreciate it. Okay, with that said, do we have a superintendence report this evening? Yes, Madam President. At this time, I'd like to call upon Mrs. Calhoun if she's here to make a presentation to one of
our students from her school. Okay. So, I'm here to present a certificate to Emerson Datis and Monae Taylor for their achievement in the My Essex County U poster contest. Before I before the certificate is presented to
them, I just wanted to tell the board a little bit about the contest, I took a couple of notes so I don't forget to say everything. So, the county contest, it's run through the clerk's office, and it's organized and um judged by a panel of judges through the clerk's office. Each
year, over a thousand students enter. This year, they didn't give us the exact number, but over a thousand students entered the contest. Um the names are written on the back of the poster. The the judges are not allowed to look at the names or look at which school the students represent. Schools all over the
county enter the contest. And the whole goal of the contest is to teach the students about the rich history of Essex County and to instill pride in in our students for living in Essex County. And one of the noticeable things about our district versus other districts is a lot
of the times the contest is run by the art teachers. So it's a poster where students take the poster home. They draw various um things around Essex County that they take pride in. So, there was a mixture of the courthouse, the airport, um, Penn Station. What else? What else
did we see there? There was, uh, what was it? Cherry Blossoms were represented, the zoo was represented, but there was really a mixture of different things. And so, our students, Miss Gizo, our fourth grade teacher, runs the contest. So, she uses it as
part of her social studies unit. She teaches the students about Essex County and they do a lot of research on their own and then they take the poster home and they have to create the poster themselves. So there's no art teacher involved and as I said over a thousand students enter. There are 20 honorable
mentions overall and there are 15 winners. So less than 4% of students who enter the contest win and Belleville School 10 has two of those students representing the contest here. So we're extremely proud of them. It is a very competitive challenge.
And be uh without further ado, I'm going to call out Monae Taylor, who was an honorable mention for the contest and won a lot of t-shirts for her whole class. Good job, Monae. We're extremely proud of you. So, she was one of 20 and over 2,000.
And finally, we have Emerson Datis, who is one of the 15 winners of the contest. Great job. And I cannot stress enough the amount of time that these students take on their own with their families and they have to come up with what they'd like to
represent. And then Emerson at um the county clerk's office in the criminal justice building, she had to explain her poster to all of the winners and she did a wonderful job and we're extremely proud of you. Good job, guys.
[Applause] I wish I congratulations. uh the calendar that they're speaking about I believe will be out in September from my knowledge and then at that time we'll be able to distribute that to the schools. Each school will receive one and uh
congratulations again. Final thing tonight was just to be recognized. I'd like to recognize and congratulate the students of the month for May those for their recognition and and behavior and all their academic achievements. And that's it. Madam President, thank you very much. A report
from Mr. Paladino. Uh, no report this evening. Just congratulations to all the students graduating high school and moving up from 8th grade to 9th grade. And to Mr. Sepita, welcome to the board. Great. Thank you very much. And report from Mr.
Egan, state monitor. Very brief. Uh, and good evening to all. Uh, uh, it's it's the end of the month. It's the end of the year. uh as I do every month, I've certified that we have a uh
enough funds uh that there's no deficit and we're in good financial uh shape. That's all. Thank you. Okay. Thank you very much. All right. So, moving on to our agenda, we're going to start
Oh, I'm sorry. Yes. Opening um remarks by citizens public participation. Oh, yeah. One second. So, we have a motion to open. Second. Second it. All those in favor. Okay. And to start, we'd like to call
Vincent France Anton to the podium. This is agenda items only. Yes. With three minutes. Good evening board members and administrators. Hello Mr. Parapado.
Uh I'm new these meetings. I just started attending meetings in 1980. So forgive me if I speak wrong. Right. Uh the um our budget when Dr. Tomco took over was
uh 68 million and now it's over 130 almost double. I'm looking at some of the stuff on the agenda. I want to bring your attention to 6.1 open public records request. This is
um I don't know phony, but it's a madeup thing to suck our taxpayers dollars out of our pockets for no good reason. And it came to my attention one time when
there was something on the agenda and I asked for an answer, a very simple answer and I got no answer and they I was told I had to Oprah it. Simple answer. I opened it and it was a one-s sentence
response and then I saw the list. It was $275 legal fees to answer my simple question. And then I start looking at these thousands and thousands of dollars. And this was a simple question. Again,
as a former elected official, I would answer the public. This item was a simple one sentence answered. They and I brought up to the board's attention. You're going to vote on this a little while. So, you must know what
you're going to vote on. So, why aren't you answering me? Why are you making me go through the OPRA and costing the taxpayers money? And as I looked at some of these Oprah expenses, thousands of dollars, I don't know how you trustees and administrators aren't embarrassed on
what you're doing to the taxpayers of our once great town. And the other thing is these requests uh like I say are so simple and you get
people get convoluted and answer and it goes back and forth. So some of your trustees must muster the courage to fight these things. Stop it. a citizen ask a question here and especially like
I said something on the agenda that you're going to vote on and if you can't answer that means you shouldn't vote on it. There's another thing on here which I brought up years ago and I was a little timid on bringing it up but I brought it
up anyway because it was very important and parents have been calling me at the time objecting to it and all. Um, when I got done speaking, I got a standing ovation. These um
decision on harassment, intimidation, and bullying cases. We got We spent all this time on there and we don't know. Our test scores are down the drain. It's an embarrassment. Bevel's test scores and we're wasting time. That time should
be spent on math, reading, history, and real education. Thank you, Mr. Grant Anton. Next, Mr. Michael Mone. Good evening. Mike Mone, 387 Union Avenue. Uh, first I'd like to um uh
congratulate uh the reappoint of um Mr. Paladino. I think that's just uh it's been great working with him. I think he's a great uh addition to our district for such a long time and I'm glad that we made that decision. So congratulations, Mr. Palino. Second, I'd
like to quickly uh speak about um what Mr. Franon was talking about and I think it all comes down to the whole transparency thing. So, I was up here last board meeting talking about the new superintendent selection. It has nothing to do with the new superintendent. I I
don't know the man. I've never met the man. Probably the greatest guy ever. Could be the greatest superintendent to ever live. But that doesn't take away from the fact of when you're not transparent with the community, you leave yourself open for for criticism.
