People have been running up to the GPS offices to read public record emails and making formal requests for public records, then starting a whole lot of Facebook chatter about their discoveries. We think it’s great, because sunshine kills vampires!*
In the interests of transparency and informing the Gilbert community about important news, we quote below an email that was posted on a Facebook group. The subject was how the GPS Governing Board President was silenced by the Interim Superintendent and an Assistant Superintendent during a board meeting as she was reading prepared remarks that had been vetted by the board’s lawyer. The background was described in this news article:
Gilbert Public Schools’ board president hinted at a 2013 internal investigation into public-records destruction during a discussion about a new policy to strengthen records management at a school-board meeting Tuesday night (April 8, 2014). During a discussion about the policy, Burk said that when “the e-mail system was deleted, there were a number of people that had outstanding public-records requests, including myself, for some of the records that were on that server that was erased.”
Burk said some of the documents people had requested were “related to financial dealings and concerns” in the district. Burk referenced a former administrator and a previous bidding process when Assistant Superintendent Clyde Dangerfield, who oversees finance and legal issues, interjected. “Mrs. Burk, I’d really like to point out that there are people that you’re talking about here (and) that it’s a very dangerous discussion because there are individual rights involved,” Dangerfield said. “And I’m not sure it’s fair to have the discussion you’re having in a public board meeting without those individuals being represented.”
Burk began to speak when interim Superintendent Jim Rice cut in. “Mrs. Burk, I really have a problem with this being discussed as well,” Rice said. “We have an investigation that is supposedly being taken place … we should not enter into any conversation at all regarding this.” Burk again began to speak when board member Lily Tram interjected, saying that the board had yet to discuss the police investigation or see the documents Burk provided police. Burk told Tram, “You have the documents I gave to the police.” Tram responded, “No, no.”
Following is an email that was sent to Dr. Jim Rice, Interim Superintendent of Gilbert Public Schools, and to Assistant Superintendent Clyde Dangerfield, Esquire on April 9, 2014 that shines a whole new light on the events in the linked news article:
There is chatter on Facebook as to how and why Lily Tram and Jill Humpherys were allowed to carry on for several minutes reading from unproven allegedly slanderous allegations regarding Sarah Green and Gladys Mopecha, but I was quickly shut down when I carefully selected my words and even used the word allegedly. It is not allegedly because Barb VeNard herself admitted to me that she sent the emails and the reporter obviously had copies because she wrote about them, but that was not the point.
I was about to go into how the policy had the potential for helping people understand why it was that a certain group felt the way they did and mistrusted. But then, Clyde, you know that. We all know that all of this stuff happened before the Greens came into the picture and that there was a large group that did not trust because of records issues long before the Greens began writing or even got involved with the District. The group of citizens that still have not received the emails are those that mistrust and for that very reason and some of them opposed the override.
As you know, Jim, I mentioned that I wanted us to just come out publicly and say, “Look this happened.” We know it. You both know it. Most of the boardroom knows about it.
But come out and say, “Yes, we know the server was deleted, and this is what we are doing and have done to ensure that something like that doesn’t ever happen again.” The Barracuda system was one thing, the police investigation is another, the staff training and the policy. I know, Jim, that you said Lily and Jill do not want to issue a statement on it, but as you could see, there are still members of the public that haven’t forgotten. I know several others that were not at the meeting and they, too, have not forgotten. I am not saying to continue to re-hash it but to come out and say that it happened, there was some mistrust and this is what we are doing to fix the situation could go a long way in healing the mistrust. What happened tonight with trying to shut it down and hide and cover up and not talk openly about what is really going on is only going to strengthen the divide.
I was about to say that this policy could go a long way into helping to rebuild the trust with those members of the community. I had it all written out to talk about the reasons for the requests for records, the mistrust and how the approval of the policy should help to rebuild. They could tangibly see with the policy that we were taking steps to improve their confidence and show that we value transparency and trust. Instead they saw the same behavior that led to the situation to begin with.
Additionally, I am concerned also that there does seem to be a lack of congruence, Clyde, as to when you choose to jump in and cut off conversation to protect individual rights. If you do not like the person, it is just fine if a couple of board members carry on, mentioning all sorts of unproven allegations for which you have in your possession evidence that counters the things being said. But in this instance, I didn’t even use Barb’s name and went way overboard using alleged when we all know she sent the emails to Jim, and you jumped right in.
I am really having trouble understanding the inconsistency.
Staci Griffin-Burk
From the comments below the original post: “Barb VeNard forwarded her husband emails containing details of the network deal, while her husband sold HP products and the network deal was between HP and Cisco. That happened while she was supervising the IT. After there were questions from the community, the server with all the emails just happened to be accidentally wiped clean.” There is a link to another Arizona Republic article about the incident. Of course, this is only ONE speculative reason why GPS officials would destroy records on a server to deny access to public records that had been requested by citizens.
Another comment: “Leave Barb Alone? The woman sent emails with pricing information to her husbands email while he was an HP product salesman and it was a competitive bid between HP and Cisco. Not surprising HP won. The Republic got ahold of the emails and wrote a story about them. Parents ask for them and poof the server with the emails are deleted. All this while Barb is over the IT department.” Perhaps the public is starting to understand why it’s so important for the GPS Governing Board to get to the bottom of the server destruction!
As for Lily Tram and Jill Humpherys saying defamatory, venomous things about two teachers, at the time they made those remarks, Lily and Jill knew full well that their remarks would be enshrined in video and archived on the official Gilbert Public Schools website. Just when you think GPS will come to their senses and quit violating laws and district policies, someone in a position of power does something incredibly stupid … again. BTW, what Jill and Lily were reading from appear to have been Defendants’ Motions for Summary Judgment, which were totally disputed and proven to be inaccurate and flat-out wrong in the lawsuit. Ooopsie, Jill and Lily didn’t read the opposition, obviously. So they began a deliberate smearing spree, attacking two teachers with great glee.
Jill Humpherys and Lily Tram seem to have forgotten that Gilbert Public Schools PAID a lot of money for the misdeeds and wrongdoings of GPS superintendents and administrators. Gilbert Public Schools didn’t pay money out of the goodness of their hearts, you know. Now Lily Tram and Jill Humpherys have inflicted even more damage on the reputations of two teachers who stood up to the GPS Good Old Boys. Cue the music!
From Daniele Quinteros: “If what was said about Gladys and Sarah was not true then why only hire back Sarah????” Indeed!
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Big Fat Asterisk: Some states call public records laws “Sunshine Laws;” we agree that sunshine is the best disinfectant. And vampire killer.