Livingston’s Board-Town liaison committee has set the next “Five on Five” meeting for Wednesday, September 6. The date was announced at the Tuesday, August 8, Board of Education meeting.
The Board-Town liaison committee was formed in January and is meant to streamline communications between Board of Education members andtheTownCouncilmembers. It consists of superintendent Matthew Block, Board vice president Pamela Chirls, Board member Seth Cohen, Township Manager Barry Lewis, Council member Ed Meinhardt, and Council member Rosy Bagolie.
This will be the first Five on Five meeting - where both governing bodies meet for a public meeting - since “the end of last year,” according to Board president Vineeta Khanna.
The meetings were intended to be held regularly, but finding a date when all parties are available has been difficult, Meinhardt said at the July 24 Town Council meeting. With enrollment increases and redevelopment moving quickly in Livingston, residents raised concern for lacking communication between the two entities at that same Council meeting.
“We did have a meeting this summer with the Board and Town Liaison Committee. The purpose of that is to just coordinate - the two of us with the two of them - and to share back with our colleagues anything about development and community that might affect the school community,” Chirls said at Tuesday’s meeting.
“So we are just at the very beginning stages of that coordination,” Chirls continued. “But I think we will talk about some of the ideas at the table when we meet in our Five on Five meeting in early September.”
She said that the committee has met three times, and that they talked about meeting “with more frequency.”
“But I think what we should do first is have our Two on Two meeting with the mayor and the deputy mayor to set the agenda for the Five on Five. And then coming out of the Five on Five, we will have coordinated with each other, we will have heard from the community. And we can start a more regular cadence during the school year of meetings,” she said.
Khanna said that, during the last Five on Five meeting, the Board had presented Council members with a “demographic study” and “capacity analysis.”
“Whatever we find out, we do let them know, as soon as we have something to share with them,” Khanna said.
