(Emergency board meeting is called Sunday, October 29 at 6:00 pm, held at the offices of Rehmann Group, 107 South Cass, Suite A, to take up the imminent threat to the public welfare & school operations concerning the sudden resignation, without notice, of Superintendent Susan Dameron at 3:00 pm today.)”
An emergency or urgent public necessity existed requiring immediate action of the Grand Traverse Academy board, and an imminent threat to public health and safety or a reasonably unforeseeable situation existed because Grand Traverse Academy's former superintendent, Susan Dameron, ankled her job without appropriate notice?
But what does that have to do with the price of tea in Azerbaijan?
Here's how: Michigan’s Open Meetings Act has been in place since 1976, aimed at promoting openness and accountability in government. Broadly, it prohibits government bodies from meeting or communicating privately to debate policy issues and ensures most discussions and decisions will be made in meetings open to the public.
However, when the emergency designation was applied as profligately as it was in this instance by the Grand Traverse Academy board, it sets aside any requirement for the board to publish any notice.
It right there in the board's manual under Section 0165.4: “No notice of any emergency meeting shall be required.”
So, could the Grand Traverse Academy board have delayed its meeting until the next day?
In my opinion, the answer is yes — especially when you consider the news of Dameron's departure had already been announced on this blog before the board assembled for the 6:00 p.m. meeting.
And, even more importantly, how will we learn whether there had been a series of email exchanges among the board members, as well as more detailed information on any discussions that occurred during the emergency meeting regarding Dameron's employment?
In the days that followed, did board members correspond by email, referencing plans for more “damage control”?
What are the rules of procedure pertaining to the decision made by the board during the meeting “to appoint Jim Coneset as Interim Superintendent”?
Will we know how the board members voted, and if any other internal candidate was considered?
The board's “nothing to see here folks, move along” announcement, issued a few hours after Dameron's email, stated her departure “does not change anything in your child’s regular school routine”.
Doesn't sound like much of an emergency to me.
