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Clinton Township school board member Mark Kaplan says he doesn’t know what tax relief means. That’s how bad the management of our schools is.

Last July, Governor Christie sent $247,310 of tax relief that Kaplan and the board should have immediately given back to taxpayers. Education Commissioner Chistopher Cerf sent the school board a July 12, 2011 memo with the definition of tax relief:

“The additional State aid included in this year’s budget provides your district with a unique opportunity to reduce property tax burdens by lowering your local property tax levies for this fiscal year or the next. Using this aid to lower taxes is an important step towards new and effective management of our schools that focuses on improved student achievement, rather than increased spending. I urge you to join our reform initiative by applying these newly-allocated funds to alleviate your district’s taxes this fiscal year.“ [emphasis added]

“Lowering your local property tax levies”

It means reducing property tax bills, not keeping them flat.

“Rather than increasing spending”

It means the purpose of the $247,310 was not to spend it. Yet Kaplan and the board have increased spending this year — dramatically.

Kaplan and the board ignored the commissioner. And then Kaplan and board president Jim Dincuff hid from board members a memo from the mayor and council urging them to immediately use the funds to lower taxes.

Tax Relief: It’s for reducing the tax levy

The board must reduce the tax levy by $247,310 plus the additional state aid for school choice, or well over a million dollars. School business adminsitrator Anthony Del Sordi and superintendent Kevin Carroll admitted that the aid received for “school choice” is profit to the district.

“Even with the additional students, additional overhead costs will be minimal because the district will not hire more staff and will use existing space and resources.”
— Hunterdon Democrat, quoting school business administrator Anthony Del Sordi

[UPDATE: The Hunterdon Democract has notified ExMayor.com that it erred in its attribution of the above statement. The Democrat now attributes it to superintendent Kevin Carroll.]

“Even with [school choice] costs taken into consideration, the net will be over half a million dollars — and will reduce the tax burden on Clinton Township citizens.”
— Superintendent Kevin Caroll, CTSD wiki, January 17, 2012

So where is the reduction in the tax levy?

In the proposed school budget, there is no reduction in the tax levy. But the meaning of “tax relief” is clear — and so are statements by school officials themselves.

By the board’s own estimates, the school tax levy must be cut by more than a million dollars using funds provided for that purpose. And the board must stop spending more money. As Commissioner Cerf states, the concommitant challenge to the board is “new and effective management of our schools that focuses on improved student achievement, rather than increased spending.”

The BOE’s answer to Cerf: More bad management and higher spending.

Failing to grasp this challenge to improve management, Mark Kaplan and the board pretend they don’t know what “tax relief” means.

School board eliminates budget elections — and runs out of control

What’s perfectly clear is that the board has eliminated school budget elections and is now beyond the reach of voters.

At a recent school board meeting, former BOE member Grace Hoefig supported the elimation of school budget elections, and said if the board doesn’t do a good job, in November we can “vote the bums out.” But being able to vote out three of nine members each year accomplishes little.

Meanwhile, the board has started a new kind of public relations campaign — loaded, online “surveys” designed without any expert assistance — to create the impression that the board’s decisions are based on public opinion. It used a recent survey about moving school elections to November to justify eliminating school budget elections — but that effort was exposed as a manipulation. (In that case, it turned out BOE members had never seen the survey results they cited to support their action.)

Unaccountable to voters any more, the board has resorted to issuing false resolutions to communicate better, to limiting public input to three minutes, and to calling the police to shut down critics.

Mark Kaplan: “You know, this is all semantics. I don’t know what people mean when they say ‘tax relief.'”

Unless you speak up, Kaplan and the board of education will pick your pocket, spend your tax relief, then announce that you support higher spending.

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The Clinton Township School Board will vote to submit its preliminary $26 million budget to the state at 7:30 in the morning in a small conference room at Round Valley School on Cokesbury Road, on Friday, March 2, 2012.

Hiding the budget

Last Monday evening, superintendent Kevin Carroll and board president Jim Dincuff asked the board to approve the preliminary budget sight unseen. Dincuff and Caroll were hiding the money.

The board refused. Now the board has had a couple of more days to study the $26 million budget before voting on it in the early hours of the morning, when the public is least likely to attend.