And it always seems like you're doing something backhanded. Okay. So when you're transparent, the best thing that could have happened was that you allowed the stakeholders to be in on those interviews because then you could have always said you can we were transparent.
Stakeholders were there. I think the misconception is that the board believes that if they allow anyone to participate in these in these viewings or in any decision that you make that you think that we expect to make the decision. No, we know that we're not making the
decision. We know the decision is all up to you. But as we teach our kids, right, we tell we we we we spend countless hours telling our kids about factchecking, making sure that you get the right information before you make a decision. Make sure you get all the information you need before you make
decision. And then we pound our teachers with data, data, data, data, data, data. Right? We're big data people. All right? But yet you're making decisions like for instance, you have a dress code policy that you you're revising. We never we never the teachers the ones that are in
the classroom don't know anything about this. We have no idea about this. Who would be better for you to ask their advice? Just advice, not we might not take our advice, but ask us about what we think about the dress code and where
the dress code policies are going wrong and how we might be able to improve them. And we're still not doing those things, which means we're still not acting as one cohesive group. We're acting as all separation. So we have, you know, board of ed, administration,
teachers, maintenance, we have everybody all over the place and we're not getting together as a group because for whatever reason, we're just not taking all the information that we can get before we're making a decision. So now you guys are making a decision on dress code policy. You're having a first reading it looks
like and yet you're going to get this. the ones who are going to have to carry this dress code out weren't even part of the discussion. And I know that this is hard for you maybe to grasp upon, but the best the the best way to get the
teachers advice on things is to come to the teachers leadership. Why? Not because we're smarter, and I'm ending right right away. Not because we're smarter, not because we know more. because we field all the complaints and then we decipher them and then we know
exactly what the membership wants. So again, like I said, I think that's my advice is let's just be one big group, one big cohesive unit and you know, start getting everybody on board when you're making these decisions. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Minion. Mr. Michael
Sheldon. Uh, good evening everyone. Michael Sheldon, 47 Floyd Street. Uh, I have a bunch of specific questions regarding the agenda, so let me get these out so hopefully they can be answered. Firstly, 9.28, you're approving a finalized contract for our new superintendent.
Now, you guys approved this contract last month. I opened the duly signed copy, which I received on May 28th. Could you please tell me what has changed specifically since that time? and will I have to file yet another OPER request to get this final final version
of it? Uh, agenda item 12.45. Could you please explain to me and to the rest of the community why you're spending $42,000 on garbage bags and rags? That seems very exorbitant. Uh 12.62.
You're about to spend almost $1 million for uh with MRA International for Chromebooks, but you don't indicate in the agenda how many Chromebooks and what model or models are involved. Could you please provide that detail? 12.43. Another MRI international
purchase for $165,600 for teacher laptops. Once again, no no indication of how many and what models. Could you please give us that information for transparency sake? 12.36, another MRA international pro uh
uh purchase for $217,000. Here you do indicate it's for 60 uh Omen desktop PCs. Now Omen desktop PCs are manufactured by HP and they're uh uh primarily gaming PCs. So I want to know
why why you're buying gaming PCs for educational purposes. 12 point that's 12.36. Next 12.32 MindsEye Technology, a company that's been on board here in Belleville for quite some time. But uh you're you're buying a number of
licenses, but one in particular seemed very odd and unusual for $182,731. It says one-year camera license. How how many licenses are involved? And why do you need to spend almost $200,000 for
licenses? What is the nature of those licenses? And how many cameras are involved? Um and then 12.25 uh you are entering into a partnership with a rel fundamentally a religious organization new chapter faith-based
recovery LLC. And in the agenda item it says you're allowing $600 per week per student to be spent during this next academic year. Now with just 10 students of 30 weeks that would be $180,000. There's no upper threshold listed for this item. But what also is particularly
interesting is in the agenda description, it says that the secular nature of the program receiving public funding uh will be uh preserved and that any violation of this provision shall be deemed a breach of the agreement and will result in immediate termination. My
question is this this group is fundamentally a religious organization. So, how do you intend to make sure that it it it it obeys the secular requirements that the state imposes on it? What is the monitoring process to
make sure that this doesn't become a proitizing entity uh you designed to recruit students to a particular religious persuasion? So, those are my questions. Um, I would like to stand here for a moment to make sure I get answers, but you probably won't allow me
to do so. I would very much appreciate if I could get answers to these questions. Thank you, Mr. Sheldon. Yes, we can ask our BA about the computers. We did talk about those in committee. So, if you want to explain that, Miss Sheldon, can you just repeat the resolution numbers for me real quick? I
apologize. Well, first first was 12.45. That was the $42,000 for garbage bags and rags. So, that one is for the whole year. That's every single school, every single classroom. Um, normally what we'll do is
buy in advance, store them, and we'll use them throughout the whole year. That order, uh, according to Mr. Teta and Mr. Wedling, will last us all the entire school year next year. Is that typically what is spent year in year out by the district? Well, that's this is actually a little bit cheaper because we're using
a different vendor, right? Um, that can get the same quality that we've always gotten at less of a cost. All right. Maybe you should uh look into Costco or I would I would love to, but unfortunately you can't. Um 12.62. This was the near $999,74982
for Chromebooks, but the agenda item doesn't indicate how many uh Chromebooks are being purchased and what brands. Are you sure it's 62 126 12? I think it's 12 unless you This was what is was posted on board docs. 12.62 I think. Let me just check.
Yep. Yeah. 12.6.62 International. Yep. 9999,000. All right. Go ahead. While I refresh this, what else? What else do you have? I would like to know, you know, for that item, how many Chromebooks and and what brand or brands are being purchased?
