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There hasn't been a Board of Education meeting this crazy since the covid lockdowns!
You could tell something was brewing when BOE Clerk Michael Antonaccio sent an email Thursday afternoon, switching the meeting from in person to an online-only meeting without providing any explanation from Acting BOE Chair Karen Hirsh as to the reason for the last-minute change. (We asked but Ms. Hirsh did not reply.)
The big tip-off about the incoming fireworks could be found in the draft meeting minutes included with the November 21 meeting agenda.
The minutes reflected that BOE member Dr. Michael-Joseph Mercanti-Anthony and BOE Secretary Wendy Vizzo Walsh said Jen Behette's "standing as a board member is in question, that there is an ongoing legal dispute, and requested their statement questioning the legal order of the meeting be noted in the minutes."
The October 24th minutes further state that a legally-appointed Board member, Paul Cappiali, was “in attendance” for the meeting but not permitted to participate or vote.
Following the call to order at the October 24th meeting, Acting Chair Hirsh expelled Mr. Cappiali from the meeting by directing the Board Clerk to remove him from the screen showing Board members, and treat him like any member of the public who could watch the meeting -- off-camera and with no mic.
At the same time, Acting Chair Hirsh allowed Ms. Behette, who was illegally appointed at a sham emergency meeting, to participate as if she was a legitimate member of the Board.
Thursday night's meeting started with the Pledge of Allegiance, and shortly after that it went off the rails.
The mere act of BOE Secretary Vizzo Walsh trying to take attendance caused sparks to fly from a very defensive Karen Hirsh, a democrat and the Acting BOE Chair ever since the former BOE Chair, republican Karen Kowalski, moved away from Greenwich and resigned from the Board.
Acting BOE Chair Hirsh claimed it was not their protocol to take attendance, but BOE Secretary Vizzo Walsh insisted on a roll call in light of the controversy surrounding the meeting.
Then the Acting BOE Chair wanted to take a "pause" because she noticed a "guest" sitting next to BOE Secretary Vizzo Walsh, Mr. Cappiali, a legally-appointed, sworn-in and certified BOE member. Hirsh said he was not welcome to participate in the meeting as a panelist because she did not "recognize him as a member of the Board of Education."
BOE Secretary Vizzo Walsh pointed out that Mr. Cappiali is in fact a certified member of the BOE, and Ms. Behette is not.
But that fact hardly mattered to Acting BOE Chair Hirsh who aggressively shut down objections over the illegal appointment of Behette, and immediately pushed on to officer elections.
The sham election for BOE Chair was led by democrat Kathleen Stowe, who announced that votes should be emailed to her and to the Board Clerk, but excluded the BOE Secretary from seeing the votes. Stowe said the Secretary could just get the results from the town clerk.
All four dems voted for Karen Hirsh as Chair; Behette abstained; and the 4 republicans, including Mr. Cappiali, voted for Dr. Mercanti-Anthony. Stowe declined to record Mr. Cappiali's vote, and more fireworks erupted when the Dems claimed victory for Hirsh.
Acting BOE Chair Hirsh conducted the election for Vice Chair and nominated Dr. Mercanti-Anthony, who declined the nomination noting that he didn't believe the previous vote was in legal order. Cody Kittle was similarly nominated and declined to accept the nomination.
That's when Stowe nominated the illegally appointed Behette for Vice Chair. Behette gladly accepted the nomination, and had the nerve to vote for herself even though she is not a certified member of the Board. All four democrats voted for the illegally installed Behette for Vice Chair, too. All four Republicans abstained, but once again Mr. Cappiali's vote was ignored. Acting Chair Hirsh declared Behette won with 5 votes.
BOE member Laura Kostin was then nominated for Secretary and so was Vizzo Walsh, but Vizzo Walsh declined the nomination because she did not believe the meeting was in legal order. The dems voted for Kostin and the republicans abstained, so Kostin was selected as Secretary.
After declaring victory in the sham officer elections, the democrats proceeded like it was business as usual, moving onto comments from the PTA, student leaders and the teacher's union before opening the floor to comments from the community.
"Who gave you the authority to remove a legally-appointed BOE member from the October 24th meeting, and deny him the right to vote?" charged Homan before asserting that Ms. Hirsh should be censured under Section 9222 of the Board’s Bylaws, and forced to apologize to the People of Greenwich for the outrageous behavior.
"Better yet, maybe you just should resign, especially after the insane stunt you pulled tonight," quipped Homan.