Committed to better communication

The night the board voted 6-3 to eliminate school budget elections, member Maria Grant introduced a resolution to make up for killing an election:

“Be it resolved that the Clinton Township board of education is committed to being very active in communicating the district’s budget process and financial information to the members of the Clinton Township community, therefore the Clinton Township board of education will present the approved budget to the community and to the organizations in the community.” [sic]

Here’s the board’s idea of better communication:

Still trying to hide the money, the administration has no interest in communicating the fact that it’s meeting at 7:30 am to vote on the budget. Maria Grant, where are you? As of 5:00 pm today, this is the home page of the Clinton Township school district.

What’s the big upcoming event tomorrow? Bingo Night at PMG. There is no mention of the special 7:30 am budget meeting.

On February 27, Grant vowed that the board will…

“…strive to give information to them on a financial basis as well as with the budget, every step we go, getting their input, and providing information out to them… we’re not going to do anything without them knowing that we’re going to do it.”

As long as “they” can show up at 7:30 am for a meeting that’s not worth posting as prominently as bingo night.

The Annual Budget Scam

At the February 27 meeting, Dincuff explained why the board has so little time to work on the budget: The state did not announce until last week how much aid the district is getting.

According to Department of Education officials, that’s no excuse for a late budget.

A DOE official explained to this publication that a responsible school board can and should have its preliminary budget done long before now. The state aid numbers are not necessary to build the budget and define the  strategy for the next school year. After all, the aid is relatively small and can be factored in later.

The preliminary budget should have been done weeks or months ago, so it could be reviewed by the public and studied by the board members.

Why wasn’t it? Why the same excuse every year?

The excuse offered by Dincuff for why it’s okay to submit a last-minute, half-baked, un-reviewed preliminary budget is that… any changes can be factored in later!

Still hiding the money

Last year the school board pocketed state aid intended for tax relief, and the majority of the members and the administration are doing it again this year — by hiding the money.

What is the real reason the preliminary budget is sprung on the public and the board at the last minute every year?

The answer is that the administration prefers to hide the money from the public and the board itself — for as long as possible. In late March, it’ll be too late again to review the budget carefully.

But when the public starts asking questions, it’s time to call the cops and boot the public out.

Dincuff and Carroll are betting (your money) that no one will show up at 7:30 in the morning.

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You say you like to exercise your right to vote on school budgets every April?

Fuggedaboutit.

In a stunning 6-3 vote, on the evening of February 13 the Clinton Township Board of Education (BOE) eliminated the 100-year-old right of citizens to vote on school budgets  — and justified the vote by citing the results of a rigged “survey” of residents.

During the past 10 years, Clinton Township voters rejected most school budgets, demonstrating a lack of faith in the BOE’s financial management.

Most of the 6 board members who voted yes — Jim Dincuff, Mark Kaplan, Michelle Cresti, Kevin Sturges, Maria Grant, Rachel McLaughlin — cited as justification for their action the will of the voters expressed in the survey. (See also Hunterdon Democrat: Clinton Twp. board of education approves moving school election to November.)

They nonetheless acknowledged during the meeting that the BOE doesn’t know whether the people who “voted” in the survey are residents of Clinton Township, since the survey was anonymous.

Further disclosures about the questions posed in the survey revealed that the survey was rigged.

What “will of the voters?”

The BOE conducted a “survey,” available only on the BOE website to people who happened to visit — and the survey collected only 250 responses. It is unknown who the respondants are, where they live, or how many times they each voted.

Board member Mark Kaplan admitted the survey was “a poor statistical sample” for a township with a population of over 13,000 — but quickly concluded that the board should do as the “majority” of the 250 wished.

Board member Maria Grant reported the results to the board just before they voted — but she stated that the information was not the final tally.

Grant discussed and interpreted the narrative comments of survey participants, but did not provide printed copies of the survey results to the other board members. Board president Jim Dincuff did not permit public comments or questions about the legitimacy of the survey. According to Grant, a “majority” of survey participants “voted” YES to move school elections to November.

But what did the “voters” say about giving up their right to vote on school budgets and taxes?

Survey was “loaded”

It turns out the survey didn’t ask whether citizens they were willing to give up their right to vote on school budgets. Rather, the questions in the survey were only about moving school elections to November.

Under orders of BOE president Jim Dincuff, the survey was “loaded” to mislead participants. After asking whether the user has kids in the district, the survey asked three main questions. The items from the survey below were copied directly from the BOE website.

