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Brennan, Sharin honored at Belmar Board of Ed. meeting

February 3, 2010 by Star News Group: Belmar Headlines
Filed under StarNewsGroup.com

By Zach Levine

The members of the Belmar Board of Education held their first meeting of 2010 on Thursday evening, and the session began in a celebratory manner, with a show of appreciation for Matthew Sharin and Meredith Brennan, for their years of work with Belmar Elementary School.

Mr. Sharin was formerly the board of education president. He resigned last September, citing a conflict with new employment.

Before his abrupt resignation, Mr. Sharin was a member of the board of education for 18 years, serving as board president for the last 13 years.

Thursday’s meeting began when Mr. Sharin was presented with a plaque commemorating his service on the board, complete with a miniature gavel, a staple of all board of education presidents.

Following the presentation, Belmar Parent-Teacher Organization [PTO] President Jean Folker stepped forward, and gave another present to Mr. Sharin.

She explained that, as this is the centennial anniversary of the Belmar Elementary School, the school is participating in a special fundraiser where select books throughout the library will be dedicated to special individuals from the school and local community.

Mrs. Folker said she was pleased to announce that the book, Young People in U.S. History, will forever have the name of Matthew Sharin printed on the inside cover of the book at the Belmar Elementary School Library.

After brief applause, Mr. Sharin thanked everyone in attendance and on the board of education for the honor.

“Thank you for all of this,” he said. “I have made a lot of great friendships working with all of you on the board, and I will miss you guys.”

After the presentation in honor of Mr. Sharin, Mrs. Folker then announced she had a book to dedicate to Mrs. Brennan, as well, who was in attendance to discuss the town mural project with the school.

Mrs. Brennan recently resigned from the Belmar Borough Council after six years, saying she wanted to spend more time with her ailing mother.

Mrs. Folker said, through her years on council, Mrs. Brennan always looked out for the school, and cited Mrs. Brennan’s “tireless” work for the environment as president of the Belmar Environmental Commission.

In that same vein, she offered Mrs. Brennan her own book in the Belmar Elementary School library, this one dealing with the environment, titled, Planet Earth.

“I didn’t expect that — it was really very sweet of them,” Mrs. Brennan said.

Following the presentation, Mrs. Brennan began her discussion of the town-wide mural project by bringing forth local painter Doug “Doug Z” Zwirz, who will be working with the borough’s tourism commission on the mural project.

Mrs. Brennan said, after talks with the tourism commission and borough council, the commission thought the best ideas for locations of the murals throughout town would be on the back of the dugout of the Belmar Elementary School baseball field, as well as a cement enclosure on the side of the school where large garbage containers are stored.

Mr. Zwirz said, for the dugout, he would like to paint a mural of a sun, with the sky and clouds behind it.

He added the tourism commission wanted him to add the borough’s Web site address to all prospective mural designs, so his idea was to have a plane flying in the background of the picture, with a banner trailing behind that gave the borough’s Web address, belmar.com.

Numerous members of the board of education said they were in favor of the idea, adding they especially liked having the plane with the banner floating behind.

“I really do like that plane idea,” said Cheri Adams, President of the Belmar Board of Education.

Mr. Zwirz then showed off his idea for the cement enclosure by the school’s garbage containers, which would feature a surfer riding a wave, with the wave made out of the pages of an open book.

Councilwoman Brennan said the only issue people on the tourism commission had with that design was that there was not a female presence in the mural, so Mr. Zwirz added a mermaid to the side of the painting to correct that situation.

In response, the board of education members said they would rather see a male and female surfer both riding the waves, than a mermaid sitting on the side of the painting, which Mr. Zwirz said was quite doable.

One board member, Dennis Lepore, asked if the school’s Web site could be displayed anywhere on the mural, and Mrs. Brennan said the only problem with that is the school’s Web address is very long, so just belmar.com will be featured.

She added, however, the school’s Web site will be featured as a prominent link on belmar.com in the near future.

Another board member asked what the borough would do about graffiti vandalism on the murals, and Mrs. Brennan replied that, after painting the murals, a special sealant would be applied to the paintings, making it much easier for graffiti to be washed off.

The board of education members said they all loved the ideas Mrs. Brennan and Mr. Zwirz proposed, and they said they looked forward to seeing the final designs of the murals before giving final approval for painting to get under way.

More Belmar news, plus full coverage of southern Monmouth and northern Ocean counties, can be found at starnewsgroup.com.

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