Why are they making this so difficult?
Why won’t the five members of our School Board publicly acknowledge what they know to be true – that the special meeting they held on April 16 was unlawfully called and never should’ve taken place?
Why won’t they admit they failed to provide the two days’ public notice for that meeting “in a newspaper of general circulation in the county” as required by Florida law?
Why did they opt to make a bad situation worse last week, by unanimously approving falsified minutes for the special meeting?
Why were the names of the three members initially cited as calling the special meeting – Vice Chairman Tiffany Justice, Jackie Rosario and Teri Barenborg – deleted from the amended minutes approved last week by the board?
Why?
Surely, the board members know their actions are being closely watched, and that it’s foolish and futile to think this self-inflicted controversy will subside until they address it.
Why do they think they can continue to dodge questions about who called the April 16 meeting, since Rosario and Barenborg both have stated publicly that they did not join Justice in calling the meeting.
Why did they think they could violate Florida law again last week, voting to approve minutes that had been inexplicably revised to state that the special meeting “was called and attended by a majority of the members of the board.”
All five board members did attend that April 16 meeting. Only Justice, however, admitted to calling it, albeit indirectly, even evasively.
That’s a problem, because the relevant Florida statute states that special meetings may be called by only the district superintendent, board chairman or a majority of the board’s members.
Why do they think can they get away with the board’s failure to provide the public with the statutorily mandated two days’ advance notice of the meeting?
The board claims in the meeting’s minutes that “reasonable notice” was provided April 12 via posts on the board’s calendar and Notice of Events pages on the district’s website, as well as through email blasts and printed signs posted in the reception area of the administration building and on the board chamber’s door.
While a legal advertisement was sent to Treasure Coast Newspapers, which includes the Press Journal, it wasn’t published until the day of the meeting. Therefore, the required notice was not given, Florida’s Sunshine Law was violated and, combined with the way it was called, the meeting was essentially illegal – and the board members know it.
Is it possible that School Board members do not know it’s a first-degree misdemeanor to knowingly falsify public records, including the minutes from meetings?
According to School Board Chairman Laura Zorc, the members are relying on the legal counsel they’re receiving from Suzanne D’Agresta – the School Board’s $22,000-a-month attorney – who Zorc said has assured them that the April 16 meeting was properly called and noticed.
It was D’Agresta, however, who allowed the special meeting to proceed without first verifying that at least three board members had called it – even after being alerted to a possible discrepancy.
It was D’Agresta who then failed to advise Zorc to immediately stop the session when Rosario and later Barenborg announced they did not call it.
The Florida Department of Education’s Inspector General’s Office already is looking into several complaints filed by county residents and has forwarded the alleged Sunshine Law violation to our Sheriff’s Office, which is investigating.
“I’ve reached out for other opinions, and I’m also waiting for the DOE to let us know if we did anything wrong,” Zorc said last week. “If we did something improper, we’ll fix it.”
Still, it’s D’Agresta’s job to keep the board out of trouble – not the board’s job to protect its attorney.
Is that what’s happening? Or is the board protecting someone else?
Are the board members protecting Justice, who initiated the special meeting to discuss now-departed superintendent Mark Rendell’s last-gasp attempt to pressure the panel into awarding him a severance payout he didn’t deserve?
Or might the board members be protecting their secretary, Nancy Esplen, who, directed by Justice, arranged the meeting by calling each member to ask if they were interested in the special meeting?
Rosario remains adamant that Esplen told her she was instructed to not reveal the identity of the board member who was seeking the special meeting, even though Justice has denied making any such request.
Whatever the real reason for the board’s refusal to fully and publicly disclose who called that April 16 meeting – and explain in detail how it was called – the members are damaging their credibility.
They asked for our trust. They promised to be transparent. They need to do what’s right – and they need to do it before the situation goes from bad to worse.
They can start by saying something like this:
“We messed up. The special meeting wasn’t called by a majority of the board, it should never have been scheduled and we will expunge any record of it – which we can do because, fortunately, nothing of consequence happened.
“We truly regret how we’ve handled this situation, including our failure to give the proper public notice, and we’ve learned from our mistakes. You can be sure they will never happen again.”
How difficult is that?