More on The School Board Meeting of September 18, 2012
On September 18, 2012, Cheryl Coleman presented the argument as to why board president Betty Owens should be relieved of her duties. In the future, we can never be a part of approving a board agenda where targeted board members have been inappropriately barred from court in speaking on any item or motions on the agenda, then expect us to approve such corruption and debauchery while no one speaks up for justice for fear of retribution. This is like saying that when citizens request an FOIA every citizen will receive one. Like board members, citizens do ask for FOIA's and only the individual requesting them will receive them. Similarly, no rule should be supported that says when one board member request an FOIA the whole board should receive the same. This is not the law. A school board cannot tamper with our already established liberties and freedoms or seek to violate them. Wasting tax payer funds fighting targeted board members, our parents and community in court using our tax payer dollars to do so, wasting our time engaging in buffoonery and arguing that everyone must receive an FOIA when one individual board member ask for one is foolish. I will not participate in such discrimination, unfairness, misrepresentation of our community, partiality, and foolishness.
Non-cooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with what is just and good. On September 18, 2012 the school board majority, who spoke on every agenda item often once, twice, or three times as they pleased, while targeted board members were denied participation. The board majority allowed Betty Owens to get away with it, because being blocked has never happened to them. Being blocked from speaking, denied our rights to participate in union-board negotiations, stripped of our role as board members, and being denied FOIA requests needed to do our job is not legal. It undermines our roles as public officials. It also exposes the district to more violations of Freedom of Speech law suits that has already cost tax payers hundreds of thousands of dollars over the past several years. In the 2010-2011 school year alone, over $873,000 was spent on just one of the district's several law firms fighting our community and targeted citizens in violations of our First Amendment Freedoms.
I agree with Kevin, in his tears of anger at the last board meeting on September 18, 2012 who advocated for fairness and professionalism. But I am afraid that Kevin doesn't know the real and true story that things are not always what they appear to be at open board meetings. In an atmosphere of civility and reason, a board member who makes a motion has the first right to speak to the motion. He or she does so by rising and obtaining the floor after the chair places the motion before the assembly for discussion. A member can speak twice to the agenda item or motion on the same day, but he or she can take the second turn only after everyone who wishes to speak the first time has spoken. If debate on the motion is continued at the next meeting, which is held on another day, the member's right to debate is renewed.
For Betty Owens, pushing the board majority to approve "Board Agreements" is like a return to animal kingdom abusing others with the sanctions of the so-called "Board Agreements." The most important principle that a presiding officer must remember is that they represent all the members, not just a select few and not just those with whom she agrees. To do otherwise is not showing leadership. Rather, she has consistently violated the leadership principles of respect for everyone, fairness, impartiality which brings unity. Betty Owens, for certain, for the three years that I have been on the school board has continuously and repeatedly denied our right to make motions and debate, put items on the agenda, speak to agenda items, refused to entertain points of order and proper appeals, recognized only those who has upheld her views and has denied the opposition the right to speak. Our schools and students continue to be neglected, as Betty Owens has persisted in this disrespectful and disunited behavior . While targeted board members continue to be abused in this fashion and treated like cattle, the board majority will say nothing, do nothing, and stand for nothing. She refuses to reason together. It is either Betty's way or the highway. President Lyndon Johnson's favorite expression when trying to get opposing groups together was "Come let us reason together. " Betty has never considered this expression when confronted with those with another viewpoint.
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