The missing survey question

The survey was clearly rigged, because nowhere on the survey were participants asked “YES or NO” —

Survey participants thought they were merely “voting” on whether to move school elections to November. And the two clever follow-up questions kept them focused on just that one issue.

They were not voting to give up their right to vote on school taxes.

That’s how Dincuff and his majority cohort “loaded” the survey — and fooled participants into “supporting” the elimination of a 100-year-old election. No one voted on the survey to eliminate their right to vote on school budgets — because Dincuff made sure the survey didn’t ask.

That’s how Dincuff and his cronies fabricated “the will of the voters” to support their theft of an election.

It wasn’t a survey — it’s a fraud against voters

With barely 250 “participants,” the survey was indeed “a poor statistical sample,” as Kaplan disclosed. A legitimate survey would have been sent to all residents by the BOE, in order to gather a full cross-section of opinions.

There were no measures used to ensure that the participants even live in Clinton Township — or that they did not vote again, and again, and again.

In fact, the author of this column intentionally misrepresented his status as a “Parent with at least one child in the District” to test the survey. But the survey accepted the input as valid, and Maria Grant counted the author as having children in the district. Anyone could have “voted” in the survey.

There is no telling how many fraudulent responses were counted and reported by Grant.

When confronted with the low number of responses and with the sampling problem, board member Rachel McLaughlin — who was not elected to the board, but appointed recently after being rejected by voters in two prior school board elections — asked how board members could not act in accordance with the majority of survey respondents’s wishes.

Armed with the worthless survey to support her promise to act “in the best interest of our district,” moments later McLaughlin joined Dincuff, Kaplan, Cresti, Grant and Sturges to take away citizens’ right to vote on school budgets.

The only detailed speeches on the matter were given by the three board members who voted against eliminating school budget elections — Marc Freda, Michelle Sullivan, and Kevin Maloy.

Taxpayers subjected to voter fraud

Board member Mark Kaplan’s professional credentials suggest that he clearly knows better than to draw conclusions from a “survey” that was limited to a few people who visited a website. He admitted when pressed by board member Marc Freda that the survey was not statistically valid because it did not sample the will of the community. Yet Kaplan cited “the majority” of the responses as the reason to vote YES to eliminate budget elections.

The survey was presented as a “vote” — but no one knows who was voting.

The survey was presented as “the will of the people,” yet the people were not asked if they wanted to give up their right to vote on school budgets and school taxes.

The rigged survey was used in a concerted effort of the majority of the board to defraud registered voters of their right to vote.

The “new” board of education is — to paraphrase Pete Townshend — the same as the old board: Corrupt and unethical, and still lying to the citizens of Clinton Township.

Among those on the board who voted against voters, Dincuff’s and McLaughlin’s seats will be up for election in November. Dincuff has not yet attempted to lead the board in an action to eliminate that election as well — but who knows? Monday night’s action automatically extended Dincuff’s term as board president another 8 months — so he’s got more time to try. After defrauding taxpayers of a $247,000 tax refund last June, the Dincuff damage continues.

Fuggedaboutit

If you planned to vote once again in April on the Clinton Township school budget and tax levy — you will no longer be permitted to do so.

You will no longer have any say about school taxes — not by voting, anyway.

But trust the good will of your board of education. It has offered an olive branch to those who exercised their right to vote against all those budgets over the past 10 years.

Prior to eliminating your right to vote, board member Maria Grant emphasized that you are welcome to express yourself about school taxes — but only by talking, not by voting. She added wording to the resolution to guarantee that.

The question is, what are you going to do about it?

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The Clinton Township Board of Education is going to decide whether to eliminate our right to vote on school budgets.

Attend the School Board meeting!
Speak up to SAVE SCHOOL BUDGET ELECTIONS
Monday, Feb. 13 —  7:30pm
Clinton Township Middle School

Do you want to save your right to vote on school budget elections?

Almost every single school budget of the last 10 years was rejected by voters due to a lack of faith in school financial management and questionable actions of the board. Now the Board of Education is going to decide whether to eliminate school budget elections.

What is this — revenge against voters for rejecting so many school budgets? The solution is to take away elections?

This seems to be what some BOE members are thinking, while others want to protect our right to vote.

