SOMA Action Endorses Nayar, Stephan & Higgins for BOE

by Mary Barr Mann

SOMA Action reported that 68 of 255 voting members participated in the endorsement vote, with 90% of the 68 voting for Nayar, Stephan and Higgins. The opposing slate did not participate in the process, alleging “conflict of interest.”

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The local grassroots progressive organization SOMA Action has endorsed Malini Nayar, Paul Stephan, and Meredith Higgins — running together as the “Listen. Learn. Lead.” slate — for South Orange-Maplewood Board of Education.

SOMA Action reported that 68 of 255 voting members participated in the endorsement vote, with 90% of the 68 voting for Nayar, Stephan and Higgins.

“We are very excited to endorse Malini, Paul, and Meredith,” said Allison Posner, Co-President of SOMA Action via a press release. “Throughout the evaluation process, we were consistently impressed by their dedication to partnering with us on our committees’ key priorities as well as by their openness to dialogue. They truly embody their motto of “‘Listen. Learn. Lead.’”

Read the full SOMA Action press release below.

Erika Malinoski, SOMA Action’s Co-President and main author of its voter guide, said that she and the chairs and leaders of SOMA Action’s committees (Immigration, LGBTQIA+, Social and Racial Justice, Climate, and Reimagining Safety) gathered information from candidates’ platforms, statements, professional experience, and interviews to assess “how likely it seemed that each slate would contribute meaningfully to committees’ efforts” around SOMA Action’s core values.

Those values include: protecting immigrant students and families; protecting trans students; prioritizing diversity, equity, and inclusion “even if the district is threatened with retaliation”; prioritizing integration “when making tough decisions”; prioritizing “the wellbeing of students of Color, students with disabilities, and other marginalized students; advocating for the district to implement more sustainable environmental policies; advocating for grass fields and opposing additional plans for artificial turf; and keeping students “safe and able to learn without relying on segregation, coercion, and expulsion.”

“I’m very proud of what our committees were able to accomplish this year,” said Malinoski, via the press release. “When I first moved to SOMA, it was really hard to figure out the differences between candidates in local races without ending up sucked into a toxic swamp of Facebook rumors. Our goal with the voter guide is to provide a better source of reliable, in-depth information that lets residents connect their values with their vote.”

Former BOE member Anthony Mazzocchi, who put together the “Progress. Partnership. Promise.” slate of Daniel Caplan, Ashley Donahue and Ashwat Rishi but says he is not their day-to-day campaign manager, posted on Facebook that the slate did not participate in the SOMA Action interview when, he contends, they found out that the SOMA Action Education Committee Chair Tara Mallon was acting as campaign manager of Nayar, Stephan and Higgins. [Read Mazzocchi’s full Facebook post below.] Mazzocchi called this a “conflict of interest.”

SOMA Action reported in their press release that Mallon recused herself from the evaluation process.

“When the slate first received the invitation, there was no mention that one of SOMA Action’s executive/education committee members was also serving as the campaign manager for the opposing slate,” wrote Mazzocchi. “We only discovered this connection ourselves after seeing photos from their campaign kickoff. Only when we raised it was it acknowledged, along with the explanation that this person was ‘recused’ from the process. It was only then that this recusal was published on their website, etc.”

Additionally, Mazzocchi wrote, “We were told directly by SOMA Action that ‘it would be very, very hard to win any organization’s endorsement when respected leaders have thrown down for the other team. What your participation in our evaluation process could realistically affect is whether we choose to endorse or sit on the sidelines.’ In other words, the outcome of the endorsement process was effectively predetermined. At the same time, we were cautioned that declining the interview ‘does not send a good message’ about our willingness to partner — a dynamic that raises additional concerns about fairness.”

In response to Mazzocchi’s comments, Malinoski told Village Green, “There are so many student centered ways to respond to getting negative evaluations in the voter guide. Is there evidence we missed that the slate really would do the best job of, for example, helping protect our community from ICE? Are our criteria the right ones? But I sincerely hope that at a time when community members are being snatched off the street, we can prioritize keeping our eyes on the prize despite non-ideal circumstances rather than derailing into minutiae like whether I addressed someone’s (entirely understandable) concerns about doing an interview in my first email or waited until my second.”

