Ethics charges dropped against ex-member

School board member’s resignation given as reason, By Tom Hoffman WANTAGE - The Sussex-Wantage Regional School District’s Board of Education has dropped ethics charges against former board member Art Jacobs. Marina Krynicky, vice president of the school board, who filed the ethics charges against Jacobs with the state’s School Ethics Commission in July, said she recently wrote to the commission to ask for their guidance on how to handle the situation after Jacobs had resigned from the board in August. “They (the commission) responded that we could drop the charges if we wanted to, so we notified them that we would,” said Krynicky. She said she had corresponded with the School Ethics Commission over the past few weeks. Jacobs said he was notified by the School Ethics Commission by letter on Oct. 21 that the charges had been “administratively dismissed.” He continues to maintain that the charges were baseless. How it began Sussex-Wantage Board member Kathryn Compa recommended charges be brought against Jacobs at the board’s June 24 meeting. She claimed he had breached the board’s confidentiality when he forwarded information on board-related activities via e-mail to former board member Raymond Delbury. In addition, Compa said Jacobs violated the state Department of Education’s code of ethics when he repeatedly suggested that board president Thomas Card was guilty of nepotism. Card has family members who work for the district. He recused himself from involvement in the ethics charges involving Jacobs. Jacobs stands by his initial statements that he did nothing wrong. He said he sent school board-related information to Delbury while Delbury was still an active member of the school board. When contacted by The Advertiser-News to confirm that the ethics charges had been dropped against Jacobs, state Department of Education spokesman Richard Vespucci said he was prevented from discussing specific ethics cases under the laws of the School Ethics Commission. However, Jacobs faxed a copy of the notification letter he received from the School Ethics Commission to The Advertiser-News. The letter acknowledges the commission had received Krynicky’s formal request to drop the charges.