« My Hero Graces Brad Paisley’s Latest Music Video | Main | Joe Wiley Lawsuit Update - 7/28/2008 »
Crossing the Finish Line
By Tyson Wynn | July 22, 2008 | Print This Post
I previously shared with WynnBlog readers about the situation with a rogue school board member at my high school alma mater. The short version is that a group of concerned citizens decided to deal with the matter rather than to ignore it. They formed an unincorporated group and have been working to hold the school board member accountable for his actions.
The only way to deal with an errant school board member in Oklahoma is to petition the district court for a grand jury to investigate. This is an extreme burden in small school districts, in that grand juries are county-wide. In the instant situation, my hometown of Welch, OK, has a total population of approximately 500 persons. The last school board election saw 274 persons cast votes for a school board member. The minimum number of signatures necessary to impanel a grand jury is 500. So, what you have is a small school district with a board member behaving badly that, to deal with the issue, must get the equivalent of the entire population of the town (and almost twice the number of persons who voted in the last school board election) to sign a petition to have the bad behavior addressed. It’s lunacy to require so much from a small community. Most recalls require only a percentage of the last vote for that specific entity, which is a much lower bar. In this case, if the school board recall bill authored by Representatives Toure and Hamilton had passed in 2003, it would require a petition signed by 25% of the number of persons voting in the last school board election, or 69 persons in this case, to set a recall election of just Welch school district voters. The grand jury petition requirement is 7 times that number! That’s a high bar indeed. In the Welch case, 69 signatures were gathered in less than a week if my memory serves. However, the grand jury does ensure that it’s not a popularity contest. The grand jury can subpoena witnesses and look at the evidence and reach an informed conclusion about Mr. McCord’s fitness for office.
All the above notwithstanding, the citizens of Welch have worked their rears off and traveled the county asking fair-minded citizens to sign the petition. The group, WE CARE (Welch Citizens United for Responsible Education), announced earlier today that it now has in excess of the 500 signatures necessary. WE CARE has given the board member’s attorney notice that they have the signatures and intend to file them with the court if he has not resigned by 4:00 p.m. tomorrow. We shall see what transpires.
The larger lesson here is that Oklahoma MUST reform school board accountability. Waiting up to five years to vote a bad board member out of office is simply not feasible; asking a small school district to gather more signatures than it has citizens is an undue burden. Oklahoma school board members should be subject to recall or impeachment. I will be addressing this in the future.
Topics: Legal, News, Oklahoma, Politics, Welch |