Ms. Arrington, I don't believe that apathy is your problem; it is more that you have lost all of your credibility. Your OPRA requests were nothing more than a fishing expedition. Your subsequent comments insinuating that you have information but you elect not to publish it were disingenuous and cowardly. The only thing you and your close pal Jamie Button have managed to do is to drive an excellent superintendent out of the district on the wings of gossip and innuendo. Congratulations. The fact that you no longer attend BOE meetings suggests that you lack the courage of your own convictions. And you have managed to poison Vito Gagliardi with your "subsidy" talk, which he has started to parrot, suggesting to many that he isn't operating with an open mind either. In conclusion, do you know what the real problem is? It's you.

Domino, you have it all exactly right, thanks for speaking out. What has been done to our district by Ms. Arrington, CBS, Jamie Button and others is a disgrace to civil discourse and truth. Washington Township board members DO NOT and NEVER have controlled the board with votes 5-4; look it up and get the facts taxpayers. That Ms. Arrington and others keep stating this as fact is ludicrous and an outright lie. They are attempting to rabble rouse the public in favor of their causes by doing this and they need to be called out on it by any sane citizen. What are we doing to our wonderful schools? ... running a beloved and fantastic superintendent out the door with innuendo and veiled implications; implying there are subsidies to one school over the other; again not true if all the facts are viewed; again, trying to rabble rouse one community against the other to gain a sad end. Our schools are treated as equally as possible and cared for by ALL board members collectively, to say otherwise is to case aspersions on our qualified, hardworking board members and their intent. You, Ms. Arrington, have twisted facts to suit your pathetic purpose, and for the life of me I can't understand why you and Mr. Button and others are doing this. Yes, Domino, you are correct, Ms. Arrington and her cohorts are the problem. Public, get educated, come to board meetings, ask questions, don't jump on someone else's poorly-built bandwagon.

Mendham Township and Mendham Borough K-8 will not even share a Superintendent, are they really serious about saving tax dollars or is this all about something else?

What a hateful one sided article.

As an uninterested 3rd party (I have no children in either school system) I find this piece to beg more questions than it answers. I'd be interested in finding out about the contributions of commercial taxes into the schools, breakdowns on performance of students in WMC v. MHS (not just MHS v. other "similar" towns) and a host of other factors. The piece is angry in tone, seems light on facts and as such, is unpersuasive.

it's nice to know the 1% HATE the non 1% SO much. For the RECORD while Mendham does PAY more Washington Township pays a HIGHER PERCENTAGE of home value - which is what ALL taxes are based on.
--
so your saying someone EARNING 1,000,000 should PAY the same taxes (in dollars) as someone earning 30,000? ...
-- TAXES are NOT paid per person they ARE paid on INCOME/HOME VALUE ... and our district has the rich paying LESS then the 'poor' (or working class poor) - sounds unconstitutional to me!
..
i am SO TIRED of Mendham treating Washington Township like 'inner city rats' ... I am SORRY we can't afford to pay $800,000 or more for our homes. I'm sorry that our homes are only worth $300,00 - $400,000 while yours are worth $800,000 - OVER A MILLION...
--
this is the 1% dumping on the middle income and complaining about paying.
..
LETS MAKE THIS FAIR... A SET TAX RATE FOR EVERYONE IN THE DISTRICT... THAT MEAN EVERYONE INCLUDING WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP PAYS THE SAME TAX RATE PER ASSESSED VALUE! ... personally I think Washington township should get the Federal Government involved.. how can we pay different tax rates based on income with the rich paying the lower rate? (i'd say Gov. but he lives in Mendham and is reaping the benefit of a upside down scale)

oh, and for the record mendham saying they shouldn't have to 'pay' for long valley schools because we aren't rich enough (sorry but that is the truth) IS something that should make the news... hmm... gives me lots of ideas!
..
how does the 1% really feel? they should pay less then the 'average' citizen, and they shouldn't have to have a joint district with 'joe average' because we just bring them down.
maybe someone needs to occupy Mendham!

HOORAY LA QUIN SO WELL SAID!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Not for nothing these towns cant seem to merge their townships and boros together but they can manage to abuse us.