12.43. Um, MRA International again, $165,600 for teacher laptops, but you don't indicate how many units are being purchased in what model or models. All right. So, wait, hold on. That was Okay,
I got it. 12.43. All right. So, 62. Yeah. 12.62. 62 is for,800 1,814 uh laptops. Those are for our students. Okay. They are uh the HP X360 Fortis G5
11.6 in touchscreen convertible 2in1 Chromebooks. Um do you know what that is per I don't have 42813 per unit. How much? 428.13 per unit and then um
Mr. Parapado gets the console that that goes with it and then there's the warranty. So all told it's450 461 you're about 521 per Chromebook and those are again are all the student laptops. You do do realize that you can
buy retailed Chromebooks for Mr. Sheldon. We're just going to let Mr. I I know I I can understand that you want the answers Mr. Palino is going to answer here. Just if you could wait Mr. Palino were there other Yes. 12.43 12.43 right the uh so 12.43 43 is for
150 uh teacher laptops. They're the HP Probook 460 G11 16inch no notebooks and then uh you got that plus the warranty that goes with the laptop. What's the cost per unit? Uh so, about $1,100 per
unit. Okay. Uh these are coming out of title money. All right. 12.36. 12.36. This is the next one. MRA International once again $217,000. So, those are for the two STEM labs up down the hall, right? Those are
replacement of the um the desktops that are in there because they're out there. Actually, it's upstairs and it's down by the IT office, right? Those are replacements since the ones that are there are just about outdated. Um so, they're not like gaming desktops when we're talking about gaming. It's what
the kids in those classes are required to have. Um so, there's about 60 units. It's 30 and 30 in each classroom. All right. So, you're you're about 3500 $3,600 per unit. And those, I think, are coming out of title money, too, if I remember right. All right. And then, uh,
1232, the mind's eye technology licenses. You have have uh, the very first item in the table, it says one-year camera license, $182,731. What What is the nature of that license? What does that license allow? And how
many c is it one camera? No, it's all the cameras throughout the whole entire district. And why do you need licenses for the It comes along with the camera to be able to use them every You have to renew the license every year. The licenses, you don't own the cameras.
You don't No, they're not ours. Every every so often you have to you have to replace the cameras. They only have a a five to 10 year lifespan. All right. Unfortunately. And then 12 to five. And then the last
uh question I had is what is the um uh protocol in place to make sure that this new partnership with new chapter faith-based recovery LLC that they do obey the state law and u you know run as a a secular entity and not a a religious
one. How do you how do you enforce the uh I'll leave I'll leave that up to Mr. Mr. Bush. Yeah. I mean, without speaking to this specific arrangement because I'm not particularly familiar with the specific arrangement, but there's plenty of times um when public schools are
either uh intentionally or forced into agreements with organizations. For example, there are plenty of religious schools that are no longer in business. They have these large schools that districts have to use for additional kids. Um there are you know all kinds of
uh you know religious um uh artifacts and you know uh crosses for example in the case of the Catholic Church in certain buildings I've worked in with with my districts I represent and there's various arrangements in the contracting agreement to ensure a secular education. Uh sometimes we're
able to you know block things off. Sometimes we're able to uh ensure that the um you know the that the the the you know the the the facility that's being used doesn't in any way uh you know proitize. I mean there's all kinds of stuff we do but as you know and your
question begs begs the very question how do you do it? It depends on the situation. It depends on the circumstances. I have no doubt that this particular circumstance is one that would deliver the same education as if it were held in this building. It just was a slippery slope here. It it always is a slippery slope, but but we but we're very careful. Public schools
cannot do exactly what you're describing for the reasons you're describing. So, absolutely. Thank you for that. But is there is there an upper limit for how much money is going to be appropriated to this organization during the next academic year. The only thing you will indicate is $600 per week per student, but it doesn't indicate any maximum
threshold. So, you have some some control, some constraint. I think this year we've only hit a maximum of $5,000 and that's about where we'll probably keep it unless this group is has been Yeah. has been working all right. Yeah. I didn't know I didn't realize that. I did. I thought they were brand new. It's
okay. 5,000 for this year. Okay. And the and the superintendent's uh new contract or finalized contract. Is that something that I'm going to have to Oprah to to get the final final version beyond what I was given on May? You know, every
district does it differently, but in this district, in addition to the approval, they're all of the of the superintendent, they're also approving the contract as a separate item, which is what they're doing tonight. And so, this is the exact, as I understand it from my client, right? That this is
exactly the same contract that was approved for uh Dr. Alfonso at the last board meeting. Okay? So I don't I I you know again I you you're certainly free to to make another open request but to save you the time the representation that I have from the superintendent the
school the the interim superintendent and the board president is that this is the exact same agreement that was uh proposed that represented the approval of the superintendent the last the oper request that last month after the board voted to approve him I asked for the duly signed thing apparently according
to the oper uh expense part of the agenda u this asked for the copy of his contract Um, it cost apparently $650 for a for the 30-page document. So, I didn't want to I I can't, you know, I can't speak to the specificity of why that was
was the case. Sometimes things seem simple. They're not. I I don't know the answer to why that's the case. I mean, that wasn't me handling it somebody else in my office. The Xerox thing we expected on Well, it's not it's not Yeah, it's not it's it's not it's not about the Xerox. It's typically about the questions. you know, when an agreement is is approved, um when
there's I should say when when a when a when a staff member is approved by the board, um the the action is taken, but it's not necessarily taken as to the contract, which is separate. And so, Mr. Sheldon, you know, when you make these over requests, great pains are taken to
ensure obviously that the district follows the law exactly. And and so there's probably the question that's the difference between approval, the very question you're asking, the difference between the approval of the person and the approval of the contract. Is there a difference? And if a person is approved, does that also mean that the contract is
public? And there was probably some discussion back and forth, but I'm not going to get any more into it because it's privilege number one. And number two, I wasn't privy to the exact conversations that were held. But that's why there would be costs, for example, as opposed to just the fact that a question was asked as Mr. Franon previously referenced. Sometimes things cost money because the law, you know,
there's a reason why we have work because people like you raise issues and we have to figure out the answers. Real simple solution to this would just to be a post post the contract on the website as did happen for the first several years of Dr. Tomco's tenure and then it just stopped his his last contract or two never made it to the website. So you
know maybe the board can I don't think so under new business will take that under advisement. Thank you. Well, not really. Yeah. Is it supposed to be put on? Not required anymore to have you put it on.
