Three Rivers meeting turns surly

Published 5:00 pm Tuesday, June 17, 2014

MURPHY Ñ Three Rivers School Board Chairwoman Kara Olmo had her hands full and her gavel handy Tuesday night, trying to keep the peace and run a meeting despite open warfare between some of her colleagues and district staff.

That gavel was used freely during public comment and also at the end of the meeting, when she adjourned, resulting in a shouting match between several audience members.

“Are you trying to silence me?” asked Joseph Rice, a resident who spoke during the public comment portion of the meeting.

“Yes,” Olmo replied, before banging her gavel several times and adding, “We are recessing.”

Rice and other community members came to the meeting to applaud the school board and chastise interim Superintendent Patricia Adams for a tort claim she filed last month against the board and the district. A tort claim is a precursor to a lawsuit.

“You’ve set a sad example,” Rice told Adams, of the $100,000 claim that alleges the board, and in particular former board chairman Ron Crume Jr., has interfered with her ability to carry out her duties and that she has incurred damage resulting in medical bills.

Although Rice contended he had a right to state his opinion, discussion of personnel issues is not allowed during public comment, said Olmo, who apologized to Adams for Rice’s comments after she resumed the meeting and told Rice to sit down. He did so, after receiving a round of applause from a half-dozen audience members.

After the meeting, Crume questioned why Olmo cut off those who spoke against Adams, yet in a previous board meeting allowed public comment from Dave Strahan, who lost his bid for a seat on the board to Crume in 2008, and Kevin Marr, a Grants Pass motel owner, who both used their public comment minutes to ask for Crume’s resignation.

Olmo’s troubles weren’t just with the audience.

An even bigger disruption occurred when Crume said he had four items not on the agenda to address and proceeded to make two motions, seconded by the board’s vice chairman, Ron Lengwin.

The first motion concerned a change to the board’s handling of executive sessions, the closed-door meetings held by the board to discuss sensitive issues. Crume contends state law requires executive sessions to be either recorded or transcribed; whereas the school district’s policies require written minutes, thus requiring Shelly Quick, Adams’ assistant and school board secretary to be in those meetings.

“Is this in opposition to me being present? I don’t think me being present makes a difference,” stated Quick, who has also filed a tort claim similar to Adams’ against the board and the district.

Crume said his purpose didn’t concern her personally, but was a general way to keep people other than the board and superintendent out of the executive process.

Olmo and board member Kate Dwyer opposed what Olmo termed the “hostile motion,” but it passed 3-2, with Crume, Lengwin and board member Danny York in favor.

Crume then presented a motion for the board to hire local attorney Chris Cauble to advise and represent the board in legal matters. It also passed with the same second and vote.

“I’m so blown away by this,” Olmo said, despite admitting she received an email on April 14 from Cauble about the anticipated motion.

“I find that hard to believe as we’ve been talking about this all month,” Crume replied, adding Olmo should have had an inkling of the prospect since she had gone with him to visit the attorney prior to Crume’s stepping down as board chairman and nominating Olmo for the position.

Crume stepped down shortly after Quick filed a complaint against him, saying at the time that he was doing so due to a need for more time for work and family. The district withheld the complaint from the Daily Courier for several months, and the public was not aware of the context at the time.

In earlier public comment Tuesday evening, Josephine County resident Robert Conrad told Crume he had made “several mistakes” on the board, the biggest one being stepping down as board chairman.

Although Crume said he had two additional items to discuss, Olmo pounded her gavel and said, “Meeting adjourned.”

At this, six or seven audience members erupted with shouts of “Who do you think you are?” and “How rude.”

Fellow audience member, Kim DeForest, a teacher at Newbridge High School, shouted back at the others, “The meeting is over,” and “Who do you think you are?”

In other business, the board tabled several proposed action items, including renewing a contract with Sodexo Food Services, extending its contract instead for 30 days to avoid interruption of the district’s free summer lunch program.

That decision was based on a request earlier in the evening to appropriate $250,000 from district funds to make up for overages beyond the food service budget. A similar shortfall occurred last year, to which the board then approved $100,000 to cover food service overages.

The board decided to table the items until July, when new Superintendent David Holmes takes over from Adams, who was hired last year on a one-year-only basis. The status of her threat to sue remains unclear.

“I have a hard time swallowing a quarter of a million dollars. I cannot approve $250,000 being taken away from students,” Crume said, before making a motion to table the appropriation.

Reach reporter Ruth Longoria Kingsland at 541-474-3718 or rkingsland@thedailycourier.com