The Fayetteville-Manlius Board of Education President Marissa Mims has asked the F-M board to reject the district representatives to the OCM BOCES Board of Education from Jamesville-DeWitt and East Syracuse Minoa, who are on ballot for this year’s BOCES election. Mims said she is asking the F-M board to do this on April 27 as a symbolic gesture to show that the F-M district believes these districts are in violation of a gentleman’s agreement.
About 30 years ago, Mims said a gentleman’s agreement was put in place that determined how the 11 seats on the OCM BOCES Board of Education would be split up. OCM BOCES serves 23 districts in Onondaga, Cortland and Madison counties.
In this gentleman’s agreement, the top five districts in terms of enrollment would be allowed a seat, and the last six seats would be split up by the remaining districts. Currently, J-D and F-M share a seat on the BOCES board and ESM has their own seat.
According to Mims, since this agreement was made, F-M has grown to be in the top five districts in terms of enrollment and J-D and East Syracuse Minoa should share a seat because they are not in the top five.
Mims said when she contacted the board of education president at J-D, they said they would not comply and would continue to appoint the person they choose to the board. Since 1987, they have chosen to appoint Ann Wright, a resident of DeWitt, to the OCM BOCES Board of Education, where she has served as president of the board of 18 years.
Three years ago, Mims said she brought these issues to OCM BOCES, but no action in regards to following the gentleman’s agreement has been made.
“Unfortunately I’ve taken this ball as far as I can carry it without bringing in a bunch of ‘legal eagles,’ which would be a long and tedious process,” Mims said. “But because the gentleman’s agreement is not being honored by the BOCES board, I would ask that on the 27th we vote to approve the BOCES budget, but not to approved the Jamesville-DeWitt/Fayetteville-Manlius board representative Ann Wright or the East Syracuse Minoa board representative Wayne Brownson.”
Hayleigh Gowans is a reporter for the Eagle Bulletin. She can be reached at [email protected].