Doesn't Mr B have 7 children ? I think he got a good bang for the buck. Maybe we should pay per child we have in the schools? wouldnt that be more fair ??????

Oh, I am clapping my hands for Domino and LaQuin. Thank you both! The "CBS" are a group of divisive, arrogant, childish troublemakers who have no desire to better our children's education.

There are a lot of really good points being made here. Remember, you all have the right to register and blog on this and any other topic should you so choose.

Property Taxes should be based on Assessed Value across all of our districts and at the same rate. That is the fair and equitable solution! Oh, but that makes your taxes go up! Ha, you wouldn't like that now would you!?! Oh, but we in Washington Township should vote your way to raise our taxes!!

MHS test scores are better than WMC and a higher percentage go on to top tier colleges. MHS has more curricular offerings than WMC than MH. How exactly is Washington Township holding Chester/Mendham back educationally, you have the better curriculum and test scores, hello!?

You really need to do better research.

I believe the racial segregation of the '60s has been replaced by economic segregation.
-- if you replace WMC with a 'colored' school and WMM with a 'white school' of the 60s you would have the same feelings/attitudes. ... it is the deep south all over just based on income rather then color. nice to see how far we have gone backwards.
-- perhaps we should start 'busing' and allow HS choice.

washington twn does not get free busing to WMC if you live under 2.5 mile. Did you ever drive Bartley road, 50 mph no sidewalks narrow windy I dont think you could even begin to compare to downtown mendham. or coleman, or naughright up the mountain or 4 bridges north? they all do not get bussed

To John Doe - WMC dose not have free busing if you are under 2.5 miles either. What made you think we had free busing and WMM did not?

Charlene why not look to base the regional district taxes on assessed value and at the same rate? Many would like to know your answer!

Charlene: I understand that CBS (you and Jamie Button) are having a special "by invitation only" meeting tomorrow night at the Chester Library to discuss ways of "countering" the presentation Thursday night at Mendham High School by the NJDOE. Where is all of the openness and transparency that you are always demanding from the board of education? Do you have something to hide?

so if we take the advice from all the above commentary and continue to use assessed home values to determine the amount of taxes that are paid to our schools,then we should use the same formula to populate the board.

Can anyone provide the amount brought in from commercial taxes in Chester and Mendham? I Mendham/Chester is greatly subsidized by this, its not the homeowners paying all the tax difference.

Guys, I love the fact we are chatting here and having a debate, but lets try to remember to keep it civil. I'm not saying you guys have done anything yet, but we're getting close to the line with personal insults and accusations. Be mindful that behind the fake names we're all real people.

jefco348 - Would you be more specific? I think if you mean which ever twp. or boro. pays the most in property should have the most seats? I am not sure what would be terrible about that. In other words if Washington Twp pays in 40% of the tax dollars than they should have 40% of the seats on the regional board. Each twp. or boro. would have to be represented. Even though I am a WT resident/taxpayer, I believe that Mendham HS has more curriculum offerings and has consistently better test scores than WMCHS. So even though we have had 5 BOE seats, clearly this has not made our HS "better" than MHS.

Guys, I just deleted some comments that were off topic and getting nasty. Like I said, love on topic discussions, but if you want to argue about something unrelated you're going to have to do it elsewhere.

Thank you Russ for intervening in a nasty conversation. Regarding Claire's comment at 5:07PM, it will be interesting to see all the favoritism that MHS gets now that they will have a majority on the board - JUST KIDDING! To my knowledge there has NEVER been a 5-4 vote by the board in favor of WT - I wonder why Ms. Arrington, Mr. Button and others who keep pushing this falsehood don't look up the facts and present them to us - could it be because they don't exist? This issue is a diversion tactic to incite taxpayers to be up in arms against Washington Township, and it's totally not true. (And I live in Mendham Township...)

Charlene, please update us on how you, Jamie Button and CBS intend to counter the "apathy" at Thursday night's presentation by the NJDOE at Mendham High School.

All - Please remember to stay on topic in this discussion. We've asked that comments be civil and in reference to the original blog post. If they are not, we will have to delete them from this thread, as we have been doing. If the comments continue, we'll shut down the thread altogether.

