When we last left off, there were 7 candidates running for 3 positions on the School Board. One of the seats was unopposed and the other two seats were being contested. Each of the contested seats had two Orthodox Jews and 1 candidate from the Public School community running for it. In addition, each of the Jews running for the positions had competing Orthodox groups in the community supporting them, making for an incredibly confusing message to the Jewish Community and providing the Public School candidates an opportunity to win.
Here’s what happened.
As of late last night, everything was resolved except for one of the two contested seats.
In one of the contested races, which is still not final, Jesse Lunin-Pack, a Public school parent from Atlantic Beach, appears to have taken advantage of the split in the Orthodox community, handily beating Tova Plaut of Cedarhurst, who was the candidate backed by the leadership of the School Board and Dov Herman, who was backed by who was backed by the upstart group, the Community Coalition of the 5 Towns (CC5T), under the leadership of multi-millionaire Joshua Schein.
The School Board leadership has contested this result, saying that there were multiple errors made in the recording of these results and that by their calculation, Tova Plaut should emerge victorious. The voting machines have been impounded by the Nassau County Board of Elections and there will be a recount of the votes to determine the winner. What’s certain though is that Dov Herman lost the election.
In the other contested race, Michael Hatten, who was backed by the leadership of the School Board, and has relationships in the public-school community, defeated 6-Year School Board incumbent, Rabbi Nachum Marcus, who was backed by the CC5T. The Public School candidate, Juan Zepeda, who was on the ballot but did not actively campaign, came in a distant 3rd place.
Although Rabbi Marcus was known throughout the community as a champion on special education issues, he didn’t get along with his colleagues in the school board. As a result, they all endorsed his opponent.
While the results of one race is still unclear, it is clear that the Jew vs. Jew fight in the Five Towns caused the community’s clout to take a hit.
(Dov Gordon – YWN)
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5 Responses
Congratulations to Jesse Lunin-Pack on a well-deserved victory.
Public school parents deserve at least one member on the public school board.
I believe there already is one trustee on board (David Sussman) who is a public school parent. So Lunin-Pack would make two.
“multi-millionaire” Josh Schein – So 1980’s
The update I received is that Plaut won and congratulations to the entire Row B. once again Dov is reporting on a controversial topic just for the sake of stirring up more controversy.
We are a very respectful community here in the five towns but every once and a while some troublemakers decide to stir the pot and there will always be those reporters who choose to promote themselves and their papers by jumping into the mix. If it doesn’t sell papers at least it sells ads. Recognize this for what it is b
To #4:
I agree with you. This “new” program by YWN called “its all politics”, should really be named “its all Lashan Hora & Motzie Shem Rah”! Shame on YWN! I expected better!