Taxpayers should rise up against wasteful lawsuit

The president of the Youngstown Board of Education, Brenda Kimble, is pursuing a personal agenda and is using tax dollars to do it. Kimble must be stopped.

Taxpayers in the city of Youngstown should flood the next meeting of the board of education Feb. 10 and demand that Kimble drop her legal battle with the Youngstown Education Association.

At issue is her appointment of a relative to the newly formed Youngstown City School District Academic Distress Commission. The YEA filed a lawsuit to block Carol Staten, who recently was hired as a school principal after serving as a substitute teacher, from taking a seat on the panel. The union contends that Staten is not an active classroom teacher and, therefore, does not meet the statutory requirement that the board president appoint a teacher.

But Kimble, who is neither an educator nor a lawyer, contends that her reading of the law has led her to believe that Staten meets the definition of a teacher.

It doesn’t matter to the school board president that Mahoning County Common Pleas Judge Lou A. D’Apolito not only voided Staten’s appointment, but ordered Kimble to select an active classroom teacher.

He had given her a noon Friday deadline for acting on his order, but he set it aside so the school board’s long-time lawyer, Ted Roberts, could file an appeal with the 7th District Court of Appeals. Roberts, who is paid with tax dollars, has gone along with Kimble’s ridiculous contention that she has no choice but to fight the YEA’s lawsuit because she is being sued personally.

Kimble has used that argument to justify spending public money on this legal action – without first getting the approval of the entire board of education.

That was clearly demonstrated Friday when the board voted 4-3 to support the appeal to the 7th District court. The vote was taken after the fact.

In the majority were Kimble; her son, Ronald Shadd; Jerome Williams and Michael Murphy. Voting no were Jackie Adair and two new board members, Dario Hunter and Corrine Sanderson.

IMPORTANT ISSUE RAISED

Hunter, who is a lawyer, has raised an important issue by focusing attention on the fact that Kimble has pursued this legal action without first gaining board approval for spending public dollars.

Although the board president insists that she has a right to instruct Atty. Roberts to defend her because she is being sued personally, the fact is that she is a defendant in the YEA action by virtue of her public position.

And yet, she treats the board’s attorney as her private lawyer – paid for with tax dollars.

Hunter is right when he argues that the school board as a whole should approve any expenditure of public funds for litigation.

As he said Friday when the board was considering a resolution instructing Roberts to file the appeal, “This resolution is after the fact. I mean action has already been taken, and without consulting the board.”

He called the action “ridiculous” and pointed out that the appeal to the 7th District had been filed Thursday.

“This action itself – I find it to be personally motivated. I find that it’s ridiculous that we’re spending so much in legal fees to appoint madam president’s cousin to the academic distress commission.”

But Kimble and her cohorts on the board will continue this wasteful legal battle unless the taxpayers of the Youngstown school district rise up and tell the elected officials to stop.

It can be argued that school board members have no qualms about acting against the best interest of the public because very few residents show up at the meetings to express their opinions. That has been a long-standing problem and has contributed to the decline of the urban school district.

The academic collapse of the system, following a fiscal implosion several years ago, has prompted the state Legislature and Gov. John Kasich to create the Youngstown Plan that marginalizes the school board.

The plan requires the appointment of a new academic commission. Former State Superintendent of Public Instruction Richard Ross selected three members, Youngstown Mayor John McNally named one, and Kimble, as the school board president, was required to select a teacher.

But the ongoing legal battle has prevented the commission from performing its most important role: the hiring of a chief executive officer who will have total control and authority over the district.

That’s why Kimble must be stopped. She is placing the academic future of the district’s children in jeopardy.