Next Board Meeting - 5/26/2020

The agenda for the May 26, 2020 Board meeting has been published. The Board will convene at 4:30PM, adjourn to Executive Session, and re-convene in open session at 5:00PM. The meeting will be electronic via Zoom (Livestream?).

[EDIT: At 6:30PM the District emailed a "correction" of time (which it wasn't) and the link for Tuesday's meeting. http://www.richland2.org/livestream ]

The Board again violates the South Carolina FOIA laws by failing to provide a link to the electronic meeting. The meeting is not available to the public on Zoom, as the agenda states. The meeting will probably be shown via Livestream, although that information is not on the District's website as of 4:25PM today, Friday, May 22.

The video on May 19, 2020 Special-Called Board Meeting is on YouTube but NOT yet on District website.

When the Chair called for a Motion to approve the agenda of the May 19th meeting, Teresa Holmes said, "I would like to make a Motion ..."

The correct response from the Chair would have been, "Thank you. I understand that you would like to make the Motion. Please make the Motion."

And when the Chair called for a voice vote, why did some trustees raise their hands? (Hint: they weren't listening.) In a Zoom meeting, the correct call would be for a hand vote, which is visible to and by all. If several participants signify their votes simultaneously by voice, the Chair will not really know who is voting.

There was a significant audio glitch at the beginning of the meeting, when a recorded loop of voices played during the meeting. The sound technician was called to correct it. Also, just before the start of the meeting, a woman's voice could be heard giving a countdown to the start of the meeting.

Is District Two going to figure out how to conduct a Zoom meeting professionally?

When will McKie pay?

Amelia McKie owes $51,750 to the South Carolina Ethics Commission.

A judgment was filed with the Richland County Common Pleas Court on July 10, 2019, and the S.C. Department of Revenue (DOR) should be collecting it. But is the DOR really doing anything? In ten months the only entries of record at the Court are on July 10, 2019. Nothing since!

Combine that with her failure to take the oath of office as Trustee after she became eligible to do so on December 4, 2018.

She did take an oath of office on November 13, 2018, but there were two reasons why that oath was not valid. McKie had not filed her Statement of Economic Interests Report with the S.C. Ethics Commission and one week had not passed after the Richland County Elections Commission certified the November 6, 2018 election. The election was certified on November 9, 2018, and this meant that the earliest date when McKie could take the oath of office, if she were eligible (which she was not) would have been November 16, 2018.

I wonder why the other Trustees don't have a little "sit-down" with her and tell her get her act together or resign from the School Board. McKie has been eligible to take the oath of office since December 4, 2018 but has not done so.

How can Richland School District Two have a premier school board with a person having these two problems?

McKie is not the only person on the board illegitimately.

When McKie and Teresa Holmes finally do take the oath of office, the School District will have to review all the board votes since November 13, 2018 and change all the decisions in which the votes by McKie and Holmes swayed the decision. There are many of them.