It is. Okay. Let's move on to um resolutions. Personnel suggested by interim superintendent Nick Parapado and state monitor Tom Egan. Um items of personnel 9.1 to 9.46. However, we are
tableabling resolution 9.39 and 9.45. So, the motion is for 9.1 to 9.46, but tableabling 9.39 to 9.45. No. And 9.45. And 9.45. Motion. Is there a
second? Second. Is there any discussion? All right. Hearing none, Mr. Paladino, please call the role. Trusty Gillis. Yes. Trusty Leon, yes to all except 925. Uh, Trusty Monise. Uh, yes. Uh, Trusty Pacheo,
yes. Vice President Darrow, yes. President Benamini, yes. All right. And resolutions for curriculum and instruction. Oh, I got it. Yeah, you got Okay. 10.1.
Is there a motion? Motion and is there a second? Second. Is there any discussion hearing? None. Mr. Paladino. Trusty Gillis. Yes. Trusty Leon. Yes. Trustee Monise. Yes. Trusty Pacheo. Yes. Vice
President Darrow. Yes. President Benamini. Yes. All right. And moving on to board action and board policy resolutions 11.1 to 11.13. Is there a motion? Motion. Is there a second?
Second. Is there any discussion hearing? None. Mr. Paladino. Trusty Gillis. Yes. Trusty Leon. Yes. Trustee Monise. Yes. Trusty Pacheo. Yes. Vice President Darrow. Yes. President Benamini. Yes. And resolutions for
purchasing and business services items 12.1 to items 12.79. Is there a motion? Motion. Is there a second? Second. Anyone have any discussion? Hearing none.
Mr. Paladino. Trusty Gillis. Yes. Trusty Leon. Yes. Trusty Monise. Yes. Trusty Pico. Yes. Vice President Daro. Yes. President Benamini. Yes. And 13.
Finance items 13.1 to 13.15. Is there a motion? Motion second. Second. Any discussion? Hearing none. Mr. Paladino. Trusty Gillis. Yes. Trusty Leon. Yes. Trusty
Monise. Yes. Trusty Pacheo. Yes. Vice President Darrow. Yes. President Benamini. Yes. Okay. And moving on to comments by the public. Is there a motion to open comments? Motion. Second. Second. All those in favor?
Favor. All right. So, we have session two, comments by the public on anything for five minutes. And our first person is Tina Newton Garcia. Would you like to come to the podium?
So, good evening members of the board. My name is Tina Garcia Newton. I am a Belleville resident and the parent of two little children in the Hornblower School District. Um, I'm also a school administrator in Jersey City. So, I come into this space with a clear understanding of what strong
communication looks like, family engagement, and program accountability. Um, I hold a high bar, not just because of my profession, but because I know what kind of experience I want for my children and the families that, you know, attend Belleville. Um, I had to write everything down because my brain
is fried. It's the end of the year. Um, so to be honest, I'm not sure if this is the exact breaks to bring these concerns, but I have reached out and I just haven't heard a response. So, I figured I'm just going to come to the board meeting. Before I go into my issues, I do want to take a moment to acknowledge um some of the great work
that is happening. My children attend Hornblower Early Childhood Center, and I just want to shout out their two phenomenal teachers, Miss Briana Kovak, and teacher of the year Madison Bgara. They have made my experience as a parent to a five and a four-year-old amazing.
Um, also to recognize nurse Briana Tropiano, consistent communication. Um, and I don't know if I'm saying her name correctly, Yanellis Cabro. She's the supervisor of early education and also Mr. Michael Vgares. So, I do believe in giving recognition where it's deserved.
Um, now to some of my concerns. One of it is uh communication and this is really big. maybe seem like little but um it kind of bothered me a bit. So on February 7th, I did email Miss uh Janaise Cabaro requesting a letter uh
just saying that my student lives in this residence so that I can give her tax purposes and she answered and she said that uh the school principal of HCC will she forwarded to her and she would have responded to me. It is now June 17th. I have not received an email
response. I also emailed the principal on May 14th um again to request the board president's contact information and that message also went unanswered. Um after no re receiving no response, I did follow up with Mr. Vargaris, Mr.
Vargas who did respond promptly and provided me with the contact info for the board president. Um I did email the board president on May 16th to express my concerns. Um, it wasn't necessarily that I needed a response because it wasn't a question, but there was no acknowledgement and that kind of made me
feel a little down. Um, as an educator, I pride myself in making sure that we're in communication. Even if I don't have the answers, I like to let the parents know that they're being heard and um, so I'm just a big on that. Um, I'm not here to be combative. I know exactly how hard it is to be an educator, to work on the
board, to sit in the board meetings, and I appreciate all of the work that you guys are doing. Um, but now just to my the real concerns of why I'm here. It's regarding the Apollo before and after school program. I've already spoken to Apollo and their
response to me was um this is how their program runs. So, I'm bringing it here because it isn't working for families like mine. Since the district switched from Champions to Apollo, the program has become less flexible. With Champions, we have the option to pay weekly, which worked well for families
with changing schedules. Now we're required to pay the full monthly fee upfront even if we don't end up using the program for the entire month. So my h my husband is a union worker. So sometimes I have to pay for the month before I only really need the program for two weeks. Um but we still have to
pay the whole four. Another concern is that Apollo does not allow any grace peri period for pickup. Uh pickup begins at 3 at Hornblower. Latest is 3:15. I get there around 3:25. I am coming from Jersey City. I if my mom is unable to
pick up the kids, I have to register that. I have to drop them off at Apollo. I spent $92 for 10 minutes for my kids and that's outrageous to me just because there was no grace period. Now, I understand we're all ready to go home because I'm
out of the school building at 250 unless it's my late day. So, I get it. Um but I just don't think that that's feasible or reasonable. But they do offer you a $10 discount if you do it the day before. But what is that really doing? Nothing. Um Apollo's website says that the students
receive snacks. There's enrichment, physical activity, and homework time. My kids don't get homework. Um but with Champions, I used to receive folders with my oldest son, like work that he would do while he was in Champions. They did a lot of celebrations. I don't see any of that in the Apollo program. Um,
one day I did pay to pick up uh, you know, for the program and I came at 4:15 to pick up my kids. They did not give they didn't have time to give snacks. I was told they gave my child a lollipop. Both of them. It's 4:15. They ate breakfast lunch at 11:45. So, they went
all that time without a snack. Though, it does say that lunch or snack time is between 3:15 and 3:45. Um, another time I picked them up, they gave me a little paper plate with pretzels and a half a banana. It wasn't covered. it was openly exposed and I
just I feel like if we're paying for it um that we should get something that we paid for. Um I know that you I have to go but I just want to say one more thing. Morning uh morning drop off is also inconsistent. It says that they'll be open at 7 the past few weeks. I've waited till 7:10 to be able to allow to
drop off my kids which now makes me late to work. And if they want us to follow their program, I think we should follow they should have the same guidelines. Um, so I just wanted to bring this to your attention if we can look into either bringing champions back or some other contract with someone else or a better contract with Apollo. That's it.
