Six candidates are competing for four open seats on Bayonne’s Board of Education this fall: four running together as the “Together We Can” slate and two running independently. Mayor Sharon Ashe-Nadrowski has endorsed the slate, making her choice public at a meet-and-greet at a Broadway pizzeria.
Mayor Makes Her Pick at Broadway Meet-and-Greet
Ashe-Nadrowski endorsed Robyn Kopacz, Scott Cubberly, Remonda Yacoub and John Hladik, who are running together under the “Together We Can” banner, according to Hudson County View. The meet-and-greet was held at Mona Lisa Pizzeria Ristorante on Broadway. The outlet reported that the mayor described schools and education as major concerns for residents and encouraged people to run for the school board.
Hudson County View also reported that Mark Bottino and Bayonne City Council President Melissa Godesky-Rodriguez, a former trustee, voiced support for the slate at the gathering. Hladik urged voters to support the full ticket, rather than select individual candidates, the outlet reported.
Four Seats, Six Candidates, One Resignation
The ballot has four seats: three with standard three-year terms and one one-year term, which opened after Godesky-Rodriguez stepped down from the board, according to a separate Hudson County View report. Melissa Alexander, who filled the one-year seat on an interim basis, is seeking a full three-year term as an independent. Current members Miriam Bechay, Lisa Burke and Angela Sanniola are not seeking re-election, the report said.
Kopacz, Cubberly and Yacoub are the slate’s three candidates for the three-year terms. Hudson County View’s race coverage describes Kopacz as a business owner, Cubberly as a rail logistics coordinator and Yacoub as a local real estate agent and Bayonne High School graduate.
Head-to-Head Battle for the One-Year Seat
Hladik is running for the one-year term left vacant by Godesky-Rodriguez and faces Amanda Klich, an independent candidate and former teaching assistant at Walter F. Robinson Community School. Hudson County View described it as a head-to-head contest for that seat and reported that an appointment to temporarily fill the vacancy was expected the following month.
A 2022 Hudson Reporter profile of a Together We Can slate described priorities including student and staff safety, equal access to quality education, and communication and transparency with parents and taxpayers. That profile also covered proposals to rotate board meetings among schools and hold weekly meetings with parent-teacher organizations. Those were proposals associated with the 2022 slate, not established as the current slate’s platform.
A Track Record That’s Hard to Ignore
The “Together We Can” name has appeared in multiple Bayonne school board contests. Hudson County View has reported that candidates running under the name won 12 of the 13 board seats contested in the city since Michael Alonso sought re-election. The four candidates in this fall’s slate, however, have not previously held board seats under its banner, according to the outlet.
What the Official Ballot Records Show
The Hudson County Clerk’s official master list for the November 5, 2019, Bayonne school board contest listed Jan Patrick Egan, Lisa Burke and Melissa Mathews with the “Together We Can” slogan. The clerk’s master list for the separate November 7, 2023, contest listed Lisa Burke, Miriam Bechay and Angela Sanniola under the same slogan. These records confirm the slate name was used with different candidate rosters in those elections; as ballot lists, they do not establish the election results or independently verify the reported 12-of-13 record. See the Clerk’s 2019 master list and 2023 master list.
Other reports have named different candidates running under the same “Together We Can” banner in separate election cycles. Those earlier rosters should not be confused with the four candidates on this fall’s slate.
School board turnover has been a theme elsewhere in Hudson County this year too. In Hoboken, the Building Futures Together slate swept all three seats in a four-candidate race, Hudson Reporter reports, while Jersey City’s contest saw Matthew Schneider, Tia Rezabala and Natalia Ioffe reported leading with 55 percent of votes counted. In Secaucus, seven candidates competed for three seats, with Gerry Lyons and Tatiana Geller of the Excellence in Education slate winning alongside incumbent Melissa Howard — Lyons tallying 2,233 votes and Geller 2,197 with 92 percent of precincts reporting, per the same outlet.
