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Somers Passes Budget, Elects Marra, Chang And Rosenblum

SOMERS, N.Y. -- Attorney Joseph Marra will join incumbents Ifay Chang and Donna Rosenblum on the Somers Central School District's Board of Education. 

Voters approved the proposed 2013-14 Somers Central School District budget Tuesday.

Voters approved the proposed 2013-14 Somers Central School District budget Tuesday.

Photo Credit: File

Somers voters selected the three candidates to fill the three vacant seats on the school board and passed the proposed 2013-14 district budget, school officials announced Wednesday. The budget passed with 1,192 affirmative votes and 469 negative votes. Chang led the way for the candidates garnering 1,047 votes, Rosenblum took in 960, Marra grabbed 878 with other candidates Karen Frieri (850) and Richard Wagner (678) following. 

Joseph Marra has a daughter who is a junior at Somers High School. Marra believes his experience as an attorney representing citizens suing school districts and other cases representing school boards gives him a strong background in education issues.

“People are concerned about the tax base and what they’re going to be paying in taxes,” he said during the candidate's debate earlier this month. “We have a silver lining here. At least for the immediate future, the population of the school district is going down. If there are less students, there will be less of a need for personnel and other services. No one wants to cut anything but you’re going to have no choice and unfortunately that might be personnel.”

Incumbent Ifay Chang had the most experience of all five of the candidates running with six years on the Somers Board of Education. Three of his four children are Somers graduates and his youngest is a student at Somers High School. 

“I want to devote my semi-retirement time to education,” Chang said during the debate. “Serving on the board, I’ve realized (cutting) is not a very easy task. I think we have to worry about all of the children in the town and this process has to be a give and take and not making a serious impact on the service level.”

Incumbent Donna Rosenblum was appointed to the board in January after Anthony Cirieco resigned. She has children in eighth and tenth grade in Somers.

“There are many challenges ahead for Somers, including facing difficult budgets and making legislative changes,” she said during the debate. “Making cuts is a very scary thing. We are number 17 of average spending per student [out of 18 in Putnam/Northern Westchester]. We’re pretty efficient right now and it is scary but there are realities and if we have to make cuts I think we will try to make cuts that have the least impact on learning.”  

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