One of the main reasons I wanted to see the opening of the meeting was whether or not the School Board followed state law in opening the meeting and going into a Closed Session properly. Rules of Parliamentary Procedures and state law precisely dictate how to open meetings and state laws are very particular that motions to go into Closed Session MUST Identify and for the record the exact law that specifies the very few reasons that Closed Sessions are allowed. Of course this School Board again ignored and violated the law. Bully Glover simply asks for a motion to go into closed session and someone says “So Moved.” The reason I take notice of such things is, if the School Board will not follow the little laws, they won’t follow the big laws either. This approach has also served me well in finding problems at CCS. Hey, if an organization doesn’t advocate finding and fixing problems they ultimately fail. Spending and wasting lots of tax dollars in the process. Actually, the whole $16 million new North Shelby School project is a failure, a total waste and was not needed. There was plenty of room to move the 80 North Shelby students to Shelby Middle School which has over 400 empty slots for students. Go back and read other articles on this website about the failed new North Shelby School Project.
I leave the room at this point and go up the hall to the reception area. Around 6:30 PM I see architects Roger Holland and Chuck Hamrick arrive and wait down the hall with John Yarbro. Neither have hard hats, protective shoes, safety glasses or ear protection with them.
Around 7:30 PM the School Board comes out of closed session and again fail to follow the law as required before they adjourn the meeting.
Then, as I anticipated the reason they had the meeting at James Love, all the Board Members re-assemble, again, against state laws that determine an assembly of a quorum of school board members constitutes an open meeting and the public is entitled to attend, they are about to take a “secret tour” of the new North Shelby School construction site with Architects Roger Holland and Chuck Hamrick as their guides.
The only problem the school board had was a member of the public was there and wanted to attend this illegally noticed meeting masquerading as a so called tour. That member of the public demanded to go on that tour. That member of the public was me. Read on.
The school board members were handed out hard hats for the tour. I was told by Superintendent Fisher and Assistant Superintendent Yarbro that it was an OSHA Requirement that everybody had to wear a hard hat to go on the tour. I asked for a hard hat. They said they didn’t have any more hard hats. I reminded Fisher that I had already been down this hallway and observed only Hispanic workers on the job. And NONE of them were wearing hard hats. Fisher incorrectly says “They don’t work for me.”
We were standing in a doorway and as I looked down into the hallway, I saw Roger Holland and Chuck Hamrick without hard hats. Fisher offered me a tour on another day. I said I want to go today with the school board. I am a member of the public and “I want to hear and see what the school board hears and sees.” What I really wanted was to hear any questions and comments from the school board as well as what the Architects told them. I already knew from my own experience on construction sites what I was likely to see and identify things that were wrong to see if anyone else on the school board would pick it up. Or the Architects. I pretty much knew that every member on the school tour, except Danny Blanton, knew absolutely nothing about commercial construction.