Florida Governor Ron DeSantis suspended four elected Broward County school board members, following the recommendation of the grand jury asked to review the Parkland school’s safety guardrails after the 2018 mass shooting.
“It is my duty to suspend people from office when there is clear evidence of incompetence, neglect of duty, misfeasance or malfeasance,” said Governor DeSantis in a statement. These board members “have shown a pattern of emboldening unacceptable behavior, including fraud and mismanagement,” the statement continued.
The grand jury found that the board members mismanaged a multimillion-dollar bond, which was approved by voters in 2014, for improving school safety and renovations. The governor’s statement alluded to the grand jury’s finding that students continue to learn in “unsafe, aging, decrepit, moldy buildings that were supposed to have been renovated years ago” in its explanation for the suspensions.
The grand jury’s final report also stated that a safety-related alarm at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School could have saved lives in the 2018 tragedy, but “was and is such a low priority that it remains uninstalled at multiple schools.”
DeSantis is ousting four board members: Patricia Good, Donna Korn, Ann Murray and Laurie Rich Levinson. Rosalind Osgood was also mentioned, but is no longer a school board member, and “therefore not subject to the Governor’s executive suspension authority,” the statement clarified.
On Friday, Levinson called the suspension “political retribution” by DeSantis: “What country is this? What Governor DeSantis did is un-American and undemocratic. He doesn’t care about democracy and overturned the will of the voters.”
DeSantis appointed four new school board members to fill the vacant positions; a move, which Politico said, would give “Florida’s Republican governor new allies in a Democrat-leaning area.”
On February 14, 2018, 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz opened fire at his former high school in Parkland, Florida, with a semi-automatic rifle, murdering 14 students and 3 staff members and injuring 17 others. In October, Cruz pleaded guilty to 17 counts of murder and 17 counts of attempted murder. His trial began on July 18—a jury has not yet determined whether he will face the death penalty or life in prison.
The grand jury was empaneled in February 2019, one year after the massacre. The grand jury finished the report in April 2021, but it was kept under seal until last week.
Lightningstruckagain on August 29th, 2022 at 12:54 UTC »
Does Florida have a king or a governor?
BigBennP on August 29th, 2022 at 11:28 UTC »
So I'm confused about so much more than what is said in this article.
A grand jury was created to investigate the Parkland High School shooting. Okay fine. It's not inconceivable that someone would want to know whether there was a failure of administration that led to the shooting and whether someone could be charged. But it is notable that the decision to create the grand jury would have been made by a republican, and the school administration is mostly democratic.
The grand jury apparently doesn't pursue any criminal charges, but releases a report on its findings. That's weird because that's not what grand juries do. In any case the report is confidential because all documents related to grand juries are confidential.
This report finds that there was negligence and incompetence among School Board Administration in Broward county. But didn't recommend charges. Again very weird.
This report was released in April of 2021. No actions were taken.
But in August of 2022, 60 days before an election, the governor unseals a report and dismisses four members of the school board named as having been incompetent.
Importantly he does this while a jury is actually deliberating on the fate of the shooter.
He does nominally have the power to dismiss public officials who have committed a gross breach of Duty, but the timing is bizarre and just not referenced in the article.
And now he can appoint four Replacements to an otherwise Democratic majority School board. Again, allowed under the law but very unusual.
FuckThisPostTruthEra on August 29th, 2022 at 10:53 UTC »
We should all prepare for more of this when the SC takes a look at Moore. Because this is a microcosm of what’s to come.