Thursday, September 23, 2021

9/22/21-III Meeting - starts downhill

Part III

The 9//22/21 meeting resumed at 1:16:48. After a faulty motion "to come out of" executive session by Manning and a second, the vote was unanimous.

Holmes: "We will now move on to Public ... No, no, no." Just exactly where was her head? Not in the game last night!

Then Holmes asked for approval of the agenda. At that point I wondered whether the agenda should have been approved at the beginning of the meeting, before the board left for executive session.

McKie moved to approve the agenda; second by Caution-Parker. Trustee Agostini spoke in discussion. Agostini and another board member had requested that student appeals and admissions into adult education included in tonight's agenda. The reason given to Agostini and the other board member was that the request had not been made in a timely manner (three business days). Agostini mentioned a School Boards Assn. resolution that had been added late by a staffer to the previous meeting's agenda. 

McKie made a useless, irrelevant comment to promote herself. It was not germane to Agostini's comment.

Dr. Scott identified herself as the other board member who had asked for addition of student appeals and admission to adult education to last night's agenda. Scott said the request was made, as allowed by Board Policy, and that the board chair (Holmes) had not approved it.

Manning stated that he supported the chair's decision not to include those items. Manning blamed "hot (or high?) passions" about the superintendent's contract to the point that "folks" (he means Agostini, Scott, McFadden) needed to leave the (Sept. 14) meeting and "disrupt the business of the District." WHAT? Then Manning mentioned an email from a community member who openly asked board members to again walk out of a meeting and to not conduct the business of the District.

I suspect Manning was referring to me (Gus Philpott). If he was, he lied. I recommended that Agostini, Scott and McFadden not show up for the Sept. 22 special-called meeting, not that they walk out of the meeting. Then he refers to requests (PLURAL) from the public for board members to walk out...  Really? More than one request? Then he refers to "legal counsel" that Holmes had mentioned earlier.

WRONG. Not legal counsel to the District. Holmes referred to a training class conducted at an SCSBA meeting by an attorney. That is NOT "legal counsel" to the District.

Agostini added that she was troubled not to see Public Participation on the agenda. 

Scott spoke about Manning's comment. She referred to the pastors in the room. Scott stated that NO community member contacted her and asked her to walk out of the (Sept. 14th) meeting. By that time, the public must have been greatly confused about the comments being made about two different meetings!

There were 11 black members of the public seated on the left side facing the board. Were some of them pastors? Were they there to support the superintendent? Manning greeted some of them before the meeting started. Manning did not greet any of the white members of the audience. 

Manning was allowed to speak again. He tried to kowtow out of referring to any particular individual, but only three board members walked out, so he was definitely referring to one or more of them!

Holmes totally disregarded Robert's Rules of Order about how often a board member can speak during discussion. My guess is she didn't "disregard" Robert's Rules. My guess is that she is ignorant of Robert's Rules of Order.

One more reason that Richland 2 should hire an independent Parliamentarian. That would have been a better use of 4% of the superintendent's $223,000 than giving him a raise.

Manning tried to clarify that the email from the community member came out after the (Sept. 14) board meeting, but then he erroneously added "... again requesting board members to walk out..." That implies a first request to walk out. Is he just careless with wording?

Holmes and Manning (and others) fail to acknowledge the reason that the three trustees walked out of the Sept. 14th meeting. It was that information was released to them piecemeal and late. They made the right decision to leave the meeting!

All of their ramblings were unrelated to the Motion that was on the floor. That motion was to approve the agenda. A Parliamentarian would have gotten the board back on track!

Then Manning slammed Agostini (not by name) for voting against approval of the agenda in many meetings. He said "board members", but he was referring to Agostini. She has, in fact, a very good reason for voting "No" on the agenda in meeting after meeting. Manning snide comment was not germane to the discussion and should have been cut off. However, Holmes did not cut him off.

At 1:25:54 Holmes decided that she wanted to say something. At that time the only thing she should have said was "Now we'll vote." Remeber the motion on the floor? The one to approve the agenda?

Holmes read Board Policy BE about special-called meetings.It was already typed up and ready to be read. She said what's new about that meeting was the "attitude" about it. She made an erroneous statement that nothing could be added to the agenda of a special-called board meeting. SHE IS FLAT WRONG. Then she proceeded to drag on about what did not get handled at the Sept. 14th meeting. Her comments were not germane (remember that word from the last meeting that seemed to come out of the ether?) to approving last night's agenda!

She referred to a "COVAD" ("Excuse me, COVID") update. She stated, erroneously, how "everybody" was "miraculously" concerned about those issues at this meeting but not on Sept. 14. Holmes maligned the three walk-out board members for not wanting to vote their conscience and Holmes said (1:29:00) "... they were waiting for certain other people to give them directive as to how to (unintelligble) disrupt the proceedings of this board." DEFAMATORY!

WITH THOSE WORDS HOLMES IS FLAT OUT LYING TO THE AUDIENCE, BOARD MEMBERS AND THE PUBLIC.

The Holmes makes a confusing, and wrong, statement about Public Participation.

Remember that Holmes was nominated by Manning on June 29th to be board chair, shortly after a "member of the public" (yours truly) implored the full board to nominate only persons who were fully entitled to be on the board and therefore eligible to be a board officer. Holmes is not legitimately on the board (she has never taken the oath of office legally) and so cannot legitimately be the board chair. But there she is.

There was no issue whatsoever about "fairness" in a decision to have or not have Public Participation. 

(1:31:00) Holmes then accused "certain (board) members" on not having done their "due diligence" of providing a vote (at the Sept. 14 board meeting on the superintendent's contract. Holmes does not even know what "due diligence" is. 

(1:31:15) Then she announced the next special-called board meeting. 

Remember now. The agenda for the night's meeting has not been approved yet!!! 

See the next article.

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