Manasquan School Board President Over Discord: 'Stop the Fighting, Bury the Hatchet'

New Manasquan school board president Thomas Bauer began this week's school board meeting with a plea: Stop the fighting, move forward, put aside bad attitude and collaborate.

The board, which has seen several resignations this year, is searching for a superintendent, and is negotiating a teacher's contract, has also been faced with criticism from within and from the community recently. Board Member Mike Shelton received a vote of no confidence from the teachers' union, and the April board meeting was rife with tearful pleas, arguments and accusations from the community and the board.

Bauer urged to the audience and his fellow board members to let all that past stay in the past, and move forward.

Some of his comments from the start of the meeting:

"Forget the recent past. Let it go. Stop the negative behavior. The negative anonymous blogging, the OPRA requests, the gossip. Just stop it.”

"It has become a cancer in this community.

"I’m asking all of you to please let it go.

"Our last meeting was a little bit ugly.

"With all that’s been done and said, some is rumor and some is fact…The only way to move on is to forgive and forget. We’ve got to bury the hatchet guys.”

His words received moderate applause from the audience, now in the school auditorium for board meetings. Bauer throughout the meeting thanked the audience and emphasized a return to civility and encouraged positive messages.

However, the school meeting was still the first one after the teachers union held its meeting in May with its no confidence vote, which it presented last night to the board.