UPDATE: Making their cases

By Tom Davidson
Herald Staff Writer

BROOKFIELD October 20, 2009 10:08 pm

— “In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then he made School Boards.”
So wrote Mark Twain a century ago — without visiting Brookfield.
School board member Kelly Carrier-Bianco got some laughs when she used the quote at a meet-the-candidates night Tuesday at the high school auditorium.
Twain’s comment is “too true” in Brookfield, where school board members have slapped each other like sophomores and made headlines that have made the district “the laughingstock of the Shenango and Mahoning valleys,” Mrs. Carrier-Bianco said.
“The time has come when we prove this quote false,” she said.
She’s joined in that endeavor by former board member Rhonda Bonekovic and Gwen Martino, one of the leaders of the “Save Our Schools” group that formed to protest the practices led by former school board president Joseph Pasquerilla, who once controlled a majority voting bloc on the five-member board.
A resignation and election have changed the makeup of the board and Pasquerilla and Dean Fisher have been in the minority since Mrs. Carrier-Bianco was tapped by Trumbull County courts to fill Steven Varga’s seat in 2008. Ronald Brennan — who was slapped by Pasquerilla at a closed meeting that year — and retired teacher and principal Timothy Filipovich, who serves as president of the board, round out the group.
Mrs. Carrier-Bianco, Ms. Bonekovic and Ms. Martino said they support each other’s candidacies for the three seats up for grabs in November. It’s either them or a bloc controlled by Pasquerilla that also includes his wife, Ann, and his daughter, Rachel.
The Pasquerillas didn’t attend the candidates’ night, sponsored by the non-partisan Brookfield-Masury Women’s Club. They also didn’t return messages seeking comment left on Joe Pasquerilla’s cell phone.
“The right board needs to be assembled and I believe (a) board controlled by a single family won’t work,” Mrs. Carrier-Bianco said to applause from the crowd of less than 100 who sat in the circa-1970s wooden seats bearing carvings of students now grown old.
A new school is being built at state Route 82 and Bedford Road and the school board needs to “put the right people in the right place” to improve the school system, Mrs. Carrier-Bianco said.
Ms. Bonekovic agreed and said it was time to end the divisive practices of the board in recent years that have resulted in lawsuits and discontent in the district.
“The past is the past and the future is now starting,” Ms. Bonekovic said. “I’m here to help heal this community.
“What our community needs is independent thinkers. I’m only one person,” she said.
Board members may not always agree but they need to work together for the “common good,” Ms. Bonekovic said.
Ms. Martino said the board has “lost its focus on what’s important — our children.”
Cuts that Pasquerilla and company have called fiscally responsible have “short-changed the children,” Ms. Martino said.
“You can’t keep cutting your way to solvency, you can’t balance the budget on the backs of the children,” she said.
The district has made cuts — including teacher layoffs — because Brookfield Township residents have denied attempts to increase school property taxes for more than a decade. Voters in 2007 did approve a 7.4-mill, 28-year levy to help build the new $23.2 million school.
Candidates for township trustee and information about issues on the ballot including a police renewal levy were also discussed at the event.