Wednesday, July 31, 2019

Securities problem with $26MM Bond Notes sale?

On April 11, 2019 some representatives of the Richland 2 School District are believed to have signed a document for the sale of $26,000,000 Bond Anticipation Notes.

I haven't seen the official, signed document but, upon information and belief, it was signed on that date (or another close date) by Amelia McKie as Board Chair, Supt. Baron Davis, and Chief Financial Officer Miley.

The signature of the Board Secretary was required, but the Board Secretary would not sign. Before the end of April the then-Board Secretary Lindsay Agostini announced her resignation as Board Secretary, giving the reasons that she could not and would not sign special additional statements related to Amelia McKie's status on the board, wishing to avoid the risks of personal and civil liability.

At the April 30, 2019 board meeting, the board elected Trustee James Shadd as Board Secretary and he signed the bond documents that night.  *

The 140-page bond document can be read at https://emma.msrb.org/ER1220676-ER955363-ER1356366.pdf  In particular, questionable wording can be read on Pages 51-52. You can use the Page Number block at the top of the .pdf document to get in the general area of the document. Then use the Page Number at the bottom of the actual page to find the references in LEGAL MATTERS (see Opinion and see Litigation) and MISCELLANEOUS (see Certificate as to the Official Statement).

Elsewhere in the document it identifies Amelia McKie as a Board member and as Board Chair, and Amelia McKie's occupation is listed as "Community Volunteer".

If 50 years of reading legal documents, I don't think I have ever before read that a person's "occupation" is Volunteer.

Today (July 31, 2019) I filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Request with the School District for copies of the signed Certificate of Incumbency and the Signature and No-Litigation Certification. These are the two documents that Mrs. Agostini refused to sign. They are part of the bond documents but not part of the documents filed on a website for public viewing.

If and when it is eventually determined that Mrs. McKie was not a Board member after November 6, 2018 and was also not Board Chair, was it legal for her to sign the bond documents as Board Chair?

The attorney for the School District and the bond counsel should have been well-informed of the challenge to McKie's participation on the board.

The board should have cleaned this up in February 2019 by having McKie take the oath of office legally. McKie first became eligible to take the oath of office on December 4, 2018, when she filed the Statement of Economic Interests Report that should have been filed before she repeated the words of the oath of office on November 13, 2018. On November 13 she was not eligible to take the oath of office or to enter upon her official responsibilities, but she did both.

* [CORRECTION. The Certificate of Incumbency and the Signature and No-Litigation Certificate were signed by Amelia McKie, as Board Chair, and by James Shadd, as Board Secretary, on May 2, 2019.]