Now is the time for the Richland 2 School Board to review the timeline for seating newly-elected members after the General Election in November.
Hopefully, it will avoid the legal errors made in November 2018, which remain uncorrected to this day. The result of those errors has been that two women have been allowed to usurp public office and pretend to be board members for almost two years. And get paid with public monies for doing so.
Here's the timeline:
November 3 General Election. Three seats on the Richland 2 School Board are to be filled. With ten candidates in the fray, could there be some ties that would have to be broken in a run-off?
November 6 Expected certification of the election by the Richland County Elections Commission, if there is no run-off.
November 10. School Board meeting. This date is before the legal beginning of the 2020-2024 term-of-office.
November 13 The legal Beginning Date of the 2020-2024 term-of-office of newly-elected board members, if the election is certified on November 6. (S.C. Code of Laws Section 59-19-315)
December 8 First school board meeting after the legal Beginning Date of the 2020-2024 term-of-office of the three trustees elected on November 3.
While a qualified trustee-elect could be sworn in after the election is certified on November 6 (if it is), the trustee-elect can only take the oath of office after she or he has filed the Statement of Economic Interests Report with the South Carolina Ethics Commission. This is where Amelia McKie and Teresa Holmes ran afoul of State Law in 2018. Neither has ever taken the oath of office legally.
If Lindsay Agostini and Monica Elkins-Johnson are re-elected, they would continue serving in their 2016-2020 terms until November 13. Then they would begin their new terms.
If James Shadd is not re-elected, November 10 will be his last meeting. The Board Chair's position will be vacated.
In normal times the Vice-Chair would ascend to duties in the absence of a Chair. However, the Vice-Chair is Teresa Holmes, who is not a legitimate member of the Richland 2 School Board. In spite of her never having taken the oath-of-office legally, the Board elected her as Vice-Chair on June 30, 2019.
The Richland 2 School Board should hold an election on December 8.
SECTION 59-19-70. Chairman and clerk of board."The trustees shall, as soon as practicable after the appointment of any new trustee, organize by the election of one of their members as chairman and another as clerk of the board. The chairman shall preside at meetings of the board and perform other duties imposed on him under the law, and the clerk shall keep a record of the proceedings of all meetings in a book provided for that purpose and perform all other duties required of him by law."
Richland 2 ignored that law in November 2018. It routinely elects officers for the following year at the last meeting in June, which coincides with the end of the fiscal year. Doing so creates a problem with continuity of the officers. If a trustee holding a position as an officer is not re-elected, then a successor must be elected.
