Amid budget crisis, Uxbridge voters send 4 new members to School Committee

UXBRIDGE — A week after Town Meeting voted down the school district’s budget, voters in the annual town election Tuesday ousted two incumbent School Committee members, sending four new members to the seven-member board less than a month before a consequential Special Town Meeting to determine whether the schools will have a budget for the next fiscal year.

The voters eschewed two incumbents and elected Christine Pezzullo, Matthew Kling and Jessica Mandile to three-year seats, and former longtime Selectmen Chairman Brian Butler to a one-year term, according to unofficial results provided by Town Clerk Kelly Cote.

Interviews with observers of town politics, as well as some of the candidates themselves, indicate that the newly constructed board will be more likely to scrutinize Superintendent Michael Baldassarre, who received a new three-year contract in January despite a petition with hundreds of signatures registered concerns with his leadership.

Both incumbent members on the ballot Tuesday, Arlene Liscinsky and Aaron Lenart, had voted to extend the superintendent’s contract, and Baldassarre had, at a School Committee meeting on Monday, remarked that he hoped to see them back at future meetings.

The candidate who received the most votes, Pezzullo, was one of six School Committee members who resigned last spring under circumstances that another member attributed to a loss of confidence in Baldassarre.

Pezzullo told the Telegram & Gazette on Tuesday she didn’t wish to comment, either before or after the election. She wrote on Tuesday an Uxbridge Facebook group that it was “unfortunate that false narratives continue to be spread from our administration,” and that such narratives would continue “until a committee is in place and hold them accountable.”

The second-highest vote-receiver, Kling, told the T&G on Wednesday that he believes both the Town Meeting vote and Tuesday’s outcome were clear signs that residents want greater transparency and accountability from the School Committee and superintendent.

The third member elected to a three-year seat, Mandile, is the wife of Stephen Mandile, the town selectman who sued Baldassarre over his ban from school buildings, resulting in a $60,000 settlement to Stephen Mandile this spring.

Asked Wednesday if she thought the election was partly a referendum on Baldassarre, Jessica Mandile said she did, and said she also thought there was more going on, too.

“I think the other part is (voters) just want things to be done differently,” she said. “I think they want the School Committee to have more control, to do the right thing by the town.”

Butler, a lifelong Uxbridge resident who stresses collaboration, beat out perhaps the most vocal critic of Baldassarre in the race, Tina Ryan, by 32 votes: 770-738.

As he held signs outside the polls Tuesday, Butler said he does not know Baldassarre well and would reserve judgment on him until he has enough facts to make his own assessment.

Butler couldn’t be immediately reached Wednesday morning, nor could Ryan. In a post on Facebook, Ryan congratulated Butler, saying that given his résumé in town, she was pleased to finish as close as she did.

“I know he will be an asset to the committee and it is my hope that he operates with transparency, accountability and integrity,” she wrote, as she also congratulated the other winners.

Butler told the T&G that he looks forward to bringing people together and focusing on the task at hand: Passing a budget for the schools at a Special Town Meeting slated for June 18.

If the schools don’t pass a budget, they won’t have any money starting July 1, which would mean, absent some sort of legal intervention, they wouldn’t have any school district employees able to work or any services offered on that date.

Kling said he and all the other new members will be intently focused on getting a budget passed as their first course of business.

“I’m excited about the group that the town chose. I think that there’s going to be some good, effective collaboration,” he said. “We are in a budget crisis right now, but I have confidence this group is going to help fix that problem.”

Of the three School Committee members not up for re-election Tuesday, two cast votes against renewing Baldassarre’s contract earlier this year.

Kara Guy, chairwoman of the Uxbridge Special Education Parent Advisory Council, said Wednesday she believes the new committee will be more responsive to the community.

“Last spring, the majority of our school committee was appointed and not elected,” said Guy, who has been critical of Baldassare. “I believe those elected will renew the committee, restore trust with the community and hold the district accountable for moving the district forward.”

The T&G spoke to several voters outside the polls Tuesday who said they are concerned at the recent turmoil in the schools and believed that greater transparency and accountability were needed.

Christine Carney, who has two children in the system and is a teacher in Ashland, said the committee hasn’t been responsive to her outreach in the past. She also had serious concerns about Baldassarre.

“I don’t know whose side he’s on, to be honest, other than his own,” she said, adding she voted for candidates she thought were most likely to hold him accountable.

Jim and Lindsey Underhill, who have two small children, one of whom will soon be in the district, said they have been following the news, but don’t have a personal connection to any of the players involved.

The couple said that regardless of whether personal relationships may be driving some of the dissension, it seems clear through the Town Meeting vote that distrust in the superintendent is causing problems for the schools.

While it seems there might be issues “on both sides,” Lindsey Underhill said, the reality is that the district sorely needs trust — and a budget — restored soon.

“The ramifications of this are far-reaching,” she said, not only for those with kids in the schools, but also for everyone’s property values.

According to the unofficial election results, 1,644 of the town’s 11,573 eligible voters cast ballots Tuesday, a turnout rate of 14%. In the five-way race for the three-year School Committee term, Pezzullo received 948 votes, Kling 918, Mandile 892, Liscinsky 746 and Lenart 517.

Selectmen John Wise and Peter DeMers were both reelected to their seats unopposed. A ballot question to fund roof and HVAC improvements at Blackstone Valley Regional Vocational Technical High School passed 821-682.

Last year’s town election, which featured no contested races for either selectmen or school district, but did have six ballot questions, featured a turnout rate of 6.9%.

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Uxbridge budget crisis: Voters send 4 new members to School Committee