History Lessons and Sunshine for the Ludington School Board, COLDNews

[XLFD]

This is a prologue to the two threads the Ludington Torch expounded on about the illegally posted meeting the Ludington Area School District Board (LASDB) held/almost held on Tuesday, March 19 wherein the Open Meetings Act was violated/almost violated.  This included a thread on the problem:  open-meetings-act-violation-by-ludington-s-school-board-denied and a thread dedicated to the interim superintendent who was reluctant to admit that any mistake was committed under his leadership, insinuating the wind or some evil faeries took their posted notice down:  superintendent-david-killips-own-up-to-a-dumb-mistake. 

The City of Ludington Daily News (COLDNews) interim journalist Kevin "Kirby" Brasiceszki duly reported in a couple of newspaper articles ( one and two) his view that the LASDB was completely without fault in this incident, an editorial by the COLDNews came out and gave a thumbs down to the indigent reporter that pointed out the violation, accusing him of performing 'gotcha' journalism.

But the COLDNews and Kirby's reportage of events were both responsible for that aforementioned indigent reporter's interest in the chain of events in the first place by their articles that occurred before the meeting of March 11th, a special meeting held on the Monday before the above meeting in question.  Some credit, or blame if you are so inclined, must go to them.  I will have to give them both a thumbs up and a thumbs down myself.  Here then is the earlier event, but first some of the backstory.

 

Christmas Eve Morning Meeting

 

Like most people of the area, I'm not all that interested in the local school board meetings like I should be, but on Friday, December 21, 2012 I noticed in that day's COLDNews that a special meeting was to be held by that body on Monday, Christmas Eve at 7:30 AM.  I found that an odd time, even though it did seem to be a meeting for basically one purpose, to ratify a union contract.  As a matter of law, all open meetings of a public body must be posted at the body's main office at least 18 hours prior to a meeting.  If their main office is closed during that time, they must have it posted conspicuously viewable from the outside of their main entrance door.  Between when it was posted in the paper until Monday, the main office was closed due to Christmas break.

 

After Christmas I made a FOIA request concerning that meeting, and that request and its reply is right here:  FOIA Response1.3.13.pdf 

I followed up with Cal de Kuyper, Ludington's previous superintendent, to find out whether there had been any postings on the door and the nature of why the meetings were held.  He gave me back a well-thought out response, and I took his word on it.  But on his departure, I did keep vigilant.

 

Closed March 11 Meeting

 

Here's where the COLDNews and Ace Reporter Kirby play their parts.  On the lower part of the front page of Saturday's March 9th's paper there was what I thought a strangely worded announcement (far right).  

 

"The Ludington School Board is scheduled to screen applications for the open superintendent position during a 4 p.m. Monday session closed to the public."  To me, this sounds like a direct violation of the OMA, which says (MCL 15.263 section 2,3 "All decisions/deliberations of a public body shall be made at a meeting open to the public."  It piqued my interest to say the least to find out more about this quickly decided on meeting.  Notice also, the LASD notice at the bottom of the paper in color, a pretty costly purchase unlike the short notice.

 

Nobody on the staff of the COLDNews claimed the credit for this, but it was also on the E-edition too, and Kirby was the source, if you notice, it wasn't e-posted until Sunday, March 10th.  It had the same wording, with no mention of any part of it being an open meeting.   Having saw that, I checked in with the LASDB's web page, which at the time had the regular meetings posted, but no others besides the February 11, 2013 special meeting already held.  I reviewed the OMA, and went down to the main office on Saturday night.  Sure enough, they had the notice for the March 11 meeting posted on the window.  It also showed that the meeting wasn't totally closed to the public, as the article may have led one to believe.

 

But in reviewing the OMA, I noticed that since the Christmas Eve meeting, there had actually been a revision in the State's law that said special meetings must also be posted on a public body's website.  MCL 15.265 says in section 4:  "for a rescheduled regular or a special meeting of a public body, a public notice stating the date, time, and place of the meeting shall be posted at least 18 hours before the meeting in a prominent and conspicuous place at both the public body's principal office and, if the public body directly or indirectly maintains an official internet presence that includes monthly or more frequent updates of public meeting agendas or minutes, on a portion of the website that is fully accessible to the public."

