Toms River Board President: Rodrick Pressed Me On Superintendent

TOMS RIVER, NJ — As the Toms River Regional Board of Education stares at a June 30 deadline to choose a superintendent, additional accusations have surfaced alleging Toms River Councilman Dan Rodrick has tried to influence the choice of the new superintendent.

The school board has a special meeting set for 6:30 p.m. Wednesday in the cafetorium at Toms River High School South. The board meeting will be livestreamed, but with pandemic gathering restrictions lifted, the option to call in with questions will not be offered.

School board president Joseph Nardini on Tuesday said Rodrick called him in mid-March, urging him to “flip” three board members to support superintendent candidate James Altobello, director of secondary education in the Hamilton Township Schools, over Toms River assistant superintendent James Ricotta. Nardini said the phone call that happened before board member Kathy Eagan made similar allegations in an April school board committee meeting.

In addition, Graham Commessa, husband of board member Ashley Palmiere, alleges Rodrick met with Palmiere and Lisa Contessa multiple times between August and November 2020 at Palmiere’s home at meetings that included former Ocean County Republican Chairman George Gilmore and Toms River Republican Club president Geri Ambrosio.

The allegations have prompted a group of parents to start a petition calling for the resignation of Palmiere and Contessa and calling for a recall campaign for Kevin Kidney, who represents Pine Beach and has aligned himself with them.

Rodrick on Monday evening denied meeting with anyone or discussing the superintendent candidates with anyone. On Tuesday, in response to a request for comment on Nardini’s allegation, Rodrick said: “He (Nardini) is a liar who gave money to my opponent Jason Crispin.”

Palmiere said her husband “was never home when the campaign meetings took place,” and claimed Commessa was coerced into speaking on the matter.

Contessa, in an emailed response, said: “This shameless attempt to pressure Ms. Palmieri and I into voting for Mr. Ricotta demonstrates that Mr. Nardini and his friends on the board will stop at NOTHING to get Mr. Ricotta appointed as Superintendent, to protect professional service contracts for his friends and protect the jobs of his family members.”

Rodrick, in response to Commessa’s allegations, blamed Nardini, saying: “Mr. Nardini's only concern is the construction referendum and the Democratic professionals he just rehired. Nardini ran the largest unionized electrical company in Ocean County and Democratic County Chairman Wyatt Earp was his foreman. Now they're working together again — this time to smear me in the middle of an election.”

Nardini said he stopped seeking electrical contracts with the school district when he was elected to the school board in November 2015. He retired from the business in 2020. His daughter is a tenured teacher in the district.

Nardini said the phone call from Rodrick happened while he was in Florida with his wife.

“I answered it on speaker like I always do,” Nardini said Tuesday. “It was Rodrick asking me to flip the votes of Anna, Michele and Alex,” referring to board vice president Anna Polozzo, and board members Michele Williams and Alex Mizenko.

Nardini said his wife and others present heard the conversation. He notified Stephan Leone, the school board’s attorney, about Rodrick’s phone call at that time.

Leone confirmed Tuesday that Nardini had notified him in March about Rodrick’s phone call pushing for Altobello.

When Eagan spoke up at the April 21 school board committee meeting saying she had been contacted by a councilman urging her to push another board member to support Altobello, Nardini said he debated what to do.

“Should I open my mouth or not?” he said of his thoughts at the time. “I knew she wasn’t lying.” Read more: Toms River School Board Member Accuses Councilman Of Interference

Nardini said he had learned Altobello was a candidate during a conversation with Ambrosio that he said happened while she was seeking signatures to run for state Assembly in the 10th District.

“She came flying in my driveway asking me to sign a petition for her for the Assembly,” Nardini said, “and she said to me, ‘Lisa and Ashley would love for you to meet this guy Altobello.’ I was baffled how she knew (his name).”

Candidate petitions for the June 8 primary election had to be submitted by April 5, which would put the conversation between Ambrosio and Nardini well before the June 16 meeting where Altobello’s name was revealed as one of the finalists when Kidney nominated him to become the new superintendent.

A request to Ambrosio for comment was not answered as of 6 p.m.

The search process and interviews were conducted in executive sessions where Nardini and Eagan were excluded because both have family members who would be supervised by the district superintendent. Information discussed in executive sessions is supposed to be kept confidential. But the status of Altobello and Ricotta as finalists was widespread public knowledge from at least mid-April and the source of intense debate.

Commesso said it was the events of the June 16 meeting, where both Ricotta and Altobello failed to garner five votes to become the next superintendent, that pushed him to come forward.

In a telephone interview Sunday, Commesso said the meetings involving Palmiere, Contessa, and Rodrick, along with Ken Londregan, who was Palmiere and Contessa’s running mate, happened frequently from the end of August to November. Justin Lamb, Rodrick’s council running mate, and Gilmore and Ambrosio attended some of the meetings but not all, he said.

