School Board Gets a Civics Lesson on the Open Meetings Act

[XLFD]

I must admit, that my favorite costumed hero of the north is the Petoskey Batman (followed closely by the Petoskey Batgirl), but I recently uncovered a hero to the north of us who shuns the cape and cowl.  His name is Jason Gillman from Traverse City a self-proclaimed tea-party activist who ran successfully for Grand Traverse County commissioner back in 2010 on the platform to open the budget up and evaluate every county program.

He opposed further use of the county's fund balance, thought the county should delay capital projects and proposed to roll parks and recreation operations into the facilities department as part of his campaign.  "I tend to be more conservative, and would look at whether or not a particular program is providing any real value to the community," Gillman said.  He ran unsuccessfully for 104th district state House of Representatives last year, and is politically retired for now.

 

 

From his website, he describes himself:  Jason Gillman has been a staunch advocate of responsible fiscal policy at all levels of government. His passion for affecting public policy in a way that realizes the proper role of government has driven him to write nearly daily for some of the state’s top blogs, both commenting on, and exposing corruption within our state and federal government. In the last three years, his work has been cited by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, various national writers, and even Tom Brokaw on Meet the press. He has organized bus tours to Washington DC and Lansing for citizen rallies, held a Health Care forum in Traverse City, and has been in the forefront of getting more people involved in the political process through his writing and direct involvement.

 

Gillman has filed a lawsuit against Traverse City Area Public Schools (TCAPS) accusing the district of violating the Open Meetings Act in a board discussion about a failed bond millage.

He accuses the TCAPS Board of Education of "misleading the public" as to the time and place of a meeting to discuss a $100 million bond millage that was to pay for renovations at schools and a new performing arts center at Central High School. Voters shot down the proposal in November.

Gillman wanted to attend a TCAPS board retreat in December so he could videotape a discussion about why the millage failed.

A calender on the district's website said all board meetings are held at the TCAPS administration building and the retreat was scheduled for Dec. 14.

But Gillman learned on Dec. 8 that the board retreat was scheduled to take place that day at Sabin Elementary School, according to the complaint.  He took his videotaping equipment to that meeting and had an interesting conversation with the board members who are at odds with him about his assertion, as seen in this video. 

 

 

Notice in the video the confidence that the TCAPS Board has in their manner that they have complied with the Open Meetings Act.  The suit alleges TCAPS did not give at least 18 hours notice of the changed time and date for the meeting as required by the Michigan Open Meetings Act (MCL 15.265).  Interestingly, this law has recently been modified on December 28, 2012 to make internet public notices mandatory for those public bodies that maintain websites.

The suit also states TCAPS removed the board retreat from its online calendar following the event, then two days later re-posted details of the event with the correct information.

"They are trying to change history to favor their particular perspective," Gillman said. "All I want is for them to be an open board where they are responsible to the community and accountable to the taxpayers."

Gillman's suit asks for an injunction ordering the board of education to comply with the Open Meetings Act. It also seeks the invalidation of any board decisions that resulted from the Dec. 8 retreat.

The retreat included a closed session performance review of Superintendent Stephen Cousins. The board later extended Cousins' contract through 2015.  The Open Meetings Act (MCL 15.268 (a)) allows such reason for a closed session, but why not allow the people to look at Superintendant Cousins report card?  It does reinforce Gillman's assertions of an unaccountable school board.

Cousins said the district will respond to Gillman through the courts within 21 days. He declined further comment.

TCAPS Board of Education President Kelly Hall said the district notified the public about the time and location of the retreat on multiple occasions, including at a televised board meeting in November.  Sorry Kelly, that is not enough to comply with the OMA's public notice guidelines (section 4 and section 5)

"At most, there was a clerical error on the part of the person responsible for the calendar on the district's website," Hall said. "It did not amount to a violation of the Open Meetings Act." 

I think a competent judge would disagree, a clerical error may have occurred, but according to the records the newspaper reported the change on the same day, and the meeting was held in a place it normally wasn't held on a day it wasn't regularly held.  The clerical error occurred when the board failed to follow the OMA explicitly, and defiantly continued on with their illegal meeting after it was pointed out in the video. 

Many facts/quotes  gleaned from:  http://record-eagle.com/local/x1874097505/Lawsuit-accuses-TCAPS-of-...

 

The Michigan Secretary of State's Office is reviewing a separate complaint by Gillman against the same public body which alleges TCAPS violated state election laws last year when the district used public money to promote the bond question.  Discussed here, the Superintendent disagreed with Gillman's allegation in the complaint.

"Obviously, we don't believe it violated the campaign finance law," Cousins said. "We're asking voters to approve a ongoing long-range capital improvement plan. We didn't tell them how to vote or advocate a "yes" vote."

He said the district has since dropped the word "support" from a bond election postcard that will be mailed to 20,000 regular registered voters before the election. The district spent $20,000 on its first mailing and the second will cost about $5,000, he said.

Most of the cost is in postage, he said. Gillman said in early October that he spent $2,700 of his own money to send anti-millage mailers to 8,546 households to persuade votes to defeat the proposed bond millage hike. He also formed Grow TC Responsibly, a website at http://www.grow.tc "to encourage transparency in local government, encourage citizen participation, and oppose wasteful spending by our elected and appointed officials."

 

Three cheers for people like Jason Gillman who demand transparency, accountability and ethics in their government at whatever level.

[Willy]

I can't imagine how idiotic it is to expect hard working citizens to fork over tax dollars to pay for a "high school performing arts center". To me that demonstrates just how out of touch some people are with the reality of life in our current economic situation. And the fact that in another town there exist clones of Ludingtons City Council shouldn't surprise anyone.  All I can say is thank God for folks like X and Jason who sacrifice themselves so that all of us can hopefully have a reasonable form of open Government.

[XLFD]

If there weren't people like us, those altar stones would hardly see any use nowadays.  Let me also do a quick shout out to James O'Keefe who suffered a setback in his expose' on ACORN by getting fined $100,000 for violating a California state law that effectively says (video or audio) taping someone without their knowledge is a crime (Michigan and a handful of other states have the same type of law, most states do not require all parties to have knowledge that they are being taped).  He had done a multi-state sweep in that investigation in bringing down that corrupt group.  Keep up the good work, James, but be mindful of the local laws.