Tuesday, March 27, 2018

The Fox C-6 School Board Election Is Only One Week Away!

The Fox C-6 school board election is only one week away!

Have you read the voters guide for this year's Fox C-6 School Board candidates?

I recommend reading some of the past voters guide articles as well.

I've posted a link to the voters guides below from the Leader Publications website.

Reading through the past voters guides is quite interesting. Not everyone is aware of who board candidates are related to in the school district. Then there's always the connections as to who was helping who get elected such as who their campaign treasurer was during an election. That's another important point to note as well. You won't find campaign treasurers listed in the voters guide. But, it's good information to know.

Board candidates give reasons as to why they should be elected in the voters guides. You can read about some of our previous and current board members as to why they say they should be elected. Compare the reasons they listed with what was allowed to occur. Oversight and accountability is something that's really needed in our school district and has been sorely lacking for more than a decade.

What oversight was there when the credit card misuse and salary over payments were discovered during former superintendent Dianne (Critchlow) Salsman's time as superintendent?

Were any of our current or former school board members interviewed by the FBI during their investigation of the school district?

Dr. Wipke didn't mention that any of our school board members were interviewed by the FBI in the January 26, 2017 Arnold-Imperial Leader news article nor was there any mention of it by Leader writer, Kim Robertson.

Dr. Wipke stated in the January 26, 2017 Leader that:
"The FBI talked to employees, and the auditor did a full audit, and all our employees had an obligation to answer their questions to the fullest of their knowledge and turn over any documents and information they had. It’s been a time-staking process to go through all these investigations. I know it’s something that was desperately needed to be done, and all of our employees fully cooperated with any entity asking questions.”

If school board members had been interviewed by the FBI, they would have been able to speak about the numerous requests I made to our school board over the years for the district to post bill payments and budget documents on the district website for the public to review. They would have also been able speak about my numerous requests I made to review credit card statements in 2014 after the district had paid out nearly $2 million in credit card payments.

Our school board needs to get a copy of the FBI report for the public to review. We've only been able to get a copy of the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office investigation report so far. That's the report that Fox's former school board secretary Debby Davis said that she wasn't going to throw Dianne under the bus.

The FBI report should also be able to explain why the U.S. Attorney's office and St. Charles Prosecuting Attorney Tim Lohmar didn't file criminal charges in the case despite what was uncovered and documented in the 2016 State Auditor's report.

It's certainly odd that charges weren't filed in Fox's case when others are routinely charged for the same type of misuse of public funds in other school districts and public entities.

Four of Fox's current school board members were on the board when online defamatory posts were traced back to our former superintendent's home and when the credit card misuse was discovered in 2014. However, they still agreed to pay out $130,000 to our former superintendent when she "retired" from the district. Why?

School board elections can greatly affect whether or not people will be held accountable for their actions. A great deal of that depends on who the candidates are friends with or who they have worked with in the past.

Below are links to some of the past Fox C-6 School Board Candidate Voters Guides:

2018 Fox C-6 School Board Candidate Voters Guide


























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