Tempers flare during Mount Pleasant meeting
Personnel issues and what can and cannot be talked about in a public meeting caused fireworks at the Mount Pleasant School board of directors meeting Monday night.
While the majority of the meeting was calm, tempers flared during comments by board members when Director Warren L. Leeder called for Secretary Annette R. Anderson to resign. Leeder recalled Anderson asking for his resignation at the first meeting in his current term, when she accused him of breaking the Sunshine Act because he commented on his no vote on a coaching position. Leeder claimed Director John R. Walton did the same at the October meeting and Anderson did not call for his resignation.
Leeder was referring to a comments made by Walton during the October meeting regarding the hiring of Amanda Laskey as assistant junior high boys soccer coach. Right before the vote, Walton asked for the vote be tabled for further discussion. The vote was not tabled and Laskey was hired with a roll call vote with all voting yes except for Walton and Anderson who voted no. At the end of that meeting Walton attempted to explain his reasoning for his actions during the vote and was cut short by other board members and told him he could not speak about personnel issues in an open meeting.
Prior to Leeder’s comments in the meeting held this week, Walton apologized to the board for bringing the subject up at the previous meeting.
Leeder also accused Anderson of violating the Sunshine Act regarding her comments on the Soccer Coach vote. Anderson denied the allegations and claimed she did not mention the candidate’s name and was only asking for clarification on something regarding the issue.
When asked why she called for Leeder’s resignation and not Walton’s, Anderson said it was because Walton did not mention the candidate’s name in his comments and Leeder did mention the candidate’s name in the earlier instance. The two argued as to whether or not Leeder actually said the candidate’s name or not. Leeder defended his actions by pointing to where the man in question had been sitting during the meeting when he spoke.
John W. Sarnese of Mt. Pleasant, had several questions for the board regarding personnel issues. Sarnese, who was in attendance as a district resident, had been one of the candidates voted on by the board for Walton’s seat prior to his appointment in March. Walton was appointed to the seat by a panel of Westmoreland County judges after the school board was unable to come to an agreement upon which candidate should fill the seat left vacant after the resignation of Richard Albright in January.
Sarnese asked the board if an audit had recently been conducted and if that audit was tied to the recent resignation of an employee. He also asked for the cost of the audit and invoked the Freedom of Information Act. Sarnese was told that in order to get information through the Freedom of Information Act he must fill out a from and submit the request to the board.
Sarnese was told by Solicitor John Toohey that any audit conducted relating to a personnel issue may not be available under the Right to Know Law.
“The board would have to look at the request and see if it is legal to release the information,” Toohey said. “If the board denies the request, there is a process to appeal to the Office of Open Records.”
Sarnese also questioned the board’s policy on unemployment.
“If you resign from your job are you permitted to collect unemployment,” Sarnese asked the board.
Sarnese was told the district contracts with a third party company that handles decisions on if employees are approved on denied unemployment compensation.
During the meeting, board approved a list of substitute employees retroactive to Oct. 10 2016 pending satisfactory completion of all pre-employment requirements. Sarnese asked the board what happened if something comes back negative on any of the candidates.
Gabauer said the district would investigate and if the negative report was legitimate, then it would depend upon the severity of what it the action was or what it was as to how the district would proceed.
After the meeting Sarnese said he plans to file the proper forms in order to request information