On Tuesday, four members of the District 150 School Board were present when they introduced Grenita Lathan, an interim deputy superintendent at San Diego Unified School District, as the district’s new superintendent.<\/p>\n
District officials said Lathan would be taking no questions shortly before she walked in, noting the “meet and greet” was “just to introduce her” and her schedule was tight.<\/p>\n
Lathan spoke briefly and left.<\/p>\n
Members of the School Board – President Debbie Wolfmeyer, Vice President Linda Butler and board members Martha Ross and Laura Petelle – then took questions from the media.<\/p>\n
Wolfmeyer said they planned to vote on Lathan’s contract at Monday’s meeting, saying Lathan “has full support of the board.” She later noted that the board also will contemplate hiring a “mentor” or “coach” to help Lathan acclimate into the new position, as well as addressing how they would look to Lathan for guidance in filling the associate superintendent’s position, which is being vacated by Herschel Hannah.<\/p>\n
“Even a casual gathering, such as a dinner party or coincidental meeting on the sidewalk, becomes a public meeting if a majority of a quorum of a public body (or a committee, etc. thereof) is present, and discussion occurs regarding business that is before, or is likely to come before, that public body,” Lyons said.<\/p>\n
A meeting is defined by the Open Meetings Act as any gathering of a majority of a quorum of the members of a public body, or in this case three School Board members, held for the purpose of discussing public business.<\/p>\n
The law is intended to ensure that public business is conducted in public.<\/p>\n
Obviously, the district didn’t intend to hide anything if it invited the media.<\/p>\n
The law also requires public notice when a majority of a quorum of a public body meets.<\/p>\n
In the school district’s defense, sources there say three of the four board members showed up unannounced. The fourth gave about an hour’s notice.<\/p>\n
And District 150 did offer some notice.<\/p>\n
On Feb. 12, a simple, single sentence explaining the event was sent to local TV and radio stations, a couple of newspapers and a magazine noting the time and location. It ended with a line: “This opportunity is for our professional media partners and is not open to the public.”<\/p>\n
Of that Lyons noted: “A public body, no matter how well-intentioned, may not hold a public meeting and define for itself who may and may not attend the meeting. Public means everyone unless they, for cause, have been ejected or barred (disruption, etc.). Posting and distribution of notices for all public meetings are set out in the act and may not be narrowed by the public body.”<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dave Haney can be reached at 686-3181 or dhaney@pjstar.com.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n Read the original article from Journal Star<\/a>.<\/p>\n Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services<\/a><\/p>\n A half-hour scheduled “meet and greet” Peoria School District 150 officials held Tuesday with the apparent next superintendent and members of the media violated the state’s Open Meetings Act, Peoria County State’s Attorney Kevin Lyons said Friday. “Violations of this act always involve quirky levels, and this one is no different,” Lyons said in an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-341658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341658\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/img><\/a>
\n<\/img><\/a><\/p>\n
<\/img><\/a>
<\/img><\/a>
<\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"