Statement to Greater Egg Harbor Regional

Board of Education Oct. 24, 2016

Good Evening: I am Myron Plotkin, the NJEA representative for the Association as
well as a resident and taxpayer of Galloway Twp.
I would like to address three issues with the Board tonight. The first deals with the
continued impasse in negotiations with the Board. Just so there is no
misunderstanding, two Board meetings ago, Stephanie Tarr, President, stated to you,
in public, that the Association was willing to meet with you prior to any formal superconciliation meeting in the hopes of resolving our differences. Your Labor Attorney,
Joe Betley, responded on Sept. 22 that the Board was interested in meeting but placed
certain pre-conditions on having such a meeting. The Association responded that it
was ready to meet to continue the negotiations and asked for dates that the Board
would be available. No response was received from Mr. Betley suggesting any dates.
As late as last week, this issue arose again when PERC inquired if the parties were
planning to meet prior to the super-conciliation. I responded to Mr. Betley to again,
send me dates. His e-mail response on Friday stated that he would get back to me
after discussions with the Board. If indeed this Board is eager to meet and resolve the
dispute, dates should have been immediately forthcoming with no delay. That being
said, I received an e-mail this morning from Mr. Betley finally suggesting dates that we
could meet without any pre-conditions. I am glad that we will not have more
procrastination and more billable hours for wasted time by Mr. Betley. This Board has
already spent approximately $150,000 of taxpayers dollars to pay Mr. Betley for his
services and advice and we are no closer to a settlement today then we were 2 years
ago when negotiations began. I just wanted this entire Board to be aware of exactly
what has occurred in these negotiations and with dates now being offered, we hope a
settlement can be reached at the upcoming face-to-face meeting.

Second, are the Boards recent actions to file an unfair labor practice charge against
the Association and request an order restraining the members in the exercise of their
1st Amendment rights to free speech. I would hope that all of you are well aware of
the most recent action taken under your name by Mr. Betley with, I would assume,
the concurrence of your Superintendent since it was he who submitted a Certification
along with the charge. This Board requested that the 435 members of the Greater
Egg Harbor Regional Education Association along with the New Jersey Education
Association be legally restrained from a litany of different forms of communication
with its members. Just in case you have not yet been informed, this initial charge was
filed on Sept. 7. PERC then held a telephone conference with Mr. Betley and the
Attorney for the Association and NJEA. Only one portion of the Restraining Order
requested by the Board was upheld by PERC which issued a Temporary Restraining
Order stating that the Association and its members were prohibited from threatening
to engage in a strike or other concerted job actions. Upon receipt of that Temporary
Restraining Order on Friday, Oct. 7, attorneys for this Association as well as the
NJEA immediately went into the Appellate Court asking for emergent relief and that
the temporary restraining order be vacated. On October 13, the Court did in fact
grant emergent relief and vacated that Restraining Order. So once again, this Board
knowingly or unknowingly wasted taxpayers dollars in an attempt to prohibit the
members from exercising their rights of free speech. And to be sure, this issue is still
ongoing with the Board continuing to challenge the vacating of the order which
means more billable hours for Mr. Betley and more discord between the parties.
If this Board was not fully aware of these actions, then my question to you is who is
driving your ship? Is it really the Board, or are you just blindly following Mr. Betley
and Mr. Keenan and are their puppets? If you were aware of these two issues in their
entirety and supported the procrastination of scheduling a negotiations session prior
to super-conciliation until today and the attempt to restrain your employees from

exercising their constitutional rights of free speech then shame on you all. And if you
werent fully aware of these two issues, then again shame on you for not knowing and
allowing Mr. Betley and Mr. Keenan free reign to do whatever they want.
Last, but not least, is the issue that will be addressed to you by Stephanie Tarr. The
main questions asked by potential home buyers or residents deal with the quality of
the schools and public safety. As this is a regional district, the actions and decisions
being made by your Superintendent just dont impact one municipality but in our case,
6 different municipalities.
I sincerely hope that you listen very closely to what she has to say as it says an awful
lot about how your staff feels, how this district is being administered and the impact
administrative decisions are having on the students, staff and taxpayers. The actions
taken by your central administration, namely your Superintendent, in the 2 years he
has been here, have been reprehensible at best and in many cases, may be irreparable.
I would hope that this was not your intent when you hired Mr. Keenan, however, like
it or not, that has been the result. And in fact, in doing some research I found that
this manner and method of administration being used by Mr. Keenan here is the same
as he used in his position as Superintendent in his former district, Northern
Highlands Regional and had the same negative results as what you are seeing
happening in this district. There is an old saying, fool me once, shame on you, fool me
twice, shame on me. Dont continue to make the same mistakes over and over again
because of pride or some other lame excuse. Do what is right for the district, the
students, the tax-payers and yes the teachers and staff who work here. You are the real
decision makers. Stand up and make the right decisions before this goes on much
longer.

Thank you.

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