Now that the Herald-Mail has printed a story about the meeting at Always Rons several weeks ago between a private citizen, Karen Harshman, Mike Guessford, Stan Stouffer, Melissa Williams, and Terry Baker, I wish to comment. The three of these individuals who are running for the Bd of Ed had been having such meetings for a while. It is against the law to discuss personnel matters publicly prior to their being voted on and being made public. Mrs. Harshman has insisted that regardless of the fact that the restaurant is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, the groups meetings are open to the public. So this was a public meeting according to her. It is Board Operating Procedures for any Board member who is approached by a citizen about a school system concern to report the information to the rest of the members along with the Superintendent. This was not done nor has it been done to date (9/1/2014) by either Board member present. Further, if, as Mrs. Harshman claims, the private citizen called and asked if he could talk to them, she should have stopped the meeting the moment she realized this was a personnel matter whether the Board had previously received specific information about this particular matter or not. WhenMrs. Harshman did not stop the meeting, Mrs. Williams should have done so. It is certainly one of Board members duties to listen to public concerns about the school system, it is another matter for Board members to ignore the law concerning personnel matters and to ignore Board operating procedures.
Posted on: Mon, 01 Sep 2014 13:52:31 +0000
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