WAPPINGER SCHOOL DISTRICT—Wappingers School District voters will be asked to select three members of the community to represent them on the Board of Education this coming Tuesday, May 19.

The five candidates, Aziz Ahsan, Ann Fadgen, Lori Jiava, Anthony LoCicero, and Wendy McNamara, shared their views and background information and answered residents’ questions at a Meet the Candidates Night sponsored by the Wappingers Council of PTAs last Friday evening at Roy C. Ketcham High School. The three elected will each serve a three-year term that will begin this July.

Aziz Ahsan is a 20-year district resident who lives in Hopewell Junction. He works as a patent, trademark, internet and intellectual property law attorney in Fishkill and has three children, one in college and two attending district schools. He is a member of the East Fishkill Planning Board, the Mid-Hudson Children’s Museum Board, and the Community Foundation of Dutchess County Advisory Board and formerly served as a youth soccer coach.

Ahsan said that if elected he will strive to listen to all stakeholders in the districts, from “parents’ wishes to taxpayers’ needs,” as a way of focusing on the issues at hand. He supports the budget and praised the efforts of the current BOE in crafting the budget but not some of the cuts they made, such as Enrichment, Bridge, freshman sports, and social workers. He believes a contingency budget would create a “chokehold” on the community and would prefer to see the regular budget approved by voters. He believes in “managing costs not cutting costs.”

Ahsan called the repair and maintenance of district facilities an “urgent issue” and suggested that new HVAC systems would pay for themselves in energy efficiency.

Noting that his family has “greatly benefited” from the work of faculty and staff in the WCSD, Ahsan said, “I strongly believe in supporting children and giving them all the tools necessary to face the global market.”

Ann Fadgen has lived in the district for more than 25 years and is the parent of district graduates. She has served three previous terms on the Board of Education, during which she served both as vice-president and president for two years each and had a 100 percent attendance record at board meetings.

A regular attendee at meetings since leaving the board, Fadgen said she had not planned to run this year but decided to do so after watching the board wrangle with the budget and make cuts that she felt affected children.

Fadgen said she was disturbed not only by the cuts to programs like Enrichment and Bridge but also by their comprehensive nature, noting that she believes the board should have “retained a kernel” of each of the program in order to rebuild them in the future.

Because of these cuts, and because she feels back-to-back contingency budgets are detrimental to both facilities and instruction, Fadgen said she “reluctantly” supports the budget.

If elected, Fadgen hopes to maintain small portions of programs instead of cutting them completely and plans to maintain “strong lines of communication” with the community.

She would also like find a way to work with the district’s bargaining units to on the issue of state Teachers Retirement System and Employee Retirement System contributions and use the size of the district to “leverage” some relief from the state in terms of health care costs.

Calling the upcoming election “pivotal” in the district’s future, Fadgen said that during her years on the board she has “voiced my opinions openly and firmly” and has developed a reputation as a “creative problem solver” with a “proven ability to collaborate on contentious issues.”

Lori Jiava is a lifelong district resident and WCSD alumna. The parent of a Myers Corners sixth grader and a youngster who will enter Kindergarten this year, Jiava has owned and operated a travel agency for 17 years and has been selling real estate for five years.

While she supports the budget, Jiava called the cuts by the current board “catastrophic.

“Every cut has been a direct hit,” she said, noting in particular that there is “no justification” for the elimination of social workers. In addition, she said she believes the “children are going to suffer if we go contingent.”

Jiava believes that, to address the condition of district buildings, the board must “get a list together for each building and really sell it to the community.” She also feels the money the district is currently putting into rent for its headquarters and bus facility would be better spent on a building the WCSD would own. She also believes in the continued used of SmartBoard electronic whiteboards as a “green” tool that saves paper and suggested the district seek out consultations from green builders on what’s need to make the school buildings more efficient. Redistricting, which Jiava also said might be needed to deal with class size inequities across the district, might also, in her opinion, help cut down on fuel costs.

If elected, Jiava said she will “put our children at the top of the agenda” and will “listen with an open ear” to residents and take their concerns back to WCSD administration.

Anthony LoCicero is an incumbent finishing his second term on the Board of Education. He has served as the board’s president for two years and vice-president for one year. A 16-year district resident who works in health care, LoCicero has two children currently attending WCSD schools.

LoCicero stressed his experience on the board, noting that, if elected, he will be the only trustee with more than two years’ experience.

“In these economic times, I can’t stress enough the importance of experience,” he said.

Despite having voted against the budget when it was adopted by the board because he did not agree with the elimination of social worker positions, LoCicero said he supports the budget and would not like the district to work under a contingency budget again this year.

“Contingency is dangerous,” he said, explaining that contingency budgets might seem cheaper in the short term but because they don’t allow certain types of repairs or maintenance to be done, future years will be bring a spike in taxes as these things become more urgent.

‘They are going to fall right back on you,” he said of the costs for the work that’s put off.

According to LoCicero, the long-term work of a completed master plan remains unfinished and he believes such a plan “has to come out of the next board” to address of the issues facing the district.

LoCicero said he would measure his success on the board by what he’s accomplished as a trustee and how the public views him. He urged residents, when voting, to consider “who is best suited to represent you and your children.”

Wendy McNamara is a 15-year WCSD resident. The mother of three sons attending district schools, she works as the Public Information Officer for the Poughkeepsie Public Library District. She is the current president of the Van Wyck PTO and has served on the Fishkill Elementary PTA, the Taconic Region PTA, and a variety of district committees. She also served on the East Fishkill Recreation Board for eight years, during which she designed and project-managed the construction of playgrounds at five recreation areas in the town.

McNamara said that, having served the district in the PTA, she believes that becoming a trustee is the best way to bring some of her ideas about improving the WCSD to fruition. She supports the budget, saying that contingency “basically paralyzes” the district and is “too hard to live with.” In addition, she noted, a contingency budget has a “ripple effect” on the community in that the WCSD must charge community groups to use its schools.

In terms of the cuts made to the budget by the current board, McNamara said “it’s easy to be an armchair quarterback,” but noted that she would have preferred to craft a compromise wherever possible. For example, she said that rather than cutting the Enrichment program complete, she would have suggested making it a curriculum-based program.

She called the former five-year facilities improvement plan a “sensible approach” to maintenance, adding that it should be kept separate from issues like the master plan and redistricting. She favors pursuing grants from the government and environmental sector to help improve energy efficiency in the WCSD.

McNamara’splan, if elected, is to “move some of the log-jams and get everyone working together to bring out the best in the Wappingers School District.”

The five trustee candidates will be on ballot alongside the budget and a bus proposition this Tuesday, May 19 from 7:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.