WW-P Board of Education President Hemant Marathe made news in both the school district and in West Windsor on May 28 when he officially announced at the Board of Education meeting that he will not be seeking re-election in November. Instead, as he announced several days later in a letter to the editor (see page 3), he will run for mayor in West Windsor on the Republican ticket.
Said Marathe, who has served as president of the Board since 2006: “I am comfortable stepping down at this time because we have a new Superintendent [David Aderhold] already in place, as well as his replacement [Gerard Dalton], and I will have until November to work with them and help get them up to speed. We knew Victoria Kniewel was leaving within the next two years. Had she not resigned now, I probably would not have left the board at this time, because I would have been uncomfortable leaving without making sure we had the leadership in place already.”
With Marathe’s decision not to run for another term, there will be three vacancies in November.
Four people will vie for the two West Windsor spots: Louisa Ho, Yingchao Zhang, Scott Powell, and Rakesh Kak. Louisa Ho is currently a board member, having been picked by the board to serve for the remainder of former board member Robert Johnson’s term. Zhang and Kak had also applied for the temporary position, and both have announced they will be seeking to fill one of the two seats in November. The fourth person to apply for the temporary position, Cornell Edmonds, did not file an election petition. Powell had previously run for the board in 2011 but finished behind Richard Kaye and Dana Krug in the election.
Two candidates will be seeking the Plainsboro seat: Alapakkam “Mani” Manikandan and Yu “Taylor” Zhong. Manikandan was selected to fill the vacancy created when former Board member Ellen Walsh moved from Plainsboro. Like Ho, Manikandan now needs to run for election to keep that seat. Zhong applied for the temporary position but was not chosen. He announced that he would run for the position during the election.
In West Windsor, Marathe is expected to be opposed by the incumbent, Shing-Fu Hsueh. Marathe’s running mates on the Republican slate will be current council member Linda Geevers and newcomer Peter Mendonez Jr.
Although it is expected that current Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh and council member Kamal Khanna will both be seeking re-election, neither has formally announced his candidacy. Moreover, a third candidate to run for a council position on the mayor’s slate has not yet been named.
