AMERICUS — Around 200 concerned citizens attended a question and answer forum Monday held in the cafeteria of Sumter County Elementary School. A group of citizens organized the meeting and invited the Sumter County Board of Education and Superintendent Roy Brooks in hopes of getting some answers, regarding recent decisions by a majority of the school Board. But only three of the nine Board members were in attendance, leaving many citizens disappointed that their concerns and questions would not be addressed.

Present at Monday’s meeting were Board members Mike Mock, Michael Busman and Meda Krenson, along with Superintendent Brooks. During the one and one-half hour forum, 15 citizens, whose names were drawn randomly, asked questions and gave comments that centered mainly on the Board’s reversal of its redistricting plan and its decision to hire a new attorney.

Southwestern Judicial Circuit District Attorney Plez Hardin addressed a question regarding alleged illegality in the Board’s recent actions. Hardin said his office was gathering information regarding the recent actions by the Sumter County Board of Education.

“All I can tell you is that a number of the concerns have been brought to my office’s attention. We’ve spent the last few days gathering minutes from various school Board meetings, talking to a Board member or two and with other people that are familiar with the situation,” Hardin said. “All of these issues that we’re talking about are not criminal in nature,” the DA added. “Right now, while there may be legal issues, they’re not necessarily criminal. There have been some issues that have been raised that are criminal and most likely those issues will be dealt with at our next grand jury.”

Hardin said he could not comment on any specific information that his office is assessing.

Hardin’s comments were in response to comments and questions from a concerned citizen, David Minich, who inquired who would lead an investigation into the Board’s recent behavior, which was in his view in violation of the Open Meetings Act.

“I think everything I’ve heard tonight indicates there’s a violation of the law here — the Open Meetings Act. And I know that three or maybe four Board members in Brooks County were recently suspended by the Governor. I’m assuming that an investigation took place,” Minich said.

He added that, as he understood it, there was no prior conversation at the Board’s work session, concerning the hiring of a new attorney and the motion and the vote made at the very next meeting was, in his view, illegal.

“Six members of the Board are all on board with hiring someone who no one has ever heard of,” Minich added.

Minich also said the similar circumstance of the Board voting to rescind the redistricting plan may have been illegal.

“An investigation could include subpoenaing telephone records as well as e-mails and would likely indicate that the Open Meetings Act has been violated by members of this Board, who should be suspended.”

“Who asks for the investigation?”

“Who conducts a formal investigation of these shenanigans?”

“Is the governor — is it SACS — who?”

“I would say that your first point of contact, if you feel there has been some issue of illegality, would be with the local District Attorney,” Board member  Mock directed Minich. Hardin, who was present at the meeting, was urged by audience members to address Minich’s question.

Another question came form Linda Mock, who made a similar inquiry.

“We do know that some Board members have acted illegally by deciding to go against the redistricting, so what do you do about their illegal actions?”

“I don’t have an answer for that, honestly,” Busman responded. “If someone has violated the law, then the law officers or whatever official has to do something about it — I’m not the law, I don’t really know,” he added.

The forum’s moderator, Jerry Perkins, offered his comments, saying “as far as violating the law ... I guess that’s yet to be determined, and then hopefully if the school Board has legal counsel, they can move on from there.”

Busman continued, “If you guys don’t like what we’re doing, you can go above our heads to the state legislators — and also if you don’t like us you can vote us out and get rid of us, too.”

Another question came from Elma Golphin, who asked “where do we go from here?” Golphin said her question was in regard to “redistricting and everything that went wrong.”

Brooks responded first, saying “the first thing we need to understand is why do we exist. We exist for these students.”

He said the Board needs to unite and focus on the kids, and when a Board strays from what is best for the kids, it ultimately begins to act in the best interest of the adults. Brooks said the tax payers have a voice and encouraged them to come to meetings and continue to be more involved.

Brooks also said Board members must be held accountable.

“If I cannot do what you asked me to come here and do, I will not stay and be an impediment to the progress in this system — I will leave; I will resign. Hold everyone else to the same standard. And if we hold everyone to the same standard then people will begin to believe that we are putting the children first and not the adults.”

Emily Collins asked the Board about the recent changing of its “legal representation of the school system from Harben, Hartley and Hawkins, who represents most of the school systems in this state, who is legal counsel for the Georgia School Boards Association, and Sam Harben, who was formally legal counsel for the National School Boards Association.”

“It’s hard to understand what that rationale might be, and it’s kind of scary,” Collins added.

“I really don’t have an answer to why it was changed,” Board member Mock said in response to Collins’ inquiry.

He said there was no prior discussion by the Board as a whole and that he could not provide a rationale for the decision by the Board’s majority. The Board voted 6-3 at its regular meeting on Jan, 12 to appoint Albany attorney Maurice King as its legal counsel.

“We were taken aback when the vote came up because we had never heard the name of the attorney that the majority of the Board voted for,” Mock added.

Concerning the new attorney, Busman said “... we didn’t know anything about that until the vote took place. We never did see a fee schedule ... I sent an e-mail to the Board members asking for a continued discussion about this because approving someone without a fee schedule is like leaving an open checkbook for them to write their own check on, and I was really concerned and didn’t think it was appropriate to do that. We didn’t see a resume. We were told that this person represented these (school systems). We found that to not be true.”

Busman held up a stack of stapled papers that he said contained a list of about 70 attorneys.

“Here’s a list right here — Georgia Council of School Board Attorneys — Mr. King’s name is not on here, so in my opinion he doesn’t qualify as a school law attorney,” he said.

Board member Krenson commented as well, noting that the school system has ongoing litigation that Harben, Hartley and Hawkins are involved in.

“I hope that we don’t start losing money and time and losing cases because we can’t use them anymore,” Krenson said.

