At NAACP meeting, questions arise over Inman's job

By Chris Sykes, Staff Writer
The questions and controversy surrounding the hiring of ex-Irvington Board of Education President Paul Inman to be the Irvington Public Schools district’s new facilities manager does not seem to be going away anytime soon.
Inman stepped down from his board position last year, opting not to run for re-election. Last week at the Irvington NAACP chapter’s monthly meeting at Greater New Point Baptist Church on Paine Avenue, Elouise McDaniel, the head of the Irvington Joint Block Association Coalition, and Merrick Harris, a member of the Irvington Rotary Club and the nation’s oldest civil rights, organization asked a series of questions, including inquiring about Inman’s eligibility and suitability to work in the public school district as a buildings and facilities manager even though he is currently fighting sexual harassment charges from another current board employee who works as a security guard in one of the schools.
“The board recently hired an ex-board member to a new position and that board member has a legal case against him where it seems like the public school district and therefore we the taxpayers are paying for his defense,” Harris said. “I can’t see the rationale for hiring this person when he is already costing the district money. How does the board justify this hiring?”
McDaniel also said that she wanted to know whether or not Inman is qualified and certified to hold his new position. And she also took Anthony “Tony” Vauss, the current board president, to task for criticizing the state Board of Education’s decision to impose a new no-nepotism policy on the public school district through a unilateral decision by its appointed fiscal monitor.
McDaniel said the fact that Inman was hired to a high-paying position almost immediately after resigning from the board is proof that the new policy was needed, even though the majority of the current board voted against it. She also said that in light of the Irvington public school district’s previous issues with failing to do proper background checks on board employees and associates with questionable criminal backgrounds who were accused of endangering and molesting children, she does not believe that Inman should have been hired before his sexual harassment case was settled.
“I think that a lot of people would like to know,” McDaniel said. “When you look at all the nepotism and cronyism that is going on in Irvington, I think that a policy against nepotism is a good thing to have.”
Vauss said that Inman is qualified to hold his current job or else he would not have been hired in the first place. And when it comes to the sexual harassment charges, Vauss said that those allegations are currently being handled in court so he could not discuss them but even if he could he said that in America people are supposed to be considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
“I don’t know where the information is coming from that he is costing the district money because that is not true,” Vauss said. “A lot of times we have people in these positions but we don’t hear a peep about them. The last guy who had the position was making more money than Paul is and he had less qualifications and certifications than Paul does right now. But nobody ever had anything to say about that until Paul got the job.”
Vauss said that Inman’s credentials are from Rutgers University. He said that if it hadn’t been for Vitale leaving the district for another job somewhere else then “none of this would have ever come up.”
“Paul also had other opportunities in other districts that he could have taken,” Vauss said. “We’re trying
to change the climate and the thinking of folks when it comes to the Irvington Public Schools. We’re trying to get away from the negativity
and crabs-in-the-barrel mentality
that has been plaguing our
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