School Board to “Bully” Citizens Wanting to Speak With Arrest and Possible Jail Time!!!– Report and history by Robert A. Williams

School Boards should “Practice what they Teach.” Schools across America teach that the First Amendment gives citizens the freedom of speech and more. The First Amendment in full states “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” The Cleveland County Board of Education thinks they are above the law–the Congress, the US Supreme Court, the US Constitution and many parts of the First Amendment.

North Carolina State Law requires all government agencies like commissioners and school boards to hold regular meetings and for those meetings to include “Citizens Participation” or “Public Participation” as it is sometimes called as a part of their public meetings. State law also requires these agencies to conduct ALL of their business in public with very limited exceptions. (Those exceptions may be a subject of other articles, but will not be included here.) This article is about how the Cleveland County Board of Education, lead by Chairman Phillip “Bully” Glover is trying to revise THEIR policies to deny Cleveland County citizens their Constitutional rights. And, in a sneaky and probably illegal way. Read on.

First, the Policy in question. Make that a big question mark as hanky panky by Bully and company appear obvious.

The Policy, noted as CCS Board Policy 2310 was discussed in the February 27, 2017 school board meeting. Superintendent Fisher lead the policy presentation saying this policy titled “Public Participation at Board Meetings” was on the books and the document presented to the Board was only a minor revision.

Only thing was, I had picked up on this policy so-called revision from the meeting agenda. I immediately smelled a rat because the policy called for an exact three minute limit on citizens, if the citizen tried to use additional seconds to finish his or her sentence, the chairman, Bully Glover, could order the citizen to shut up, if the citizen did not immediately shut up, Bully would rule the citizen out of order and at Bully’s discretion have the citizen arrested for disrupting the meeting. There were other parts about personal attacks within the three minutes where Bully, as the one who would decide what a personal attack was, could do the same thing. I immediately recognized this as a way to shut down all citizen’s complaints. I also immediately recognized something was illegal about all of this.

So, the first thing I did was search the internet for shutting down citizens recognition at public meetings and the North Carolina Institute of Government. What I found was an advisory article written by the Institute of Government titled “Criticizing Public Employees in Public” that told me everything I needed to know. According to court cases already decided, Citizens indeed had the right to criticize, and name, school employees in their presentations to the school board. Citizens can’t use profanity, jump up and down, yell and scream, etc. but otherwise citizens can tell it like it is.

So, I sent this advisory article to ALL the school board and Supt. Fisher prior to their meeting and requested the advisory article to be put into the board meeting minutes.

At the Feb 27, 2017 meeting the school board discussed this Policy 2310 at great length, but were careful not to mention my message or the Institute of Government advisory article. Other things were fishy and strange about this discussion. Nobody mentioned anything about a legal opinion from the CCS Board’s lawyer, although the board had authorized over $18,000 for legal assistance in revising board policies. Since I attend just about every school board meeting I can often pick up on what the board says and especially what they do not say in their board meetings about “touchy” subjects.

And apparently school board members Jo Boggs, Bully Glover, Roger Harris and others do not like to be called bare faced liars by citizens, especially a Baptist Church Deacon who truthfully call them just that to their faces. In one particular case Jo Boggs and Bully Glover were called that after the Baptist Church Deacon’s grandchild was denied school bus service down his road even though the schools had sent buses down his road for over thirty years. Jo Boggs told the Deacon that it was illegal for CCS to send a school bus down his road.

Jo Boggs also has a history of trying to squelch citizen’s complaints while she was a County Commissioner. When citizens were against the County giving the Old Courthouse to the Destination Cleveland County group and citizens were coming to the commissioner’s meeting to speak their mind, Jo Boggs literally called out the dogs on them. A Sheriff’s Department K-9 vehicle was placed in front of the County Office Building with the clear message to citizens that Jo Boggs didn’t want to hear any complaints. I was an eye witness to that so I know for a fact what happened. So do many others.

Now, the school board is essentially trying to do the same thing with this policy that is basically a gag order on citizens. But there is much more.

Today, March 8, 2017, I decided to check out the minutes from the Feb 27,2017 school board meeting. Supt. Fisher is the Board Secretary and the person in charge of the minutes. The minutes on the board review of Policy 2310 only says “Board members discussed some of the wording in Policy 2310, and Policy Subcommittee members agreed to clarify statements in the policy before it is brought back for second reading.”

I immediately sent an email message to the school board that said:
“All, I see from your draft minutes of the Feb 27, 2017 meeting that the information I provided as noted below was not included in those minutes. Also, what was provided in the draft minutes does not adequately describe the board’s discussion of Policy 2310 at he meeting. Perhaps the two go together.

Nonetheless, I would suggest that the final version of CCS Policy 2310 not deviate from Court Decisions that provide case law for such actions. I would further suggest taking this Policy to your well paid attorneys for their advice prior to approving Policy 2310.
Regards,
Robert A. Williams”

Then, I decided to look up the original school board policy 2310 to see just what had changed. I was in for a surprise. The original, and still active, Policy 2310 is for “Grant Funding” and is one paragraph long. Not a peep about Public Participation at Board Meetings. A search of the CCS Policies indicated not a word about Public Participation at Board Meetings.

I sent another message to school board that stated:
“All, Your CCS Draft Policy 2310 conflicts with existing CCS Policy 2310 that is titled “Grant Money.” I could not find in your records any original policy such as the Draft 2310 titled “Public Participation At Board Meetings.”
As I was present at the Feb 27, 2017 Board Meeting, I distinctly heard Dr. Fisher state this Policy 2310 included only minor revisions from the original Policy 2310. The Old Policy Manual on Board.docs will not open. When I go through Board.docs under the Board of Education, I find the original Policy 2310 “Grant Money” marked as an active policy and no such thing as this draft policy 2310.
I can only conclude draft policy 2310 “Public Participation at Board Meetings” has been conjured-up by the CCS Board only to limit public participation because board members Jo Boggs, Phillip Glover and others have been called bald faced liars (and apparently rightly so) during previous board meetings’ public participation agenda items. Clearly the attached Institute of Government article indicates such statements are legally protected by the US Constitution, First Amendment provisions.
Shame on the CCS School Board for trying to pull such shenanigans on the Citizens of Cleveland County.
Regards,
Robert A. Williams

I will state again, “Shame on the CCS School Board for trying to pull such shenanigans on the Citizens of Cleveland County.”

I am taking the Baptist Deacon at his word that Jo Boggs and Bully Glover are bald faced liars. From what I learned today, there are others that are also bald faced liars. Folks, who needs bald faced liars in any elected office in Cleveland County??? Getting rid of such is what elections are all about. This year is an Election Year for the School Board. Bully Glover, Kathy Falls and Donnie Thurman, Jr. need to go.
I recommend Danny Blanton for reelection and there are several others that are planning to Run.

I also recommend Kevin Whisnant from Fallston as well as Rodney Fitch, who was instrumental in getting Christian Prayer started at school board meetings. Robert Queen, who just barely missed getting elected in 2015, also would have my recommendation if he chooses to run this time. I ask that you support these four in the School Board Election coming up in November of 2017. These four are not quite a majority, but I expect if they get elected a few of Bully’s crew that are not up for election this year will quickly change their tune. Kinda like all those who said they would leave the country if Donald Trump was elected President.

Again, this is how our government works and how we have to get rid of the political riff-raff when we have to.