The Bayonne Board of Education race has two full four-person slates vying for four seats, with one independent running as well, in the November 8th contest.
By John Heinis/Hudson County View
Three seats will be for three-year terms, while one seat will be for just a one-year term for Trustee Hector Gonzalez’s seat – who was appointed to replace David “Doc” Watson in January.
Gonzalez will be the only incumbent seeking re-election on the “Together We Can” slate, running alongside former Trustee Mary Jane Desmond, as well as newcomers William Young and Miriam Bechay.
Bechay is a biomedical engineering student at NJIT and has worked a number of Bayonne campaigns since late 2015, including Mayor Jimmy Davis and former Assemblyman Nick Chiaravalloti, according to her LinkedIn page.
The opposition team, running under the banner “Voices for Progress,” has Ali Hassan seeking the one-year seat, with Saverio “Sam” Maggio, Angelique Jackson-Belle, and Gina Irizarry running for the three-year terms.
Maggio is a Democratic committeeman, Jackson-Belle is the president of the board of the directors for the Bayonne Youth Center, and Irizarry has run unsuccessfully four times – though narrowly missed out on the third seat up for grabs last year.
Jahnbaz Almas, a trustee for the Bayonne Education Foundation, is the only candidate running as an independent this time around.
Together We Can swept both prior elections during the COVID-19 pandemic and went two for three in 2019: with Jan Patrick Egan and Lisa Burke winning, with Denis Wilbeck – who was unsuccessful in a bid for council-at-large in May – splitting the ticket.
Those three trustees are all opting not to seek re-election this year.
