Thursday, March 4, 2010

Recall Fever and the Flint Board of Education

Who knew the Flint Board of Education was such a volatile group of elected officials?

Last month, the board passed a resolution to censure one of their own members, David Davenport. Laura Misjak of The Flint Journal reports:
"The resolution states specific instances of misconduct, including leaking information to the media about a closed board meeting, verbally assaulting staff during meetings, publicly criticizing board members and soliciting private information about students as though he was approved by the board to do so.
Of course, Davenport should have expected a little hostility after he initiated the process to recall six of his fellow board members last fall. Melissa Burden of The Flint Journal reports:
Davenport, who was elected to the board in May, wants to recall the six members because he believes they are violating a district policy by allowing Superintendent Linda Thompson to hold her position, while her brother Bashir, sits on the board.
Just to keep things interesting, a Flint resident turned around and filed recall petition language against Davenport last month.
"The petition reads that Davenport should be recalled for “A) inappropriately disclosing to the media details of a closed meeting of the board, B) verbally assaulting and insulting staff at board meetings, C) violating board policy by soliciting of private student information, D) violating board policy by publicly criticizing individual board members and E) publicly making derogatory and defamatory remarks, statements about public officials," according to the Journal.
Not to be outdone, Davenport set out to recall Mayor Dayne Walling for “jeopardizing the safety of the citizens of Flint.”

Melissa Burden, who is clearly on the Flint Recall beat, reports:
Davenport said he filed the petition against Walling in response to him last week pink slipping 80 police and firefighters due to city’s budget problems.

“As a leader of the city, for me to allow money to be top priority over the safety of the citizens of the city is ridiculous,” Davenport said.


2 comments:

  1. So basically the board is just a bunch of numpties rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I think this tells you what sort of influence the mayor's office has over the school board.

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for commenting. I moderate comments, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. You might enjoy my book about Flint called "Teardown: Memoir of a Vanishing City," a Michigan Notable Book for 2014 and a finalist for the 33rd Annual Northern California Book Award for Creative NonFiction. Filmmaker Michael Moore described Teardown as "a brilliant chronicle of the Mad Maxization of a once-great American city." More information about Teardown is available at www.teardownbook.com.