Thank you. You want to say it? You want me to? Um, thank you, Miss Newton Garcia. I just want to address I was just talking to the board just for a sec. You know, it's okay. You don't have to come back. Yeah. Um, I I know that uh you you suggested that you had sent an email to
the board president. I did. Okay? Because she she's just looking through because she didn't remember receiving it and she's looking through. So maybe it got sent to a junk filter. Maybe something. But typically speaking, the protocol for and and I'm by the way, not just speaking to you. I'm speaking to to the board members. And I think you all know this. We've talked about this at
various points, but if you ever get an email from a constituent, especially when it relates to something involving matters in the schools, which is typically how those things come in, just forward those immediately to the superintendent. I know that's what the board president does. We've talked about it before when emails have come in and
she's called me and asked me like what do you what do we do here? Um because it's a fine line, you know, as a school educator, you know, the fine line between board members responsibilities and you as an educator and an administrator what you're supposed to do to handle board members have some limitations. Uh as Mr. Sheldon remembers from when he was on the board. So what
we have to do here is just if you can um send another email uh this one just directly to the superintendent uh and he can follow up on some of those concerns. Obviously, we heard what you had to say tonight, but u obviously this it's important that it gets to the right place and so that there can be at least some followup. I don't know, Mr. Perpot
if you had anything else to add to that. But again, it's first time I'm hearing of this what's taking place and uh if you do send that, I guarantee we will look into it and take every one of those facts to make sure that they don't occur. Thank you.
And I also want to Well, thank you. There's also Mr. Barrera, Miss Datis are here, former board members as well. So I didn't want to make them feel left out. Sorry. Do you do you have uh the email? Can we make sure she has the email before she leaves? I think yes.
[Music] Yes. Thank you for your comments. Yes. And we'll Mr. Parapot will definitely look into it right away. Thank you. Uh let's call our next uh Vincent France Anton. Please come to the podium.
Wow. I thank you for giving me the opportunity to praise you tonight. You answered Mr. Shelton's questions. The information he wanted you gave to him. Took about seven or eight minutes. Look at all the opas you didn't have to do
and all the time. So, you probably saved the taxpayers hundreds, maybe thousands of dollars. Thank you. Keep it up. That's the way we should run these meetings. Now, I understand there's a traffic guard was hit by school number
three, Jerome and Union. This intersection has been known to be dangerous for dozens of years. six years ago in the township master plan re-examination report. It was in that
report that it's a dangerous intersection and something should be done about it. Uh I brought up a couple of times at town meetings. Everything is over their head. I called the county. They said they looked into it and they're going to be doing something. But
the years go by and and this went back 12 years to the first re-examination report and all that. So we had a problem on Union and Home Street. That was a dangerous intersection by school number eight. Uh
many many accidents. My wife asked the chief and he got in in four years. I think it was 45 accidents. She keptounding the council. The council told they called the county. The county said they can't do nothing about it.
After four years, my wife called Joe Devenenzo, the county executive, and he says, "Phyllis, nobody ever told me about it. Three days later, he called her up. The county engineer met with my
wife at at the intersection of Union and Home Street, and within two months, we got a light put up at no cost to the township. you board members and Mr. Parapado and the admin, you've got to
hound the county. That intersection has to be there's plans that were proposed there. Make left turn lanes, stop the track. It's crazy down there and it it's it's also compacted by all the parents that can't walk or two block to pick up
their kids and all the cars there. So, it's a dangerous, you know, fortunately I understand the guard's going to be okay. Are we waiting for a death? Please, please pound the county. You are
powerful. It's a county road. Get it done. My wife got it done in two or three months after five years of the township council uh telling her it couldn't be done. Um the other thing is we got there's a
paper yesterday's paper about New Jersey tax to the max and it's we're the sixth highest tax state in the union and if you go through it it's outrageous municipal cost outrageous school cost
and the school course produces bad results. So that hurts even more. So I urge you to do something on Jerman Union. The guard's going to be okay. I
understand. We don't want a death and say something should be done. So I'm bringing to the attention publicly like I brought to the council many times. Hopefully you folks will push push push and get it done. Union and our janitor
was from school 8 was killed at Union and Homes. So before we have a death, get something done on that intersection. Thank you. And tax to the max. One of the ways you could say we are overloaded
with administrators in the school system. There's a place where you could cut dramatically. We don't need all these $200,000 salaries. We need teachers and we need them to have the ability to teach instead of all these
extraneous programs that are not, you know, bullying. Yeah. Kid, you know, we were raised by teachers. You know, Johnny pushed Joe and the teachers, hey, you guys shake hands and make up. That was the end of the story. There was no bullying. Now we got all this money
spent and all these programs and all these administrators are doing. Let's wake up and some common sense. got go back to Belleville, not only Belleville, America because we're going down the tubes. Thank you. But take action on Union and Geral.