The “explanations” from those who want to take this action are quite a wonder:

1. “We’re doing it because we can.”
   (That’s right — the BOE votes on this, we don’t. So you’d better show up and speak up if you want your right to vote protected.)
2. “It’ll save money if we don’t have budget elections!”
   (That’s a good one. Let’s just end elections because they cost money. Knock-knock: It’ll save more if we do vote, when taxpayers decline higher taxes.)
3. “Great news! Budgets will be approved automatically if they stay under the cap!”
   (Except there’s no definition in the law about what the cap will be — the cap can change. The cap could go higher. And many big items are exempt from the cap. Who protects taxpayers then?)
4. No other government budgets are voted on — that’s why we should end taxpayers’ right to vote on school budgets, too.
   (Say what? Maybe all budgets should be voted on. So protect our right to vote on school budgets.)
5. Most people want school budgets approved — they just don’t vote when they should! This fixes that!
   (You’ve been hearing this one every April at school election time. It’s still stupid.)
6. There’s nothing for you to worry about — let the BOE decide how much of your money to spend every year!
   (No thanks. I’d rather vote. Voting is our right. If the BOE wants to regain the respect it has lost, it will stop fooling around with the public’s right to vote.)
7. Lots of other towns have already eliminated school budget elections. We’re just joining them!
   (We tell our kids that even if their friends are doing drugs, they should not. Nuff said.)
8. TRUST US!
   (Nope, not yet. We have a mostly new BOE, but it must earn our trust. First, show us some budgets we will support! Meantime, don’t take away our right to vote.)

Those are the “explanations”…

…about why elections should be taken away from us. None of it makes any sense — in fact, it comes across not like what’s good for us, but like “The BOE’s Revenge” for all the school budgets that voters rejected over the past 10 years.

There are some new BOE members who seem to oppose this new “initiative.” They need our support. Show up at the meeting, speak out, tell the rest of the BOE to SAVE OUR SCHOOL BUDGET ELECTIONS.

If some of the BOE members really think they’re “doing what’s best for the community,” then they should STOP this and produce a budget that we will support in a budget election in April. THAT is their job — NOT to eliminate our right to vote on budgets.

ATTEND THE MEETING — SPEAK UP, or don’t complain about school budgets and taxes. Your right to vote is in danger.

7:30pm Monday night, Feb. 13, Clinton Township Middle School.

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While the majority of the Clinton Township school board has finally turned the corner toward integrity and transparency, one man continues to drive the school district off the road. School board president Jim Dincuff has again and again tested the patience and credulity of teachers, parents, taxpayers, and other public officials, while he has again and again put the district and the township in one ditch after another.

Meanwhile, the board’s constituents — and many of the new board members — have again and again made it clear they don’t want to go where Dincuff is taking them.

Why is Jim Dincuff still board president?

The damage continues

• Jim Dincuff oversaw the hiring of superintendent Kevin Carroll, who earned the only public sanction ever issued by the Clinton Township teachers — an 81% vote of no confidence.
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• Dincuff attempted to grant Carroll an early contract renewal — until parents condemned the effort and demanded a proper public process.
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• Dincuff nonetheless attempted to renew Carroll yet again, a few months later, then engineered a “polite” cover-up of the public’s rejection — and permitted Carroll to withdraw his request for a new contract.
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• Dincuff has managed the most acrimonious teachers’ contract negotiations in Clinton Townshp history, resorting to shouting his terms and recriminations at teachers in the middle of a school board hearing on another topic entirely. Dincuff has left teachers hanging in the breeze without a contract while his “negotiating committee” destroyed teacher morale.
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• Dincuff approved lavish raises for administrators before restrictive statutes took effect, then claimed that new rules prohibited similar deals for teachers.
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• Dincuff also oversaw the “polite resignation” of former superintendent Elizabeth Nastus, whose legacy is an oversized $40 million middle school project for which taxpayers will foot the bill for decades to come — after offering her yet another contract renewal. When Nastus announced her resignation, Dincuff asked the town council to leave an extra $160,000 in the rejected school budget — to pay off her golden parachute. Dincuff had to be taken to the county superintendent by town officials to force him to reduce Nastus’s payout. (Nastus quickly moved on to DelVal High School, and just as quickly left there, ahead of the torches and pitchforks.)
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• Rather than fire business administrator Patricia Leonhardt for mismanagement of last summer’s tax-relief award, Dincuff granted her an excuse: “Ms. Patricia Leonhardt misspoke,” and let her resign quietly instead. (Does anyone wonder how inept school managers get recycled from one district to the next? This is Board of Education Human Resources Management 101. Cover it up and make sure everyone can keep making a lot of money.)