 

I awaited until 10:00 PM on Sunday night (18 hr. before the meeting) and looked at the website.  It was still unchanged.  I took some screen shots for posterity including this one (note the time in the lower left corner):

 

 

So on March 11, the LASDB had a meeting they posted notice in the newspaper that the casual citizen would think was closed to the public and would only realize that it was an open meeting if they checked the LASDB door!  The lack of a posted notice on their internet page continued until the meeting, thus violating this new edict of the OMA.  After some discussions with others on March 11, I decided it was something I would just document, and keep an eye on, since the meeting's conclusion was to have a series of meetings interviewing the candidates.  If their record of sloppy public noticing continued, I would bring it up then .

 

March 19th Meeting Madness

As this was already covered in the links in the first paragraph here in detail I will only summarize briefly and add a few details.  On March 12, the day after they advertised a closed session of the LASDB  the COLDNews ran with a guest editorial entitled "Open Government is Truly Needed" as part of the newspaper's nod to it being "Sunshine Week", ironically running March 10-16 this year.

 

As noted, the first superintendent interviews were scheduled for March 14, and I saw the one notice late on the night of the thirteenth on their door, but in that day's COLDNews they didn't see fit to include it in their "community calendar" list for the next day or in it the next day.  Nor did they need to by law; similarly the board had their special meetings put up on the LASDB website, making them fully compliant with the OMA for this special meeting. 

 

I was in the neighborhood the evening of March 15 (Friday), and noticed only the March 14 notice on the window, went there again on Sunday night, and after the regularly scheduled meeting on Monday March 18, which they held, to see if the status had changed.  The only notice on the wall was the one for the March 14th meeting, there was no evidence that any other notice had ever been posted on that window or to that notice. 

 

As for the COLDNews, they completely left out any notice for the March 19th meeting in the March 18th paper's "Community Calendar" section, even though they announced the March 18th meeting!  That's one more reason I was half surprised to see a meeting taking place on March 19th, and immediately brought it to their attention. 

 

But it's kind of like the smart kid who speaks up in class to correct the teacher when they make a mistake that is not so obvious.  Humble teachers interested in student development and teaching facts will commend the student, other teachers may bear a grudge and prevaricate about what caused the misstep.  The LASDB has been the latter, in denying any wrongdoing and telling everyone that the dog ate their 'homework'.  They and the COLDNews editorial Board have decided to give the student (me) a bad grade, and it looks like the student has to get up once again and set the record straight.

 

Epilogue:  March 21 Meeting Cancelled

Although there is no OMA violation for calling and closing a scheduled special meeting outside the 18 hour parameter, there was a special meeting called for on the 21st that was posted on the website, never posted anywhere else, including the newspaper and other media.  Around the same time they posted that their March 19th meeting was cancelled after the fact, they cancelled the meeting to be held on the 21st.  They changed the special meeting postings on their website at least three times during the time they initially posted them. 

 

Window postings, media advertisements, and website alerts never seemed to coalesce during this phase, showing chaotic leadership at the Ludington Area School District.  This isn't very promising for our students in this district, nor is the dissociation from reality the superintendent and the COLDNews have put out to the public without correcting the facts of the matter. 

[Willy]

I wonder if there is specific person who has the responsibility of posting notices and notifying the media about the meetings? I seems to me that this person either is not aware of all the provisions of the OMA or they know all of the requirements of the OMA but forgot to follow thru or they may have just felt it not necessary to complete the posting process. That person seems to be the one who should be explaining the missteps that took place in following the OMA requirements.

[XLFD]

I'm thinking the person would be Penny Schultz, who is the administrative assistant to the Board and Superintendent.  Superintendent Killips may have been misinformed by her as to what was posted, as she reacted quite quickly in taking down the old notice once it was pointed out and went out with Killips and other Board members in secret conferences outside the meeting room to figure out what to do. 

We may finally get some answers to this when we file the OMA complaint.  It's too bad these administrators can't take responsibility for a mistake, and compound it by lying in an effort to save face.  The hubris of Ludington's officials is astounding.

[Marty Redman]

Good work XLFD, it looks as if our educators are learning from the deceiver in chief at the White house, or maybe from J Shay himself.   Just so you know I checked the current lasd school board meeting notice webpage and found that they have the March 11 meeting noticed there.  Posting a notice after the meeting took place, isn't that special? 

[XLFD]

Isn't it though?  I finished talking with someone this morning concerning the irregularities of the LASD Board in their practices.  We will be getting some extra info here soon as far as the disposition of these problems.