Thank you. And yes, we just discussed this with Mr. Parapot who's going to reach out to the township for more information about the crossing guard. Um, I I do want to make a comment about roadway safety because I'm very involved with the township and as you know my
kids attended school three and I remember back when Sue Citerella was the crossing guard there and it hasn't changed a bit like you said. Um, there is a whole vision zero plan. The state is very well aware of what's
happening now with traffic safety. I'm sure Mr. Bush as a a mayor understands very well the county received the SS4A grant which is a roadway safety study plan grant and they put the
um survey out to all the communities in Essex County. Belleville had the lowest responses. So, it was very disheartening to me to know that even putting it on the website and the outreach to get people to fill out a survey about
roadways, especially county roadways, especially when Essex County is trying to do a safety study so that they could actually put together a roadway safety plan. Now, I will say this so that everyone can watch out for it. Belleville also received the SS4A grant.
only four townships in the county wrote for the grant to put together their own community survey, which I'm a huge proponent of having my own studies done in my own community and not relying on the county. So, that's going to come
forward and we'll make sure that we get that message out. Um, the survey is as simple as, you know, do you walk? Do you bike? What is a a poor intersection? Why is it a poor intersection? Are there lights? Are there not? It It's not very
difficult to fill out. And then it even has a map where you can drop a push pin to actually show what intersections are bad and you can fill it out as many times as you want to. So, I appreciate that you brought that up because it is a problem and I'm a huge proponent of the
walk to school program, school safety, roadway safety, and pedestrian and walkability. Um, so with that said, next, Michael Minion, please come to the podium. I guess it's my lucky day. I get to
follow Mr. Fran Tony twice. Um, all right. So, um, I I I also, um, emailed the board president on May 22nd about same issues I spoke about the board meeting prior. So, if you could please
check to see if that you did receive those emails also because I didn't get a response. But I'll I'll refresh, you know, the the public here. We have one particular administrator in this in this um high school administrator um who we
have two level three grievances for abusive, you know, um actions against our members. Um, we also have an affirmative action against this this uh administrator and we have no report back on whether there was um an affirmative
action uh investigation and if that investigation included and if so was the person who filed the affirmative action reported of um informed of the report on that investigation. Um we also have another affirmative action out in a
lawsuit from another member. Um again same questions I just asked the same three questions. Was there was there an investigation? Is it if so was the investigation concluded? If so was the person who filed those actions uh given the results of that those
investigations. I didn't hear anything back from from the board on on those issues. So I would appreciate it. You know even if you don't really want to answer it that's fine. you know, you can always send a response back that says, you know, we don't really choose to answer these questions at this time. At least we know that, you know, we know
that you got the email and that you're, you know, giving us a response to it, a response. Secondly, I just like to conclude by saying that the BEA leadership, we sent out our own letter to the commissioner of education, uh, stating that we completely disagree with
our board of education on, um, being free of a of a state monitor. again our we gave our reasons. One of our biggest reasons were that you know we we still have the same players. We have the same players in this district. We have some of the same players in in our in our
school district that are working in our school district that are just waiting for patiently for the moment to resurface. Um and we're going to have a brand new superintendent again could be the greatest superintendent of of all but we don't know right. So we don't
know until you have that experience. Um, so with that, I think that's the biggest mistake and an irresponsible decision for us to say this is the time that we want to free ourel from from a state monitor. I think we should wait, see how
Mr. Alfonso does, you know, you know what his leadership looks like and then maybe after a couple of years. I think the best time to have done that would have been five years or four years into Dr. Tomco's uh tenure, but we missed that vote now because he's not here
anymore. But that was our our our letter to the commissioner. We haven't gotten a response yet or anything, but at least we we want the public to know what our point of view is. I understand the expense of state monitor, but if you if you if you remember back from 2013, that
expense far exceeds the expense that we spent for the past, you know, 10 years with a state monitor. just what a li one year one year of corruption, misuse of money. And I'm not saying any of you are. I'm just I'm not saying that at all. I'm just saying if you got to think
about that one year of misuse, misappropriation of money is more costly than any than 10 years of of a state monitor. So on that note, I just like to say thank you again. Great for great end of the year. appreciate. I hope that we could keep our communication
um going um and that we could uh keep the transparency going and again, you know, start working together as a group. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mole. Uh Gabby. Yep. Um Mr. Mongol, would you would you be willing to share that uh letter that you
sent to the monitor with the board so we could see some of your opinions on that? Would you be willing to share the letter that you said you wrote on behalf of the BEA uh with the board so we could um better understand your opinion of it?
