BOE To Hold Special Meeting On Renting Central Office Space

The Fort Lee Board of Education is holding a special public work session Thursday to discuss and potentially approve a lease agreement to relocate the school district’s central office space to Lemoine Ave.

At last week’s regular business meeting, the board approved a resolution authorizing SSP Architectural Group to submit plans to the state for converting the current central office on Whiteman St. into classrooms but pulled an item off the agenda that would have approved a five-year lease for office space at 2175 Lemoine Ave.

On Thursday, the school board will meet for a special private work session from 6 to 7 p.m. “to discuss negotiable terms of rental agreements,” according to the official notice of the meeting. After the private session, the board will move to the library for the public session—starting at 7 p.m.—at which they expect to take action on the resolution.

“The special meeting is solely for approving that lease,” said school board president Arthur Levine, adding that the agenda item was pulled last week because the board didn’t want to rush into approving something about which “there were some questions.”

“It’s being re-reviewed, and it could very well be fine,” Levine said. “It’s just that we wanted to double-check it. It’s still the same address that was on the agenda.”

He said no other locations are being considered.

“We just want to make sure that everything we had agreed to verbally is correct,” Levine said.

The special public work session is Thursday at 7 p.m. in the School No. 1 library.