FLOW Area February 22, 2012 THE VILLADOM TIMES I • Page 7 District may remove Saxton’s name from building by Frank J. McMahon The Ramapo Indian Hills Board of Education is contemplating the removal of former superintendent Paul J. Saxton’s name from the administrative office building at Indian Hills High School. The issue was raised at the school board’s special meeting last week which was scheduled to permit the board to vote on moving its annual election from April to November. The resolution concerning the potential name removal was addressed by Wyckoff resident Thomas Madigan, a former trustee. However, that resolution was removed from the agenda prior to the start of the meeting. School Board President Ira Belsky declined to discuss the matter, saying the resolution would likely be on the agenda for the board’s Feb. 27 meeting, although that it is not definite at this time. Madigan said the board’s resolution was a “slap in the face” to the former trustees who voted to name the building after Saxton in 2008. He said the claim in the resolution that the action of the former school board was taken without a policy or any uniform criteria to guide the board is not true. According to Madigan, the board at that time decided a policy was not needed because the authority to name the building rested with the school board. Madigan pointed out that the district previously named other facilities after former employees under the same authority, and that its action to name the administration building after Saxton was based on the former superintendent’s accomplishments for the district. Madigan urged the board to table the resolution permanently, saying, “It would set a poor precedent and disparage the history of the district and the former board members who served with caring compassion.” The building was named for Saxton, who was superintendent from 1997 to 2008, at the April 28, 2008 board meeting. At that same meeting, Belsky, who was then a school board trustee, read a prepared statement in which he criticized some school board members and Saxton over how the district was managed and operated. Saxton responded at the time that his evaluations in 11 years as the school district’s superintendent were “commendable” and his evaluations over the 28 years he had been a superintendent had also been commendable. The board at that time attempted to censure Belsky for his comments about an employee of the district at a public meeting, but ultimately voted not to proceed with a censure resolution when several members of the public urged the board to stop spending money on the censure resolution and to get on with the educational issues facing the district. In 2009, Saxton filed a lawsuit against Belsky for slander and libel. That lawsuit was dismissed by Superior Court Judge Robert L Polifroni in December 2011. The judge ruled that Saxton’s lawsuit did not meet the “clear and convincing” standard required for defamation, which is that the defendant’s statements were knowingly false or made with a reckless disregard for the truth. Saxton also filed a lawsuit against the regional school district and the board of education in a dispute over his pension and for not paying him for about $160,000 for his unused sick and vacation days and a consulting fee for helping with the district’s transition to a new superintendent. The pension portion of the suit was dismissed after the state pension board ruled that the school board did not have the authority to promise that some of Saxton’s compensation would be pensionable. The part of the lawsuit pertaining to the sick days and vacation days is still pending in (continued on page 21)