Holmes and Manning - Serious Mistakes

On Friday afternoon, January 28, 2022, Board Chair (sort of) Teresa Holmes and Vice-Chair James Manning were wrong to use R2i2 property for their interviews with WIS-TV. By doing so, it led the community and the viewers to believe that they were speaking for the District. They weren't.

They were not authorized by the board to speak about what had happened earlier that week at the January 25th board meeting. For them to do so, the board, as a whole, should have discussed the events and arrived at a decision (by vote) about what should be said and what should not be said.

The board obviously had not done so.

Teresa is quick to say that everyone is entitled to his own opinion. What she means is, everyone is entitled to his own opinion "even if it's wrong" (i.e., different than hers).

Listen very carefully to the words used by each in the WIS-TV interviews.

In a email to the board members on January 29th I wrote, in part, "Trustee Manning made a serious error in his remarks to WIS-TV on Friday afternoon, when he mentioned the part of my previous email (below) about returning to Richland 2 properties, without referring to the failure of the District to provide me with written Notice"

I had emailed Richland 2's security director on January 27, saying in part, "Since I have not received a written Trespass Notice, I shall assume that your verbal Trespass Notice on January 25, 2022 has expired, and I shall feel free to visit any Richland 2 property at any time."

James Manning was the first to respond (two hours later) with "... I made no mistake in my comments. No citizen has the right to put students or staff at risk. ... Your email says you “shall feel free to visit any Richland 2 property at any time”.  This type of statement , in my opinion, threatens student and staff safety. No one can show up in a classroom, on a school playground with children, etc. without following district protocols. You have once again shown that you feel you are above the law and that you do not understand legal and appropriate boundaries."

Of course, Manning made a mistake. He neglected to include my statement about the failure of the District to provide me with a written Trespass Notice. Without that, a verbal warning is just like a verbal warning on a traffic stop. Richland 2 cannot prohibit my use of public property forever with a verbal warning. 

I have requested Supt. Davis to provide me with a written retraction of Claxton's verbal Trespass Notice (warning).

For Manning to intimate that my statement "threatens student and staff safety" is more serious than his earlier error. Keep digging, James.