Appreciate it. Thank you. I did forward your email to the board attorney, but you have been emailing me quite a lot and he has already told me just just forward them because he's already told me that he's spoken to you about these issues. So, No. So, so just
to be clear, my firm is is conflicted as to the investigations that are being referred and there are other attorneys handling them and they're in process, you know, and I I know Mr. Muno, you acknowledge that sometimes we can't specifically answer questions, but the acknowledgement is what you're looking
for. So, I'm going to just give you the acknowledgement that we hear you. Um, that the email was forwarded. Uh, that I have followed up with the state monitor. um as to the other attorneys that were assigned to to this and here's your acknowledgement that the
email was received by the board president forwarded to me and uh I forward it to state monitor. Okay. But you guys you can't reveal whether you had an investigation. I I'm I'm going to reveal I'm going to reveal that we received your email and that the board is taking proper precautions. But again, my firm's not investigating, so I don't
have the details anyway. Okay. Thank you. Michael Sheldon. Uh good evening again everyone. Uh since uh uh with agenda section 11 item 11.8 which was the first reading of some
uh policy changes or revisions. Uh could you uh do all of us a favor and uh actually make those revised uh policies public? Uh right now they're not uh uh visible on board docs, but since you've approved the first reading, could you
make them available as soon as possible either just attach them to board docs as is odds are you'll probably cancel the July meeting? We won't see each other until August. And I think you uh really should make these there are two documents in
particular, two policies that I think are going to have widespread interest. That's the dress code obviously and also um the long awaited changes for public participation in meetings. So if you could do anything to expedite the uh those revised policies uh as soon as
possible, I think it would be greatly appreciated by all. Um in regard to um the OPRA cost and uh hours section of the uh meeting agendas, um from the moment that Dr. Tomco started doing this three or so years ago, I was a fierce
public critic of of this. And I argued that the real intention of it was to intimidate and dissuade people like me from uh asking too many questions and trying to hold the board accountable. Um not surprisingly, the moment that Dr. Tomco arrived in Garfield. He added that
same section to the Garfield meeting agendas. But as you probably know, uh Garfield has been battling mightily with Dr. Tomco. They moved their November elections to April and they succeeded in seating three new board members to
oppose Dr. Tomco. They now have a board majority. And if you take a look at the uh Garfield agenda, for the first time since Dr. Tomco's arrival, there's no longer an Oprah section. that board majority has removed that section. So, I'm asking you collectively to follow
suit. If you if you really you know what the real intention of that section is, remove it. It serves no purpose. And it would it would actually, I think, benefit all of you to acknowledge what the real intention is of that thing, that section, and finally 86 it for once
and for all. Uh I had sent email last week uh uh to uh the board to to uh Mr. Parapata, Mr. Paladino uh and a couple board members asking about uh if the uh POE
administration maintains any collection of of high school yearbooks. Our library has digitized and archived uh many of the yearbooks starting from 1932, but there are several years missing. you
know, 1963, 64, 1970, 73, 76, 89, 97, 2006, 2007, and it looks like starting in 2015 to the present time, the library has just stopped doing this digitization of our yearbooks. But I I would like to know, and again, I mean, I I I was
hoping for a simple yes or no. Does the BOE office somewhere in some dusty banker boxes have a collection of of yearbooks? I hope I don't have to file an open request to get a yes either a yes or a no but you know could you please we do have them up in the office
you do have them we have the entire list of library may not all right because I you know coming here I don't know the library what they have you want to list those years I would kindly have somebody look through and see we have duplicates that we could share with the library all right well I'm I'm kind of spearheading
this I know that uh going back about 10 years ago the li the former library director told me that they had to pause their digitization effort because their sc this is not just a regular scanner. They have a a special scanner that can do newsprint and whatever. The scanner
stopped working and I guess there was no money available to fix it. But just just get the years the years but we do have up in the school office. I checked when their email came through. Okay. I'm surprised that you didn't receive an email back but sorry for that. But
again, we do have them. Okay. All right. That's good to know. I'm going to try to, you know, get the board and the library to work together to try to fill in those missing years. It's really interesting, by the way. People should take a look at the the old yearbooks. I I just happened to take I started looking at 1945, you know, towards the
end of World War II. And when I flipped started to flip through the pages, the very first person I came across was Lonnie Bunch. Dr. Bunch, who's the director of the Smithsonian, one of Bel's most accomplished residents. And it's just really incredible to look at that
history of of Belleville. I encourage everyone to do so. Uh I I I earlier this year I had brought up the fact that our board has seven members while most of our sister communities have nine. Netley's nine. Um Bloomfield's nine,
Saucus is nine, Garfield is nine. And um you know I started to look through the title 18. It looks like by default the starting value is supposed to be nine, not seven. And the way you change that is through referendum. But I think it would it would serve again our
community's best interest if we had nine members. That way every year you would be have you would have three seats up for grabs and it would be an even change instead of this 322 situation. So uh I would I Gabby had indicated to me that
Mr. Mun had expressed similar interest and was looking into it. Uh one of Jonathan's partners was here early in the year and she said she was going to look into the matter. I don't know if she she found anything, but it just uh I think would be in our community's interest to have a nine member board.
Let me just I know my time is almost up. Um Gabby, you mentioned a few moments ago that uh uh about road safety. Could th those links to whatever surveys, could you uh possibly make those available through the board website or ask the town hall since you are in on
both sides of the fence? Yes, I know the town hall did put a link up. you'd probably have to go sorting it back to uh either April or May. You'd have to scroll down to where they actually posted it. It's ended, right? The survey has ended. But
if the township implements their own, then that will open up a new survey specifically to Belleville, right? And and our our streets and our corners. I know my time is up, but I just let me make one last comment that regards uh safety in that particular intersection.
Um, at a very recent planning board meeting, there was uh active discussion about that particular intersection and our town engineer, Mr. Harris, said that at long last there was actually now active discussions between the county, the state too, and uh Belleville
officials about finally doing a complete redesign of that intersection. Uh I I haven't posted the video of that meeting and Mr. Harro's uh comments, but I'll try to get those up. I had a technical problem earlier this year in processing videos. Thank you, Microsoft. Uh they
dropped support for audio codec, but I I have a workaround now. But um it would be uh I think interesting to many you especially to see what Mr. Harros had to say about the uh advances that have taken place recently in finally addressing and resolving that particular
intersection. And I know Mr. Fantony is not a big fan of Mr. Harro's a lot of false promises over the years, but it looked like this time around the uh the county and Belleville are actually serious about finally uh fixing that particular intersection. So, I'll try to get the video up so you everyone can see
exactly what Mr. Herro had to say about the discussions. All right. Thank you. And I uh if you do go out and seek it, the SS4A Essex County, they have their PowerPoint presentation similar to what we did with our demonstration project
and they also show the streets in Belleville that were the hotspots from the data that they did collect from our police and safety division so that they could post those so that they could come up with and again it's since it's all of Essex county. We don't know, you know,
when a roadway safety uh plan will actually happen or where it will happen, but they have collected a lot of data and it's very interesting. This is all independent of earlier this year, you had Yes. Yeah. This is a different This is a federal grant. SS4A is safe streets
for all program. It's only a five-year program. We received the grant the second year it was open. this next year is the last year that they'll uh fund any roadway safety studies. So, yeah. All right. Thank you.