“They tried to schedule them once a week,” he said. The goal, he said, was that “if Lisa and Ashley got in, they could be used as a block to get whatever was needed swung their way.”

That was particularly the goal with the superintendent hiring, Commesso said. He said the issue of replacing the superintendent came up, and two names — Altobello and Triantafillos Parlapanides, the Central Regional superintendent — came up as candidates who could be controlled, Commessa said.

“I was looking forward to the challenge of a large district,” Parlapanides said in an email to Patch. “I was interviewed through Zoom and then received a rejection letter three weeks later. The Board seemed very nice and it was an enjoyable process.”

Repeated requests to Altobello for comment have gone unanswered.

Commessa said he supported his wife’s campaign for school board — public posts on his Facebook page show that support — but said he saw a change in her after she got involved in the political arena. He said the events of recent school board meetings led him to speak up.

“What’s right is right and what’s wrong is wrong,” he said. “The school board is not the place where politics should be. They should be trying to do what’s right for the district.”

Palmiere on Monday evening said Commessa was not around for the campaign meetings, which she said focused on things such as fundraising and the color of the campaign signs.

She said she and Contessa did not know anything about who the candidates for the superintendent’s position were until early February, after they were sworn in and received access to school board documents and information.

“How could we have known who the candidates were?” she said. “Anna kept that information secret.”

Palmiere said Commessa was making the allegations as retribution over their impending divorce, which she said is very bitter. She and Lamb have been romantically involved, and she alleges Commessa was unfaithful as well.

Commessa said he is not motivated by the divorce.

“If she wants to be happy, good for her,” he said. “You can’t control people. I’m focused on my son and my family. I’m not going to spend my time being mad.”

"I'm so much happier now," Commessa said.

“Frankly, it is disgusting that the Board President Nardini would use surrogates to coordinate with my ex-husband as a form of political pressure,” Palmiere said.

Commessa said it was the politics that were the issue. He received a text message from Contessa over the weekend where Contessa noted that she and her husband had helped him get his job.

“Tommy and I worked really hard to help you get your job because we genuinely like you and want you to do well regardless of your relationship status,” Contessa wrote. “You know me and how much I care about this district so I’m not sure why you would align yourself with people who want to cause harm to me politically. Can you explain?”

Contessa did not respond to a question seeking clarification on the text message.

“I had my reservations about saying something,” Commesso said. “I’m not saying anything that’s untrue.”

“The district needs someone who’s invested in the kids and not their own interests,” Commesso said.

During the June 16 meeting, Williams nominated Ricotta to become the next superintendent, replacing interim Thomas Gialanella, whose last day in the district will be Wednesday. The nomination failed, as Williams, Mizenko, Polozzo and Jennifer Howe voted in favor, and Kidney, Contessa and Palmiere voted against. Kidney’s motion for Altobello failed, with Kidney, Contessa and Palmiere voting in favor, and Williams, Mizenko, Howe and Polozzo voting against. Five votes are needed for approval; Nardini, whose daughter works in the district, and Eagan, who has four family members working in the district, cannot vote on the superintendent as a result. Read more: Failed Superintendent Vote Prompts Special Meeting In Toms River

After Eagan’s April 21 statement, Palmiere emailed the Toms River council and accused Eagan of trying to influence the superintendent search, pushing for Toms River South principal Michael Citta. Citta had been an assistant superintendent years ago and interviewed for the superintendent post, but was not a finalist and had told people he was out of the running. Read more: Accusations Fly Over Toms River Superintendent Search

In response, Eagan named Rodrick as the councilman who contacted her. Rodrick, a teacher in Middletown, and Eagan know each other through teachers union events, Eagan said. Rodrick called Eagan's statements "nothing more than a political stunt." Read more: Toms River Superintendent Search Accusations Heat Up

The search process began in October, after David Healy announced his retirement. That process included six listening sessions with parents, staff and the community, where the overwhelming majority of the comments urged the school board to hire someone from within the district.
Ricotta has spent his more than 35-year career in the Toms River schools, starting as a teacher and working his way up to assistant superintendent.

Altobello has been the director of secondary education for the Hamilton schools since February 2019. Before that he was principal at Navesink Elementary School in Middletown from May 2012 to January 2019; vice principal at Bolger Middle School in Keansburg from August 2008 to May 2012, according to his Linked In profile and Keansburg documents online; and began his career in the Brick Township Schools, where he was a teacher at Lake Riviera Middle School before being promoted to assistant principal in 2006, according to a CentralJersey.com report at the time.

Click here to get Patch email notifications, or download our app to have breaking news alerts sent right to your phone. Have a news tip? Email karen.wall@patch.com Follow Toms River Patch on Facebook.