Malinoski continued, “Look, I get it. I got bad advice to not to talk to people the first time I ran for office, too. [Malinoski ran for district leader last year.] You live and learn and deal with the consequences. We have several public figures in the two towns who do a really good job navigating challenging constituent interactions with grace and equanimity, and I encourage everyone running to lean on them for advice and support. These next three years are going to be intense, and it’s going to take deliberate and thoughtful work to not fall into the patterns of dysfunctionality and prioritizing the wrong things that have derailed the district in the past.”

SOMA Action via the press and Malinoski also assert that Mallon had recused herself from the evaluation process before it began.

“Criteria and interview questions were drafted in collaboration between me, the committee chairs, and other leaders of those committees based on what the committees had spent at least as much time working on as we would be asking candidates to put in,” wrote Malinoski. “I queued up the evidence available relevant to each criterion (available if you click the links in the evaluations), then committee chairs/leaders reviewed that and had final say in what the evaluations were. Since our committees operate pretty independently, Tara was easy to recuse from that; she wouldn’t have been particularly involved in the first place. But if folks are wondering whether we picked questions to advantage Tara’s slate or let her help draft the criteria, the answer is no. The committees have spent countless hours trying to make real world progress on issues they care deeply about. There is zero interest in sacrificing those efforts in order to make someone else look artificially better than they are. If folks disagree with the evaluations, I encourage them to read the evidence we collected (heads up that there’s about forty pages) and point out what specific information was available to us at the time that they think we omitted due to bias. Or what conclusions they think we should have come to differently based on the information available. It’s all there for people to judge for themselves.”

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE — October 12, 2025

SOMA Action Overwhelmingly Endorses Nayar, Stephan, and Higgins for 2025 Board of Education

South Orange/Maplewood, NJ – After an extensive evaluation process, 90% of SOMA Action voters have voted to endorse Malini Nayar, Paul Stephan, and Meredith Higgins for Board of Education.

“We are very excited to endorse Malini, Paul, and Meredith,” said Allison Posner, Co-President of SOMA Action. “Throughout the evaluation process, we were consistently impressed by their dedication to partnering with us on our committees’ key priorities as well as by their openness to dialogue. They truly embody their motto of “‘Listen. Learn. Lead.’”

SOMA Action’s committees gathered information from candidates’ platforms, statements, professional experience, and interviews in order to assess how likely it seemed that each slate would contribute meaningfully to committees’ efforts to:

  • Help organize our community to protect our schools from ICE

  • Protect trans kids even if the district is threatened with retaliation for doing so

  • Prioritize diversity, equity, and inclusion even if the district is threatened with retaliation

  • Prioritize integration when making tough decisions

  • Prioritize the wellbeing of students of Color, students with disabilities, and other marginalized students instead of treating them as an afterthought

  • Advocate for the school district to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and implement sustainable policies

  • Advocate for well maintained grass fields and green spaces and oppose additional plans to install artificial turf

  • Keep students safe and able to learn without relying on segregation, coercion, and expulsion

The committees’ evaluations of the candidates are available via the SOMA Action Voter Guide under “Candidate Evaluations.” The evidence committees used in their evaluations is available by clicking each rating.

“I’m very proud of what our committees were able to accomplish this year,” added Erika Malinoski, SOMA Action’s Co-President and main author of the voter guide. “When I first moved to SOMA, it was really hard to figure out the differences between candidates in local races without ending up sucked into a toxic swamp of Facebook rumors. Our goal with the voter guide is to provide a better source of reliable, in-depth information that lets residents connect their values with their vote.”

Malinoski continued, “I wasn’t sure at the outset what we’d be able to pull off this year because nobody knew much about the candidates going in. Tara, our Education Committee chair, recused herself due to her involvement with the ‘Listen. Learn. Lead’ slate, and everyone else specializes in their issue area, not Board of Ed. But it turns out that when you start asking the right questions, the differences emerge fairly quickly. In addition to looking at what candidates chose to talk about, unprompted, in their platforms, we also reached out to the slates to do interviews about our specific issue areas. Only one slate was willing to interview with us, but we were still able to get a decent read on most issues. Who was willing to talk to us also gave us a sense of what kind of collaboration we could expect from candidates once they’re on the Board.”

