Jersey City Councilmen Joel Brooks and Jake Ephros are denouncing “the chaos surrounding the board of education” in light of special needs parent Emily Pecot being arrested for defiant trespass last week.
By John Heinis/Hudson County View
“Our job as City Council members is not only to legislate and deal with issues pertaining to municipal government. It is also to show up as leaders in the community, and every leader in Jersey City should clearly call out the chaos surrounding the BOE. It is unacceptable that a member of Jersey City’s special education parent community was forcibly removed from last week’s meeting,” they said in a joint statement Wednesday.
“This arrest comes on the heels of a long fight for transparency and accountability in the JC Public Schools special education curriculum and programming. We are proud to stand with parents advocating for their children and for the city’s children. Ahead of tomorrow’s BOE meeting, we encourage a strong showing of parent, teacher, and general community support for these efforts to make our BOE more responsive and our schools more just.”
On Thursday, Pecot, a Ward B resident, was escorted out of the BOE meeting in handcuffs and issued a summons for defiant trespass for allegedly disrupting the public meeting by continually speaking out of turn, with video of the arrest first posted by HCV going viral.
Additionally, BOE Trustees Dr. Matthew Schneider and Tia Rezabala spoke out against Pecot’s arrest via a joint letter to the editor published Tuesday.
Also yesterday, Ward Ward E Councilwoman Eleana Little asked the BOE to stop limiting public comment time and to only remove an audience member if there is no other option, to which BOE President Noemi Velazquez responded condescendingly, as HCV first reported.
“Indeed, there are separate elections for the BOE, the next being this November, and voters have the opportunity to express frustrations through that process. But organized dissent should never be confined to election season alone. And city electeds such as ourselves have a duty to weigh in on our city’s issues, even if a separate governing body is primarily responsible,” further stated Brooks and Ephros.
“Not to mention, the city and the public schools are deeply interconnected, with municipal legislation and tax collection affecting the district’s funding. All this is unavoidably political, and we support our colleague, Council member Little, in expressing her concerns, and stand side by side with her and Jersey City parents.”
Outside of Board Vice President Dejon Morris asserting that Pecot violated district rules, which are enforced strictly, moments after the arrest occurred, the incident has largely not been discussed by school district leadership.
Superintendent of Schools Dr. Norma Fernandez wrote in a letter yesterday that “board meetings are, and must remain, a safe space,” also explaining that “we cannot comment on the specifics of an ongoing law enforcement matter.”
