Here Comes the Inspector General - hopefully

On June 17, 2022 Gov. Henry McMaster signed S.202 into law. What was this Bill?

S. 202, when signed, allows the Governor to go after Richland Two School District. He can direct the South Carolina Inspector General to investigate Richland 2.

You're familiar with all the chaos and antics of the past year. Things got so bad in the fall that the board decided to hire an outside consultant to help them. No doubt she tried. And failed. Within a matter of days things got worse. And then worse after that.

January 25, 2022 Before the board meeting started, I attempted to introduce myself to a black woman I did not know and had never seen before. As soon as I said, "Hello, I'm Gus Philpott", she shouted, "I KNOW WHO YOU ARE! DON'T TALK TO ME! GET AWAY FROM ME!" Two Richland 2 security officers came over and within minutes I was on my way out of the building - banned until June 30, 2022 at 11:59PM.

Then she turned on a 14-year-old student and cussed him out. The student told me what she said. A white man intervened on the young man's behalf, and then Baron Davis came barreling over and had to be restrained. The white man was the second man kicked out of the meeting. He said he was told by the Director of Safety & Security that Davis said to put him on No-Trespass Notice.

Who was that woman? Pamela Davis, wife of Supt. Baron Davis and teacher at Blythewood High School.

I filed a complaint against her with the Blythewood H.S. Principal, and I have never heard one word from the District. Where did they bury my complaint? Probably in the same place where they have bury most of my complaints.

There has been more chaos, disorder, upsets, antics. 

Hopefully, the South Carolina Inspector General will swoop in and clean house. One person in the spotlight, who should not be cleaned out, is Lashonda McFadden. She made a mistake, for which she has apologized, but she was teased and taunted. McFadden has endured disrespect from Teresa Holmes since almost the beginning of her term in November 2020. Listen to the remarks of the fifth speaker in Public Participation on May 25, 2022. This speaker nailed what has been going on with The Core Four on this year's school board.

Listen to her remarks on livestream.com/richland2 beginning at 1:25:00. 

I wish I had been present that night. I would have been on my feet, applauding her remarks.

Why Does Teresa Holmes lie?

                                                                    (Click to enlarge)
 

This post appeared last week on the private Facebook group of "DrTeresa Holmes". My thanks to one of her friends who emailed it to me.

Why would Teresa Holmes, sitting as Chair of the Richland 2 School Board, post this? In case you can't read it, under her name it reads

"This man is asking people to follow board members. He also previously asked people to sit outside of James Manning's home to take pictures, knowing he has a young daughter at home..."

The truth? I have never asked people to follow board members.

The truth? I have never asked people to sit outside of James Manning's home to take pictures.

Since I never asked people to follow board members or to sit outside James Manning's home to take pictures, is Holmes' post actually libelous and defamatory? I feel like she is accusing me of stalking board members and endangering a child.

Is this conduct unbecoming a board member and board officer? 

Perhaps Teresa thought I wouldn't see that post, because she has blocked me from her private group. 

Should I trot right down to Richland County Sheriff's Department and file a complaint against her for Harassment? If I do, my report will not be full of lies, as was hers against me on March 20, 2019.

Who, me? Confused?

Is there any confusion about the reason that kids are confused? Who am I? What am I? Am I really a (fill-in-the-blank)?

Is it true that, at Disney, greeters no longer can call out "Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls..."?

What do they say? "Y'all standin' there, listen up."

If Richland 2 would add two more rows of symbols to that chart, it would make a Bingo card. Then it might at least be worth something.

Richland 2 ought to be teaching Reading, Writing and Arithmatic. Checkbook balancing. Budgeting. Wise Use of Credit. Spelling. Reading and writing comprehension. Grammar (he/she/it). How to prepare for a job in the real world. True history. 

And, most importantly, how to think for yourself.

McKie and the S.C. Ethics Commission

There was a hearing scheduled for last Thursday, June 16, for Amelia McKie at the office of the South Carolina Ethics Commission. The Commission charged her with failing to report her 2020 Richland 2 income on her 2021 Statement of Economic Interests Report (SEI). She was to appear on Thursday at 9:30AM.

