For nearly five hours last Thursday, the Council Rock School Board met and debated multiple topics, including the appointment process of the new solicitor that has dominated dialog in the district dating back to January.
Montgomery County-based firm Rudolph Clarke was appointed in January to replace previous firm Eastburn and Grey, who provided legal services for the district for over 40 years.
The change in solicitor was one of the many changes Council Rock’s new Democratic-majority school board has made since taking over control of the district for the first time in history.
Minority Republican school board members have repeatedly argued that they were shut out of the process to select a new solicitor, saying that they were not consulted and had no input in the appointment of Rudolph Clarke and only were notified about the intended change a week before it was made.
Democrats on the board have sought to clarify the issue on multiple occasions, saying that changing solicitors is a common practice among newly elected school board majorities and that they have done nothing wrong or illegal during this process.
Furthermore, they contend that the Republican members of the board have had more than enough time and opportunities to ask questions and seek answers to the concerns they have.
In any case, the issue continues to be a hot-button one for the board.
At one point during the meeting, Republican school board director Joe Hidalgo, in trying to seek answers to the questions he said the Democratic majority was refusing to answer, called on Democratic Board President Yota Palli to resign “right now”.
At another point, Republican Bob Hickey asked Democrats on the board whose election committees allegedly received personal donations from new school board solicitor Michael Clarke if they thought they should have recused themselves from the vote to appoint a new solicitor because of those donations.
Democrats, including new board member Linda Stone, responded by saying that they had no problem voting on the matter as it is common practice for law firms or members of those firms to donate to political committees.
Democratic board Vice President Ed Tate even got up from his chair at one point during the meeting and left the board dais, returning only when Palli asked him to.
Hidalgo, Hickey, and Republicans Mike Roosevelt and Anne Horner brought up numerous other concerns they had with the Democratic majority board’s handling of matters, including transparency.
“Last month, members of this board leadership and you Mr. Clarke indicated that you would be more forthcoming in future meetings, but we still don’t have that timeline (on the solictor selection process) and there’s still broken trust. I’m guessing that a timeline for this will not be provided and that’s what makes it difficult,” said Roosevelt.
Palli responded to Roosevelt and the other Republicans on the board expressing concerns about the issue by explaining that all five Democratic board members (or in the case of Nicole Khan, Linda Stone, Tracy Osecki, and Tate board member-elects, met with Rudolph Clarke in November before any were formally sworn in (thereby not violating the Sunshine Act).
Right To Know requests submitted by the Republican school board members or members of the community revealed that at least two other firms were considered in this process but ultimately the board members decided to go with Rudolph Clarke.
Hidalgo argued that sitting school board members should not have to resort to requests to obtain information on decisions made by the board they are a part of.
But after months of debating the issue, both Democrats and Republicans on the board conceded that it is time to move on.
“This is the last time that I’m going to talk about this because I agree, it’s about students,” said Roosevelt. “However, the themes are continuing and we also have a duty to our constituents, our taxpayers, and the students of this entire district to move forward.”
Palli added, “We are ready to move on, ready to concentrate on what really matters instead of spending all this time discussing what has already been done in a totally legal way. We’re ready to turn the page.”
Despite both Democrats and Republicans on the board seeming to want to move on, the issue was still being debated down to the last few seconds of the March 21 meeting.
During public comment, Upper Makefield resident Kevin Campbell expressed his concern that the issue was a non-stop point of bickering among the school board and that it was simply time to move on.
“The solicitor matter has again taken a lot of this meeting time and my concern going forward is we are not focusing on students. This is now two meetings that have gone well past what anybody really thought it would. I’ve heard more about this new solicitor than I have about any solicitor in the last 12 years coming to these meetings,” he said.
He added, “We need to start doing the business at hand, we need to get past what happened and move forward. We don’t like how we got here but we have a good law firm representing Council Rock. I’m looking at this sign every time I come in here. It says ‘Students First Always.’ We’ve got to get back to that, get back to the business of what we’re all here for.”
