Strumolo Calls for Referendum on Fields

Michael Strumolo is calling for the to walk away from its discussions with the municipality and to stand and take control of its own property.

Strumolo said Thursday morning he was speaking not in his capacity as a board member, but as a private citizen, a local business owner and as a former council member and former head of the local Republican party.

The board is expected to take up the controversial high school turf field issue at its meeting Thursday night at 7 p.m.

Of late, there has been a rift between the body and Mayor James Barberio.

On Tuesday, the : Sign on to his plan to take 51 percent of the control and usage of the fields or he would drop his proposal to use Open Space Trust Fund monies to fund an estimated $4.5 million dollar plan to install artificial turf fields and other athletic improvements at and high schools.

"I love the community," Strumolo said. "I've been taken aback by how the Fields of Dreams issue has divided it. This has got to stop.

"It's the board's responsibility to maintain and fix those fields," he said."It's our responsibility to supply our kids with the best of everything that we can give them."

To that end, Strumolo recommends having an independent auditor investigate a reported shortly before former Board Administrator Marlene Wendolowski retired nearly a year ago. He has raised that idea numerous times before the board this year, according to Strumolo, to no avail.

Wendolowski is now an interim administrator in the Roxbury school district.

"We've got to find out what happened to that money," he said, adding that the audit must be completed almost immediately so the board can know exactly what money it has available. "We don't even know if we need to get the approval of the executive county superintendent or the county board of elections to put the matter on the referendum.

"Time is of the essence here. If we don't have the money we're facing a deadline to get the matter on the ballot for a referendum so the people can decide whether they want the board to proceed with a new plan to fix the fields."

That deadline, according to the Morris County Clerk's office, is Aug. 31.

Strumolo said that if the projected surplus truly does not exist, the school board should invest in bonds to cover the cost of needed athletic refurbishments and do the construction in multiple phases over time.

"I believe so strongly in shared services," Strumolo said. "I don't want the controversy to damage the relationship between the Board of Education and the town.

"I'm hoping [BOE President Frank] Calabria and the board move on this as quickly as possible."