“Overall, we’re really impressed with Malini, Paul, and Meredith,” Malinoski finished. “We feel they will bring thoughtful and valuable perspectives to the board as well as an openness to collaboration.”

Because only one slate chose to participate in the evaluation and endorsement process, the vote was a simple yes/no on whether to endorse the only participating slate.

Voting was open to all of SOMA Action’s 255 voting members, which consists of trustees, committee chairs, project leads, and sustaining members (those who have donated more than $20 in the last year). Sixty-eight members participated in the endorsement vote.

From Anthony Mazzocchi via Facebook, posted October 12, 2025:

A response to some of the comments embedded in different posts:

For those claiming there is no transparency around CDR slate’s campaign manager, if people would like me to claim that role I am happy to do so—but it’s a bit of a misnomer. I put together the slate, and they take responsibility for the smooth running of the campaign and all of its components. Same with the BBK slate last year. I assure you it is not because I want to stay secret; I simply think that labeling me as the “campaign manager” is not an honest assessment of my role and would undercut the hard work of the individuals managing the day-to-day organization. But if it makes people feel better to label me as such, I’m happy to accept it. I have said over and over that I am very involved, and I am.

Since it continues to be brought up in comments, I want to share some important context about the recent invitation the slate received from SOMA Action to participate in their Board of Education candidate interview process.

When the slate first received the invitation, there was no mention that one of SOMA Action’s executive/education committee members was also serving as the campaign manager for the opposing slate. We only discovered this connection ourselves after seeing photos from their campaign kickoff. Only when we raised it was it acknowledged, along with the explanation that this person was “recused” from the process. It was only then that this recusal was published on their website, etc.

Even with that recusal, the appearance of a potential conflict of interest was clear, as far as we were concerned. In elections, perception matters just as much as process, and the community deserves full transparency upfront.

In addition, the stated purpose of SOMA Action’s voter guide is not to provide neutral information to the community, but rather to evaluate which candidates will advance SOMA Action’s own committee priorities. Those were the words used SOMA Action used in their video, which I have previously posted.

While advocacy groups certainly have the right to promote their agenda, it is important for voters to understand that this is very different from a neutral voter guide (if that is what it was intended to be).

Finally, we were told directly by SOMA Action that “it would be very, very hard to win any organization’s endorsement when respected leaders have thrown down for the other team. What your participation in our evaluation process could realistically affect is whether we choose to endorse or sit on the sidelines.” In other words, the outcome of the endorsement process was effectively predetermined. At the same time, we were cautioned that declining the interview “does not send a good message” about our willingness to partner — a dynamic that raises additional concerns about fairness.

Our position was simple: all community organizations should be upfront and transparent about conflicts of interest and the goals of their endorsement processes. Community groups play an important role in elections, but they should do so in a way that builds trust and avoids even the appearance of bias.

The NJSBA Code of Ethics that all BOE candidates must recite is clear: “I will refuse to surrender my independent judgment to special interest or partisan political groups or to use the schools for personal gain or for the gain of friends.”

This has NOTHING to do with the values of any community group and how I/we feel about them and EVERYTHING to do with the perception of a conflict and BOE members’ responsibilities to serve all students. With all due respect, the slate declined to participate. If the community thinks that was a mistake all things considered, I am sure they respect that.

Given that one slate’s campaign is being run by a member of SOMA Action’s executive/education committee, I think it’s fair to ask: will all candidates publicly affirm that they will remain independent of SOMA Action — or any other partisan group — if elected? If the community does not feel that is a fair question to ask, we respect that too, but we think it is an important statement to make.

Our Board of Education should serve every student and taxpayer, not the agenda of any political organization, no matter which organization that is. I really hope we can all agree on that.

For our part, we remain committed to running a campaign based on openness, accountability, and putting students first. Good luck to all the candidates this election season.

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