Vote Montclair

"The key is that they aren't going to let this happen without us spending [a lot of money] litigating," Vote Montclair founder Erik D'Amato said.

Petitioners say they have enough signatures to prompt a referendum on moving the elections.

With enough signatures, they'd force a referendum asking you to decide if the election should be moved.

The League of Women Voters of the Montclair area decided not to study the issue again — leaving in place the same position it's had since 2009.

Several community leaders say they're not ready to pick a side, but they support the question going to voters.

Montclair would also add two more members to its current seven-member board. It would do away with its Board of School Estimate.

Ron Simoncini of the Montclair Property Owners Association asks: "Why can voters in Montclair be trusted to choose the mechanism for school board membership, but they cannot be trusted to decide if they want rent control?"

Representatives of Vote Montclair said they expected to submit their petition to the municipal clerk Wednesday.

Estep Nagy says "our school battles are now national news, and not in the good way, an easy shorthand for what to avoid."

Montclair is one of only a small number of Type II school districts in New Jersey, in which the mayor appoints school board members. In the majority of school districts in the state, which are Type I districts, voters elect the members of the school board.