Eicher, Hearle Close Out Years of Service on Pelham School Board

Tuesday night’s school board meeting was the last meeting of the year, but it also represented a changing of the guard.

and both attended their last meeting as school board members.

For Robert Eicher, the current school board president, is leaving after six years on the board. For Hearle, it marked the end of his second stint on the school board.  He served from 1972 to 1978, before serving again in 2009.

Both men were honored before the start of this week’s meeting.

Eicher said he was pleased to leave the school district position for the future financially.

“One of the reason I ran was because our tax increases back in the day were 7 or 8 percent a year and I didn’t that was going to be sustainable for Pelham long term,” Eicher said. “I didn’t think there was going to be a tax cap necessarily to address, but that was one of the reason I ran and I leave the board with its AAA rating intact.”

Prior to Eicher’s speech, Hearle recited the the Rudyard Kipling poem “Gunga Din” to rousing ovation before bowing out.

Eicher and Hearle are being replaced on the board by incoming candidates Michael Recca and Madeline Smith. Smith and Recca will begin their three-year terms July 1.