September 18, 2013 THE VILLADOM TIMES I • Page 3 Franklin Lakes Four board candidates pull out of race by Frank J. McMahon Four of the eight candidates who filed nominating peti- tions to seek election to the Franklin Lakes K-8 Board of Education have withdrawn from the race. The school board has three trustee positions available. One incumbent, one former trustee, and two other candi- dates will compete for the three available seats in the Nov. 5 general election. Incumbent board members Jamie Martino and Richard Koenigsberg have withdrawn their nominating petitions along with candidates Victoria Holst and Susan Miller. That leaves incumbent trustee Christine Christopoul and former board member and board president Kathie Schwartz still in the race along with Ralph R Valvano and Anthony Zolfo, both of whom are newcomers in the school board election. Martino explained that his withdrawal from the school board election was caused by the demands of his business activities, which will include more travel and other work responsibilities. Koenigsberg was a 10-year member of the school board and has served as vice president, chairman of the Opera- tions Committee, and a member of the Finance and Per- sonnel committees and the board’s negotiations team. He expressed dissatisfaction with the recent actions of the board as the reason for his withdrawal. “I’ve been there 10 years and we’ve accomplished many great things,” Koenigsberg said, “but we have some very misguided people who have devastated the district.” He continued, “We have the most fantastic administrators and teachers and I support them totally, but I think they have been stripped of the resources that would have brought them to the next level.” Koenigsberg’s two high school-age children are already in a private school, and he has transferred his younger daughter from the Colonial Road School to a private school. Holst explained that she sought election to the school board because she was “disappointed in the consistent lack of transparency and consensus building among many of the trustees” and she felt “decisions were being made without consideration of large portions of the community.” She advised that an unexpected opportunity to launch a new (continued on page 20)