Two board members call for location of new high school to be disclosed

Two newly elected Muscogee County School Board members are questioning how voters can approve the superintendent's proposed sales tax to fund capital projects when the location for a new Spencer High School hasn't been disclosed.

That was among the complaints John Thomas of District 2 and Frank Myers of District 8 voiced during their news conference Thursday outside the Muscogee County Public Education Center.

At $56 million, a new Spencer High is the most expensive of the 24 projects on the $192,185,000 list. Voters will be asked in a March 17 referendum to renew the 1 percent Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax that expired Dec. 31. Early voting starts Feb. 23.

"The track record of this school board has not been good enough for somebody - and I'm now on the school board with John - but it's not good enough to make this leap of faith to just, you know, 'Trust me. We're going to get it right,'" Myers said. "They haven't gotten it right, because we're in the bottom one-fourth of school systems in the state of Georgia. That's what needs to be the priority of this school district: the student achievement."

Myers and Thomas cast the lone opposing votes in the nine-member board's decision last month to authorize the referendum. They have insisted on first conducting a forensic audit of the entire school district to better understand how the current funds is being spent.

"We don't see that the way to go is to throw more money into a black hole and build a bunch of pretty new buildings," Thomas said. "We want to put money back into the classrooms."

Since they took office in Jan. 1, Thomas said, he and Myers haven't received the information they have sought about the targeted land for the proposed new Spencer High.

"So they want you to give them the money and then they'll tell you where the school's going to be," Thomas said. "I don't believe that's the right way to proceed at all. If it's outrageous for the public not to be told where the school is going to be built, imagine how we feel as elected members of the school board."

In an email responding to the Ledger-Enquirer's questions, board chairman Rob Varner of District 5 wrote, "Any discussion about real estate liquidation or acquisition will, initially, occur in executive session. The vote to dispose of or acquire real estate must take place in public. We've had discussions about real estate in the past; I can't speak to specific tracts of land but, at this time, we are not having active discussions about land acquisition; were that the case, both Myers and Thomas would know since they are now on the board."

Valerie Fuller, the district's communications director, emailed a statement from Lewis, which said in part:

"There is a state law governing board member ethics that states that board members may express opinions before votes are cast, but after the Board votes, members should abide by and support all majority decisions of the Board. [ O.C.G.A. § 20-2-72 and State Board of Education Model Code of Ethics]. I do not think it is the proper role of the Superintendent to have a public debate with a Board member who is advocating a position contrary to the majority decision of the Board."

Myers called that opinion "the most strange legal reasoning that I can remember in my 25 years as a lawyer. I have a duty to speak out on behalf of the people who elected me. Some piddly local rule that's in conflict with the United State Constitution, that comes in a distant second."

Mark Rice, 706-576-6272. Follow Mark on Twitter@MarkRiceLE.

This story was originally published February 5, 2015 at 7:43 PM with the headline "Two board members call for location of new high school to be disclosed."