On Wednesday afternoon McKie notified the Ethics Commission that she would not appear because she had COVID-like symptoms. 

What the Commission should have done is told her to log into their livestream service and appear virtually. What they did was grant a one-time continuance. Her hearing has been re-scheduled to October  20, 2022 at 9:30AM. OCTOBER 20. Four months from now. (And 2½ weeks before Election Day.)

So, how sick was she? Did she notify everyone who was at the Committee of the Whole meeting and the Board Meeting on June 14 that she might have COVID? Did she notify everyone who attended Mia McLeod's not-victory celebration on June 14? Did she quarantine and skip all the Juneteeth celebrations over the week-end?

Or did her "symptoms" miraculously disappear and turn out just to be a common cold or nothing at all?

McKie owes $57,100 to the Ethics Commission.

If the legislature does its duty and passes a pending bill that will prevent McKie from filing for re-election, McKie won't be able to run for re-election. If I were to guess at the chances for that bill to pass, I'd say "About 0.00001%." Why? Because it would keep S.C. Representatives and S.C. Senators from running for re-election, if they owe money to their respective Ethics Commissions.

The S.C. Ethics Commission does not report ethics fines/debts of S.C. Representatives and S.C. Senators. How likely is it that they will vote against their own interests?

Holmes lights a fire under son, friends

Richland 2 Board Chair Teresa Holmes lit a fire under her son and friends by taking one of my Facebook posts out of context and posting it on her private DrTeresa Holmes Facebook page., 

The post from my personal FB page read, "I've been wanting an AK-47 for some time now. Maybe I should brush up my Russian and buy a ticket to Ukraine. I wonder how much Richland 2 would chip in, if I promised not to come back."

The context was the war in Ukraine. I was a Russian major in college and am a former deputy sheriff, a veteran, and a person who gets involved. I was investigating how to get to Ukraine to help drive out the Russians. 

By taking my post out of context and putting it on her page, she riled up a bunch of her followers.

Chris Leevy Johnson thought I ought to be reported to Sheriff Lott. (Remember Chris' FB comment after James Shadd became Board Chair? Chris called Lindsay Agostini a "Karen" for not voting for Shadd.)

Teresa's son, Jai Austin, posted this rant on Facebook:

"Attention Columbia SC

I have stood silent long enough watching all this shit and I don’t even live there anymore..

1. When will these racist in Columbia realize you don’t run us..

2. When will racist in Columbia stop making up blatant lies and stories just to downgraded the fact the African Americans run the community and are on top of their game making sure that these kids have a healthy, happy, productive education.

3. To the dumb bitch who took a photo of what was supposed to be my moms cars but wasn’t..baby you’re just dumb .

4. To Gus Philpot the White supremicist version of Mr. Rogers, you can take your ass to Alaska with Sarah Palen and them and enjoy all your guns. But to say something like that when you show true hate towards the black community is disgusting.

5. To a nameless nobody who likes to threaten my mother In meetings and continuously have a agenda for my mother…All I will say to that is, was the first orange suit not enough baby?

I kept my mouth shut cause I’m not the one, call these racist out and put them on blast. Call out these these crazy ass people who pretend to care about your kids education but don’t and put them on BLAST.. Thats all I have to say "

Do you suppose Teresa is proud of her son's literary prowess? His command of the English language? His ability to express himself clearly?

Where'd he go to high school? A Richland 2 high school? Is he, like his mother, a "product" of the Richland 2 School District?

Time's Almost Up, Teresa

The 2021-2022 School Year ends on June 30, which means new officers of the board for the next school year. In fact, board-officers terms for this year run out on Tuesday, June 28, when next year's officers are elected.