We welcome the discussion, but let's stay above board. Thanks.

Jason: Thanks for your comments. You are absolutely correct. This is a very important issue in our communities and we need to be able to discuss this in a civil manner. Cut and paste comments throughout this board about Kevin Nedd or Margaret Nordstrom's political operatives are off-topic, irrelevant and of no interest to anyone. I would, however, like to see a response from Ms. Arrington concerning many of the relevant comments that have been made above.

Yes, it is odd that Ms. Arrington, or anyone else representing CBS for that matter, is unwilling to engage in dialog and information sharing - perhaps they might learn something new that enables them to see more clearly that their secretive, negative and uninformed behavior is hurting all of our schools. Do you think there might be a connection that we have THREE superintendents leaving now? I frankly don't understand what they are so upset about. They skew their facts to make it look as if our schools are falling apart (they are NOT), and that the Board continually votes 5-4 in favor of WT - it does NOT, and never has. Please, citizens, get the facts and call out Ms. Arrington, Mr. Button and their ilk on their positions. Someone has a vendetta going on here and is ruining our wonderful school's reputation in the process. Embarrassing and shameful.
PLEASE BE SURE TO COME TO THE 2/23 7PM Mayors' presentation with the DOE and get the facts right from the State directly. Mendham High School.

Here is an article from todays Daily Record http://www.dailyrecord.com/article/20120222/NJNEWS/302220010/West-Morris-district-s-future-up-discussion?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE it points out many concerns with disbanding WMRHS. Its not all black and white

Linda and others who have left comments here- four quick questions.

1) If you read through the comments posted above, do you think a word other than "dialogue" might be more appropriate?
2) Do you have school aged children who attend our local schools?
3) Is there any question as to whether the Mendhams and Chesters are sending $6.5 million to WT, and is this equitable?
4) If WT is losing population and struggling to find a solution to their school overbuilding, how will the other communities be impacted?

Perhaps if some of the name calling, bashing and innuendos stopped, we could all move to a more civil discussion that might have a positive community impact. There doesn't need to be a winner and a loser, but there does need to be an equitable resolution that will most certainly be hindered by emotional outbursts and name calling.

Barbara perhaps you will answer my question, what is wrong with the same tax rate across all towns based on assessed value? How is this unfair? Why is it "fair" that students at MHS have more class offerings than at WMC?

What is the cost to operate each High School? Are they the same? I am thinking they are not, but perhaps someone has these figures?

I will be going tomorrow, I have kids in the district so I care about their education and of course my tax bill.

Barbara is it fair that a homeowner, of a million dollar home pays more in dollars into their schools than a homeowner of a half million dollar home? Or would you demand a restructuring so that you pay the same dollars?

Leta- I am not demanding anything. I don't have all the answers and it really does not matter what I think. I will just tell you what I believe to be accurate information:

1. Your town sets your property tax rate and determines your assessed value, as is the same in the Mendhams and Chesters.

2. WT sends approximately the same amount of kids to the district as the Mendhams and Chesters combined.

3. The Principals at each high school determine the class offerings.

4. WT is an "I" district. There is a difference between ability to pay and wanting to pay.

Charlene – I was wondering if the figure of $6,200,000 took into consideration the fact that a lot of the state aid WMRHS gets back is because of WT (WRMHS got back over $4,000,000 in state aid) If it doesn’t could you please adjust it to reflect that fact. Thanks.

Jean - Excellent point and should Washington Townships enrollment drop further as projected by the demographer, then this dollar amount is even further reduced.

Just think of the savings if Chesters and Mendhams went to one K-8 district like Washington Township. It was pointed out, by some, last evening that this should likely come first, especially with the open Superintendent positions.

Hi Charlene - could you please answer my question as I am trying to be informed. I have also asked the same question on the Observer Tribune as you just sent them a letter. Thanks.

Leta - Thanks for noticing my post. I also think this number changes every year and will be lower since we are starting to have less from WT go to the HS. I agree with you about the Chesters and Mendhams having one K-8 as they all go to the same HS so that would be a big help to get them all on the same page for HS.