Sea Isle City — The Sea Isle City Board of Education members came to the July 21 board meeting expecting to interview and select a new member to join them.

They ran into a small technical difficulty; they hadn’t officially notified the candidates about the interviews.

The school board is seeking to fill the seat vacated by Robert Smith last month. Smith resigned at the June 16 meeting after his fellow board members informed him of their intent to remove him from the board due to excessive absenteeism.

A school board has 65 days to fill a vacant seat. Failing to do so, that duty would fall on county Executive Superintendent of Schools Terrence Crowley.

Two residents applied to fill the vacant seat through the next school election in April 2010. The candidates are Tom Szczurek, who formerly served on the board including a stint as board president, and Jodi LaRosa, a parent who made an unsuccessful run for the school board in April. LaRosa was present at Tuesday’s meeting, but Szczurek was not.

Board solicitor Mark Toscano stopped the selection process shortly after the meeting began. Toscano said that, in discussions with Chief School Administrator Dr. Michael Schreiner, he became aware that required written notice of the interviews was not sent to either candidate.

“My recommendation is to not interview the candidates tonight, send the written notifications to both candidates, and vote at your next meeting,” Toscano said.

“Oh you’ve got to me kidding me,” LaRosa, seated in the small audience, responded. She said that, although written notice was not given, she was told informally to expect the decision to be made at the July 21 meeting when she dropped off her letter of interest.

The board expects to vote on the two candidates at its Aug. 18 meeting, just a few days short of the 65-day deadline.

Board Vice President Dan Tumolo asked if, since the board has another month before the decision will be made, the application process could be reopened to any other interested candidates. The advertised deadline was Tuesday.

Several board members said they were not in favor of reopening the application period.

“The opening has been out there this long, and if they haven’t come forward yet, then I think they missed their chance,” Joe Schmidt said.

Board member Ellen Ramsey reminded the board that, with a previous board opening, a school administrator (prior to Schreiner) chose to accept a letter of interest after the published deadline, “because he wanted more candidates.” Ramsey said the board needed to stick to the original advertised cut-off date.

Tumolo persisted, and made a motion to extend more time to apply for the board vacancy, but the motion died when he could not get another board member to second it.

The school board voted to schedule interviewing of candidates at the Tuesday, Aug. 18 board meeting. Tumolo voted against the motion, along with Schmidt, who said he was voting no “just to be different.”

Interviews of the candidates will take place in public. The board can then go into closed session to deliberate and discuss the candidates, but the vote on the candidates will take place in public. The meeting, at the Park Road school, starts at 6 p.m. and is open to the public.