Okay. Do we have a motion to close public participation? Motion. Second. All those in favor? All right. All right. Great. Um would anyone like to make any closing remarks?
Okay. Trustee Gillis. So, I just had a quick spiel to say that we made it to the last week of school. Um, I wanted to celebrate each and every one of our students and staff for all their hard work and accomplishments this year.
We're so proud of everything that they've achieved. And like we saw tonight, two of our students from school 10 were honored by the county, which is amazing. And a huge congratulations to our senior class. What an exciting milestone. And I wish them all the best
on their on the next chapter in their journey and excited to hear of what they what they will accomplish and just to take the summer to rest, recharge and enjoy your families. But remember that learning never really stops. We got to keep reading and we are we're offering
summer programs to attend those. And a big thank you to Mr. Peripado for his leadership and support this year. And I'm excited to begin this new chapter with the board and Dr. Alonso to work together to support our students. So have a good summer. Very good. Thank
you. And anyone else? Trustee Munice. Yeah. Um I mean I pretty much echo everything that she said. I just want to congratulate all our students and and gra in their graduation this year. I want to thank our staff for all the hard work that they did throughout this school year to get us uh to the point that we are right now. And I want to
thank our summer program teachers and security officers and everyone involved with getting our summer programs um to be successful as well. Um Mr. Carpado, I also want to thank you for your time here and helping us get through this school year um and through all the changes and thank you for your
leadership um and I hope everyone has a great summer. Very good. Thank you. Anyone else? Sure. I'll go. Trustee Leon. Before uh I uh address the school district, Mr. Pair pal, I just want to say uh thank you. It was a pleasure working with you uh over
these last five months. Uh I wish we would have worked a little bit more together. Uh sad to see you go, but I wish you the best on your future endeavors. Um as the school year comes to a close, I want to take a moment to extend my heartfelt congratulations to our students, families, teachers, staff,
and administrators for another successful year in the Belleville School District. Your hard work, dedication, and perseverance, especially in the face of challenges, continues to make our district a place of growth, opportunity, and pride. From academic achievements to extracurricular accomplishments to the
countless small moments of learning and personal development, this year has been filled with reasons to celebrate. To our graduating seniors, congratulations. You've reached a major milestone, and we are proud of all you've accomplished. Wherever your next chapter takes you, remember that Belleville will always be home. As we head into the summer, I wish
I wish everyone a reason a season of rest, fun, and time well spent with family and friends. Thank you for another incredible year. I look forward to what we will achieve together in the year ahead. Have a happy and safe summer. Thank you. Anyone else?
Yes, Madam President. Okay, Vice President Darl, uh, real real quickly, I wanted to also address uh, Mr. Sheldon and and Mr. Mcnon about the policies. And this was kind of schooled to me today with a conversation with uh Dr. Dia on the phone. The first reading
actually is only the intention of making the changes the so that's why the first reading does not have the actual because all you'd see is how it is of today. It's the time between the first reading which is just how it is how it appears to be today the policy then the second reading is the time in between when the
committee meets again to discuss potential changes that are made to those policies. So as of today the first reading is just basically looking at it as it is and then we have the committee and uh time to talk to other folks about uh administration. Uh we are on the
first reading now uh let me just say before anything is decided or changed we wanted to get it in before the new school year starts. So obviously it's imperative that we get it done uh before the ne to be approved in the the July meeting so that it's ready for the new school year. Uh but this that'll be
within the second reading. you'll actually see it on the agenda where you'll have a chance to comment to to any changes or any re revisions we've decided we might want to put in there uh based on conversations with some school administrators that we are all meeting together uh during the committee time frames if that kind of lives you gives
you a little bit of leadway of how that works. Uh I do want to thank everybody for coming out tonight. Congratulations to all of our graduates. We'd like to wish everyone a great summer. Look forward to seeing everyone again in the fall. Uh although we trustees will be here over the next two months, maybe the
only ones here be besides a few audience members. Uh we want to thank you Mr. Parapata for all that you've done for us over this past school year. Having you here has been an invaluable and benefited us more than you could even imagine with your outside view uh to how we were doing things and to give us a
new perspective uh from from externally wise which we didn't have before. Uh so we thank you for all that time. Uh good night to everyone. Thank you. Okay. Yes, trustee Veco. Yes, thank you for Mr. Barrow to be with us. It was a pleasure
work with you. We learned a lot from you and congratulations to all our students. Thank you for the all the teachers that do really really hard work to make all the students success in this year.
Congratulations to all and happy happy summer. Very good. Okay. Hey, and to close, I just want to say thank you, heartfelt thank you to all of our uh staff here at the Belleville Public School District. We appreciate everything you do every
day. Um we do hope that if you are working through the summer that you get a little bit of time to take a break. Uh thank you, Mr. Parapotto, our interim superintendent, who came on board and um very willingly took a look at uh some of the things that we were doing here and
gave us a good comparison of uh you know what other districts might do. 10 years with one superintendent is a long time. So, it was refreshing to hear some uh different things uh that are going on out there. Uh we also want to welcome uh probably for our next meeting our new
superintendent, Dr. Alonso. We all look very forward to continuing our hard work and and moving forward, moving the district forward and and helping and working together and keeping that open line of communication. Lastly, congratulations to our senior class of
2025. Uh I wish you the best of luck with whatever you're going to do in the future. Um congratulations, good luck, all the best. And so with that said, we will see you for Madam President. I just like to make a comment just so you can go home after this. All right. Okay. I
would like to thank the board for the opportunity to serve as the interim superintendent in the Belleville public schools. Uh the chance to lead the district during this time of transition is valued and the trust place to me is appreciated. Uh the opportunity to serve
the students, staff, and community has been a rewarding experience. So I wish everyone the very best of luck, continued success. you're on the road and you're going to get there. And I just want to thank everybody for that opportunity. So, thank you. Very good.
Thank you. And we will see everyone for the July meeting. With that said, do we have a motion to close? Motion and a second. It's a second. I'll second. All those in favor? Closed.