She added that along with the attorney situation, that the law firm of Harben, Hartley and Hawkins is familiar with the Sumter County School System and maintains a personal rapport with the Board members.

“We have a very good relationship with them,” she said.

Aaron Cosby asked a question pertaining to “the example the school Board is setting” for the students. Cosby referred to rules set forth by the school system that must be followed by students or they will face certain consequences.

Mock responded, pointing out the Board follows a code of ethics and swore an oath to the Constitution of the United States and the State of Georgia. He said the Board hopes to act in the best interest of the school, but that has not been the case in recent months.

“It’s disheartening to me that the Board is divided as it is, and we need to find a way to bridge this divide,” Mock added.

Valerie Duff had a question for the Board Monday, but first she expressed her appreciation for the Board members who were present, including her District representative, Krenson.

“I’m sad to say that the people who need to answer my question are not here. It would appear that they don’t think about (accountability) and that they owe their constituents some answers,” Duff said. “Where do we stand with the redistricting process. What will happen now — what is the timeline for that?” she asked.

Busman said that Senate Bill 154 and House Bill 4EX were signed into law last year, but to be enforced, must complete the pre-clearance process of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). However, Busman said the final legal documents were not submitted to the DOJ because the Board’s legal counsel at the time, Jimmy Skipper,  was ordered by majority vote of the school Board  not to do so.

“It’s up in the air right now. It’s on hold because the process can’t complete itself,” he said. “That’s it, as far as I know. We’re in limbo because we don’t know if it’s going to get approved or not.”

Another concerned citizen, Rusty Whaley, told Brooks, Krenson, Busman and Mock that he spoke to a Board member about why he voted the way he did regarding the redistricting withdrawal. Whaley said the Board member said his decision was based on not having enough information.

He said something was wrong if a Board member still needed more information after the process had been ongoing for two years.

Busman responded to Whaley’s comments, providing some history of the Sumter County School System. He said when the City and County systems combined, the composed legislation called for a nine-member Board. He said currently the Sumter County Board of Education is the largest in the state at nine members. Mock commented that of all the schools in Sen. George Hooks’ district, Sumter County is the only one whose districts do not coincide with its respective County’s districts. Busman also commented that the largest school system in Georgia, Gwinnett County has 150,000 students and has five Board members. In addition, Busman said in 2010 the Board decided it needed to shrink its size due to the State mandate that a Board’s size can be no less than five, no more than seven and so the Board will be able to have a say in how it wants to redistrict instead of it being imposed by the legislature. He said the Board voted 8-0, with one member not present, to proceed to shrink from nine to seven members with the understanding that there would be two at-large seats, given that the racial make-up of the County citizenry is close to being 50-50.

Busman said over the year and a half, redistricting had been discussed “ad nauseum” at Board meetings and after the resolution was sent to the Legislature, “it was out of our hands,” he explained.

He said there is “nothing new” about the redistricting of the school Board districts except the decision by a majority of the Board members to vote to have seven different districts. He explained that the main issue for the County and the Districts  is to have coinciding district lines.

A question was asked by Susan Ruckman Monday, who said, “I feel like I represent a majority of the people here. I’m a taxpayer, I’m a parent with three kids in this school system; I’m the PTO president for the middle school; I’m a mentor — I’m involved as much as I possibly can and my Board member didn’t even acknowledge my e-mail last week.”

Ruckman first inquired about the Board’s new attorney.

“Rumor has it that this new attorney that you guys had to hire, didn’t even provide a schedule fee, payment anything. As tax payers, can we veto this to keep you guys from having to hire this person when we don’t even know how much he is going to charge?”

Brooks would later speak to the attorney situation saying, “I would hope that any attorney would be something that certainly someone would sit down and talk to me about. After all, I know what the legal issues are ... and I don’t recall ever being in on the conversation. I think it would be important for me as superintendent to know who we are going to hire as an attorney. I am the chief executive officer. The Board as one person or two persons cannot act. The Board can only act and execute their duty as a whole, and you have heard certain Board members say that they were not involved. My responsibility is to protect the tax payers’ interests. I can only do that to the extent that I’m involved and I was not involved.”

Mock commented, “I serve on both the finance committee and the technology committee and property. We don’t do anything with the school Board without getting bids, references.”

Mock said expenditures ranging from school roofs to insurance coverages for the school system go through the bid process.

“It’s good business to discuss these things ahead of time — have a game plan, have a list to choose from, not to come up at the very last second and say ‘we want this guy’ — six to three vote — it’s a done deal. It’s risky business when you are dealing with legal aspects of a $35 million operation and all of the laws and regulation of all the things dealing with the day to day operation of the school system,” Mock said.

One question was directed to the Board members and superintendent concerning rumors of accreditation problems at some of the schools in the system, which was asked by Susan Kearse. Brooks responded, saying that he was unaware of any  problem regarding accreditation, but told Kearse that she did, however bring up an interesting point.

Brooks said that is the reason why notions of “unity,” as suggested by others, is so “critical” at this time for the community and the school system.

“Losing accreditation could be the most disastrous thing that could happen to this school district. A child’s diploma would be worthless; credits would be worthless.

“So, if you send any message to those who you want to send messages to; the message is ‘get your act together.’

“Because if this district loses accreditation this City — this County will dry up. People will leave in droves.”

Brooks vowed that as long as he was superintendent, he would not let it happen.

Busman commented on the issue, providing the instance of the Southern Association of Colleges revoking Clayton Public Schools’ accreditation in 2008, on grounds that the school Board was “dysfunctional.”

“If you have a dysfunctional school Board that doesn’t go by the rules, your kids and your teachers and everybody will suffer,” Busman said.