Dincuff is in control

Jim Dincuff controls the hiring of yet another business administrator and superintendent for the Clinton Township school district. “On behalf of the board?” On behalf of the very same public that rejected Dincuff’s last hire? On behalf of the teachers who had no confidence in Dincuff’s last hire?

Fresh off a quarter-million dollar tax heist, and fresh off the mismanagement of public hearings for administartors’ contract renewals, Jim Dincuff is now poised to oversee the appointment of yet another disastrous administration to run Clinton Township’s schools. Jim Dincuff will once again leave his mark on education, teacher morale, and the future of almost two thousand children.

The damage continues

School board members are elected to protect the interests of their community — not to promote the errors of their board president.

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Why didn’t the Clinton Township board of education convene in July 2011 to return $247,310 of tax relief funds to taxpayers, and why did board president Jim Dincuff cover it up?

Even with a just-released 16-page defense, the best answer that board president Jim Dincuff can manage is, “Ms. Patricia Leonhardt misspoke.”

Oops! That’s one helluva $247,310 gaffe.

How one man can manipulate taxpayers, local government, and state officials

After Dincuff casually dismissed allegations about the matter last summer, the board of education has released what seems to be a detailed legal defense against highly-questionable actions of four board officials and administrators.

Last summer, two members of the Clinton Township board of education (BOE) along with the superintendent and business administrator withheld a quarter million dollars of tax relief from taxpayers, and they lied in writing to the Clinton Township council about who made the decision.

Board president Jim Dincuff quickly tried to cover up his manipulation of the funds, the board, and the town council by claiming it was all a misunderstanding.

Now the BOE leadership has issued a 16-page “Q&A” about the matter that reads much like a legal defense. The 26 Q&As achieve little, except to emphasize that there are still no answers about what Dincuff and business adminstrator Patricia Leonhard did:

• They lied to the mayor and council in an e-mail about who decided to withhold the tax relief funds from taxpayers, and
• They withheld advice submitted to the board of education by the mayor and council and by state officials.

It was a lie

On instruction from Dincuff, Leonhardt wrote to the mayor and council that:

“The Clinton Township BOE has decided it needs to have a full BOE discussion regarding these monies.”

But…

As has been demonstrated already (School Board Gang of 4: Manipulation, lies and now… the cover up), there was no meeting of the BOE to “decide” anything. As the Q&A admits, the decision to withhold the tax relief funds was made not by the BOE, but by Dincuff, board member Mark Kaplan, superintendent Kevin Carroll, and business administrator Patricia Leonhardt.

How is it that the mayor and council were misled to believe that the board itself took action to withhold the tax relief funds?

The Q&A states that:

“Ms. Patricia Leonhardt misspoke.”

But…

Leonhardt made it very clear that she did not “misspeak” when she repeatedly affirmed that, “…this wasn’t in any way an oversight, it was a decision…”

Dincuff & Leonhardt withheld an important request from one elected body to another

The Q&A fails to address the fact that Leonhardt and Dincuff withheld an e-mail about the matter, written by township administrator Marvin Joss on behalf of the mayor and council, to the entire Board of Education. The e-mail urged the BOE to return the tax relief funds “to this year’s levy.” The e-mail also included this request:

“Therefore, can you please pass this message along to the Board prior to them meeting to make the decision on how to use these funds.”

But the e-mail was not delivered to the board members until after the deadline to act had passed. Dincuff and Leonhardt hid it. The board never had a chance to respond to it in a timely way.

If Dincuff and Leonhardt had acted properly, they would have immediately notified one elected body (the board) that another elected body (the council) had submitted a strong recommendation about a quarter million dollars of tax monies.

No Answers in the Q&A

The Q&A document fails to address the key issues in this matter:

• Dincuff and Leonhardt did not pass the e-mail on to the full Board prior to “the decision.”
• Contrary to what Leonhardt wrote to the mayor and council, the school board did not decide to reject the mayor and council’s request, because they knew nothing about it.
• Leonhardt’s e-mail to the mayor and council, in which she lied about “the decision,” was not only approved by board president Jim Dincuff — he instructed her to send it:

“Based on the input I received from other board members, I did not call for a special meeting and had the Business Administrator-Board Secretary report that to the Mayor and Council and to the press on behalf of the board. Instead, the increased state aid would be discussed at the regularly scheduled board meeting.”