"Ms. Behette, you should not be privy to confidential information or attend expulsion hearings. You are not a real Board Member who was elected by the people, but more like an imposter. You don’t appear to hold any certification issued by the town that says otherwise, yet you eagerly and arrogantly accept an appointment that does not appear to be in legal order as Vice Chair of the BOE," scoffed Homan, at times laughing at the absurdity of the Democrats' coup to take over the BOE.
"You might want to find out whether you’ll be indemnified by the town before continuing down this path," Homan cautioned Ms. Behette.
"What a bold plan it was, and then to pretend like everything was above board… just so you could become Chair, Ms. Hirsh… and switch meetings to virtual so you could “control” which board members may participate by withholding access to the meeting," continued Homan.
"Seriously, hats off to you for having the chutzpah to do something you know is illegal, but stick with it anyway, and then double down to keep the sham going even longer… recording illegal votes from a person who shouldn’t be seated -- essentially an imposter -- while denying a legally appointed BOE member his right to attend and vote – and then installing a whole new Board in repeated votes that do not appear to be in legal order."
Homan closed by questioning the Board democrats, "How long do you plan to keep the charade going–the 11 months it will take for the SEEC to respond? How much money is this Democrat stunt going to cost taxpayers in legal fees? How much longer are you going to hide like cowards behind virtual meetings instead of facing the public to own up to what you’ve done?"
There was an awkward moment once Homan finished, and then it was back to the Democrats pretending it was business as usual.
We followed up with the Republican Board members after the meeting to get their thoughts on the Democrat-engineered coup.
Board member Cody Kittle said, "I think the procedural arguments are a distraction from a more fundamental question: does it make sense that the Democrats would fill the Republican vacancy without support from any of the existing Republicans? Even Democrats should be nervous about this, because future boards will use it as a precedent to try to take control whenever there is a vacancy. It is counter productive and undermines the balanced institution we are supposed to have."
Board member Dr. Mercanti-Anthony said, "There's nothing amusing about this nonsense. We need to remember that this is costing the district both time and money. The Democrats hired a lawyer on behalf of the board to defend themselves from the town legal department. This is an extremely curious and disheartening use of tax dollars on an issue that could have been so easily avoided."
BOE Secretary Vizzo Walsh said, "Just like they did on the national level, the Democrats are ramming through a candidate who was not legally appointed or elected, and they will fail again. By illegally installing Ms. Behette, they have given our Town their proverbial middle finger by not honoring the Selectmen’s appointment of Paul Cappiali. So much for democracy!"
"I understand the FOI Commission in Hartford has refused to adjudicate the matter on an expedited basis; consequently, we now have two members claiming to be Secretary, only adding to this outrageous dysfunction," continued BOE Secretary Vizzo Walsh. "To be very clear, the vote for Officers was invalid due to Ms. Behette’s participation and Mr. Cappiali’s inability to participate. Consequently, no action was taken and as far as I am concerned, Ms. Hirsh remains Acting Chair and I remain the Secretary of the Board of Education until a majority of bona fide BOE members votes otherwise."
Here's another crazy thing -- since last night's meeting, the minutes that BOE Secretary Vizzo Walsh had submitted and that were originally attached to the meeting agenda have disappeared. Gone from the meeting agenda page. What happened? Was it just a "glitch"? Or did somebody intentionally remove them?
Not that it matters, because we downloaded the file just in case. We weren't born yesterday!
To top it all off, Acting Chair Hirsh issued a statement after the BOE circus, essentially telling the community that it's a waste of time to debate their illegal appointment of Behette, the sham officer selections from last night, and what appears to be a number of broken BOE policies. Just go ahead and ignore that, mmmkay?
"This Board debating the merits of any pending (legal) claim is pointless and wastes time that could be better spent on the important issues that directly impact the children and educators in our schools," the statement said.
Forget the coup.
Instead, remember the children and educators.
And the democrats moral superiority, of course, because after all, the democrats just want to get past this little wrinkle and focus on working "for the betterment of the Greenwich Public Schools."
Buckle up, because it looks like it's going to be a bumpy ride until this issue gets sorted, especially if the Democrats keep doubling and tripling down like this.
In the meantime, might we suggest that the Republican BOE members borrow a page from the union playbook and go on strike? Maybe whip up some brightly colored, custom t-shirts and signs, and organize a march down Greenwich Ave to the Havemeyer building? Perhaps a little chant?
"Hey - HEY - hey - HO - BOE imposters have got to go!!"
Or maybe a little "na na na na, na na na na, hey hey, ey, GOODBYE!"