For the past year two women have been on the board who are NOT legitimate board members and were not eligible to serve as officers. Each was elected in 2021 to serve as an Officer of the Board. Teresa Holmes was elected Board Chair, and Amelia McKie (recordholder of highest-ever Ethics fines of a Richland 2 school board member) was elected Board Secretary. They should not have been nominated (thanks, James Manning and Dr. Cheryl. Caution. Parker., respectively). They were elected by The Core Four - no surprise there.

What's important?

I have been addressing their illegitimacy since February 2019, when I first spoke to the School Board on that issue.

Both violated S.C. Code of Laws Section 8-13-1110(A).

ARTICLE 11

Disclosure of Economic Interests

SECTION 8-13-1110. Persons required to file statement of economic interests.

(A) No public official, regardless of compensation, and no public member or public employee as designated in subsection (B) may take the oath of office or enter upon his official responsibilities unless he has filed a statement of economic interests in accordance with the provisions of this chapter with the appropriate supervisory office.

The School District and the Board have never explained to the public or to me why they are not violating this law.

Both have been usupring public office since November 13, 2018.

Neither should be elected as a board officer on June 28, 2022. 

Show up at the June 28, 2022 and speak at Public Participation. Request the board to honor the law and to nominate and elect only fully-qualified board members as officers. That will eliminate Holmes and McKie from consideration. An additional reason not to nominate McKie is her $57,100 debt to the South Carolina Ethics Commission.and the judgment against her in Richland County Common Pleas Court for that debt.

"DrTeresa Holmes" rants on Facebook

This week you will not want to miss the rants by "DrTeresa Holmes" on Facebook. She refers to herself as "YOUR SCHOOL BOARD MEMBER ON THE MOVE". To find her, be sure to omit the space between Dr and Teresa.

If you don't find that page, you're blocked. I will address that in the near future.

Her crosshairs swept past me, but I accept her for who she is. Teresa displays her "real" self at many school board meetings, when she taunts, teases, disrespects, interrupts, cuts off, over-rides other board members and speaks (knowingly in her own mind) as if she is queen of the roost, when in fact, it is obvious that she knows not of which she speaks.

Look for her post, "IMPORTANT POST: ENOUGH IS ENOUGH". See her examples of "HATE /LIES /THREATS"

Keep in mind that is the woman who left work one day in early 2019, after reading an email I sent to the entire board, and ran straight to the sheriff's department to file a report that I was harassing her. When I read the report, I pointed out to the officer and the deputy in the Criminal Investigations Division that her report to the deputy was full of false statements. .She should have been charged with filing a false police report.

So there is a very good example of HATE /LIES /THREATS against me. Interesting that she did not mention that in her rant.

Teresa refers to her "dignified silence". When has she ever been dignified or silent? Does anyone have an example? I can think of one - silent, but not dignified. That was when she, as Board Chair, allowed Craig Khanwell/Conwell a full three minutes to threaten white people and me at the February 8, 2022 school board meeting. Later I saw a "friendly" photo of Teresa and Craig. Why would she allow a Louis Farrakhan follower to threaten white people, or anyone, at a school board meeting? And then she thanked him for speaking.

Is that Teresa's style of dignity?

Teresa claims to have been threatened. Is that why a deputy was posted along the wall at the June 14, 2022 school board meeting? Me? I don't believe she has been threatened.

But I know I was threatened on February 8, 2022, and she did nothing to stop Conwell (that's his name in the Richland County Fifth Judicial District Public Index). And so were white people in the school board audience that night. If Teresa wants to talk about racism anytime, let's do it. In public. At a school board meeting. Recorded.

Pitiful. Be glad her term as Board Chair is over on June 28, 2022. 

Why has she never even taken the oath-of-office legally and become a legitimate member of the school board? Look what she turned a simple oversight into. Four years of chaos. She may have been ignorant of the law in November 2018, when she failed to file her Statement of Economic Interests with the S.C.Ethics Commission and when an oath-of-office was improperly administered to her on November 18, 2018. 

She could have been honorable, admitted her mistake (instead of blaming it on "Nobody told me"), and taken the oath then. But she wasn't and she didn't. 

Now, she is playing the victim role. Sorry, Teresa. No pass.