— Letter to Editor from board president Jim Dincuff, Hunterdon Democrat, August 30, 2011

Having already withheld information from the BOE; having lied to the mayor and council; and having covered up the entire episode, Dincuff once again claimed authority he does not have. While Dincuff authorized a letter to the mayor and council, he did not do it “on behalf of the board” — because the board never gave him such an instruction or its consent.

Yet Dincuff continues to assert that his actions are “on behalf of the board.” Is it possible the man doesn’t understand the limits of his authority? Worse, is it possible the board does not understand the limits of Dincuff’s authority?

Did the board as a whole consult with its attorney about this matter, prior to issuing its Q&A?

16 pages of legal defense?

Months have gone by since Dincuff publicly dismissed the entire matter. Suddenly, the board issues a 16-page “explanation” that reads like a legal defense. The board of educations’s Q&A seems to be another step to cover up the actions of the Gang of 4.

If there isn’t an investigation going on by the New Jersey State Department of Education and the State Ethics Commission into this matter, then the new Q&A document suggests why there should be, because the key questions have not been answered.

Once again, Dincuff issues “BOE doubletalk” on behalf of the entire board, rather than address the manipulations that he and a handful of officials engaged in.

Commissioner of Education: You don’t get to address the board

Dincuff invokes is powers repeatedly in the Q&A, including why he is permitted to withhold communications to the school board from the Commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Education.

Q&A #20 (there are 26 in total) acknowledges that Acting Commissioner Christopher Cerf sent a letter to the school district urging that the $247,310 of special tax-relief aid be given back to taxpayers immediately. Dincuff explains why he withheld this request from the full board:

“In all likelihood the money will be used for tax relief, so I did not feel that it was necessary to share the letter with the Board.”

Why did Jim Dincuff go so far beyond the limits of responsibility and integrity, to stop two requests before they made it to the board of education?

One request was from another elected body, and one from a top-ranking state official? Both were the exact same request — Please give the money back to taxpayers immediately!

Why did Jim Dincuff withhold $247,310 from taxpayers and elected officials? The 16-page, 26-part Q&A document released by the board gives no satisfactory answer.

But the answer is obvious

Why the Gang of 4 did it is revealed in the Q&A Document #1 (page 8): business administrator Leonhardt’s e-mail to the board, notifying them about the appearance of the $247,310 in special tax-relief funds. She states:

“The good (great?) news is that our state aid increased from a previous net (after the SDA interest deduction) of 541,978 to a new net of 789,288, an increase of  247,310… which will net us even more money.”

Leonhardt doesn’t even mention the fact that the $247,310 was intended by the governor and the department of education for tax relief — immediately. A quarter million dollars shows up unexpectely, and the administrator:

• Doesn’t consider it her duty to inform her employers what the purpose of the money is?
• Doesn’t tell them what their options are?
• Doesn’t affirmatively notify them in that initial e-mail that they have until July 19 to meet to make a board decision, and offer to schedule the meeting?

Of course not, because it was Dincuff’s and Leonhardt’s intent from the start to hide the money — behavior that has been a legacy of the Clinton Township BOE.

To avoid further influence over the board, Leonhardt and Dincuff withheld from the board communications and advice about the purpose of the funds — those e-mails sent to the school district by the mayor and council, and by a state commissioner.

All the subterfuge points to one conclusion: Dincuff, Leonhardt, board member Mark Kaplan, and superintendent Kevin Carroll not only decided to withhold important information and options from the board — they conspired to keep “an increase of 247,310… which will net us even more money.”

Who needs an elected board of education when four people decide?

The rationalization is that the board is still free to consider what to do with the tax-relief funds in the coming year. But this rationalization does not address or excuse the manipulation of money, taxpayers, and elected officials by four individuals who acted on their own.

Jim Dicuff continues to assert again and again that he has acted “on behalf of the board” when the board never met in a legal session to authorize him to do so.

Rather than issue a 16-page defense of indefensible actions, the board of education should immediately initiate a complete investigation by an independent agency into the actions of the four individuals responsible for subverting representative government.

The board owes its constituents the truth. And it’s overdue.

Jim Dincuff: The damage continues.

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