Orange Mayor Robert L. Brown's attempt to install two members on the recently expanded board of education promptly, rather than wait until May, precipitated arguments and a disturbance at last night's board meeting.

Three members of the Essex County Sheriff's Department and several city police officers, including Police Director Charles Cobbertt, responded to the incident at the board's Colgate Building offices at Central Avenue and Cleveland Street to quell the dispute involving both board officials and residents.

Brown last week appointed Judith Ann Gordan, an educator, and Thelma Smith, a past president of the Orange League of Women Voters, to new slots after the city council adopted his proposal to expand the board of education from five to seven members. However, a state law stipulates those appointments cannot take effect until May 16, according to such officials as Elena Scambio, the Essex County superintendent of schools, Barbara Peters, the Orange school board president, and Lawrence S. Schwartz, the school board attorney.

Brown maintained his appointments can sit immediately and partake in all official board business.

The dispute ended last night with the "old" five-member board voting 4-1 to authorize Schwartz to take the matter before a Superior Court judge for resolution.

Board members Peters, Waverly Baskerville, Nereida Rivera and Calvin D. West supported the measure. Alice Z. Dunston, who Brown appointed Nov. 16 to fill an unexpired term, was the lone dissenter.

Prior to the vote, Smith said Schwartz asked her and Gordan to either voluntarily leave the closed session or face being physically removed by members of the sheriff's department.

Smith said she and Gordan refused to leave and challenged the law enforcement officers to remove them.

"They don't wnat to run a school district," Brown declared after the five-member board voted to take the matter to court and to postpone the rest of the meeting. "They'd rather create lawsuits" and financially drain the district's and city's "human resources and support services in a court fight," he charged.

However, Scambio, in a letter to the municipality, cited a different rationale.

State law requires that in districts such as Orange, members of a school board "shale be appointed between April 1 and April 15, and their terms of office shall begin on May 16," noted Scambio, who represents the state Department of Education.

"These statutory dates were deliberately established so that the appointments of new school board members do not occur at sensitive or critical times during the school year, such as the time during which adoption of the school district's budget occurs," Scambio wrote Brown in a letter dated Monday.

"Consequently, I would expect Ms. Gordan and Ms. Smith to begin their terms on/about May 16, 1989. I trust this information will be helpful to you." Smith said the mayor swore in she and Gordan right after Christmas, on two different days.

Scambio promised the mayor, "If these appointments are pursued at this time, I will refer the matter to the Office of the Attorney General for an order to restrain you from so acting."

The mayor last evening charged Schwartz and Schools Superintendent Patrick J. Pelosi of treating Orange like "a plantation and not a school district."

Brown vowed to countersue the school district over the legality of making his appointments effective immediately.

Council President James J. Brown, no relation to the mayor, last night challenged the school board's right to usurp the council's unanimously approved law.

Schwartz argued, "It's a matter that should be resolved by the courts. We'll seek relief, probably an order to show cause and get someone in authority to make a decision as to when they can sit."

The board attorney said he plans to go before a Superior Court judge in Newark "sometime this week."

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“Reach Back with One Hand and Pull Someone Else Up With You.”

– Charles C. Cobbertt

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