BOE Candidates Comment After Election

The first Board Of Education (BOE) in years to have more candidates than seats available ended Tuesday with only a little over 100 votes separating newcomers Rodric Bowman and Sundjata Sekou, with Mr. Bowman receiving the 3rd highest number of votes to join incumbent candidates Chris Miller and Jeof Vita on the BOE.

After the election, all the candidates offered words of congratulations and thanks for their support.

BOE President Chris Miller stated, “I would like to thank all of the voters and parents for their involvement and participation in the process. I thank them for their trust in my work and I look forward in this exciting time to working with my fellow Board members in order to continue moving our district forward the next three years.”

“I’m humbled and honored to have earned another three years to serve Roselle Park,” said BOE member Jeof Vita, “I believe in our town and our students and I know that we are going to continue to make great strides together. As always, I am prepared to work as hard as necessary to make sure the job gets done. Thank you for your confidence in me and I will do my best to keep earning it every day. Now it’s time to get to work.”

Rodric Bowman commented, “I am just humbled by the support I have received and eager to get things moving in the right direction, I look forward to working with Mr. Vita, Mr. Miller and the other BOE members to make the Roselle Park School District the best it can possibly be. Thanks to my wife for her support and all of my friends in the Park. Thank you, I will do you proud.”

“When I started on this journey, most people did not know my face, my name, or how to pronounce my name,” remarked Sundjata Sekou, “I was not an incumbent, I certainly did not make any side deals, nor did I have a team. I simply communicated with [voters] on social media then went door-to-door with my message. Although I did not win, thank you Roselle Park. This is not the end. It is the beginning of a great relationship!”

Below is a breakdown of the votes per district in each ward. It reveals that although Mr. Miller won in three of the five wards in the Borough (Wards 1, 2, and 5), both Mr. Sekou and Mr. Vita garnered the most votes in one ward each with Mr. Sekou receiving more votes than any other candidate in Ward 3 while Mr. Vita had the only triple digit vote tally in the 4th Ward.

WARDDISTRICT
RODRIC BOWMAN
CHRIS MILLER
SUNDJATA SEKOU
JEOF VITA
1
1
52
113
88
163
45
89
66
145
2
51
75
44
79
2
1
90
198
135
264
74
117
113
226
2
108
129
43
113
3
1
20
92
37
109
39
124
29
96
2
72
72
85
67
4
1
36
87
45
99
38
85
48
113
2
51
54
47
65
5
1
37
122
41
146
27
122
44
144
2
85
105
69
100
TOTAL
612
781
511
724
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