We will give a recap on the 9/13 School Board Meeting in the upcoming days.  However, there is one item that caught our attention that we want to write about now.   It speaks towards possible corruption or collusion involving school board candidate Rich Lieberman and school board Chair Dawn Shelley.   In public comment, speaker Wendy Carver stated the following:

“Last week I submitted a Freedom of Information Request.  I emailed my request to the FOIA officer listed for Spotsylvania which is Dr. Martin on Monday September 6.  I asked for specific emails for a specific time period.    I have not yet received the information I have asked for so if you can imagine my surprise when I saw a YouTube video Thursday evening from the candidate for Lee’s Hill referencing the exact information I requested just days prior. Somehow my FOIA request appears to have been sent outside official channels and again I the person who requested the information in the first place still do not have what I requested.  Please help me understand how that makes any sense”

Around the 6 hour and 6-minute mark of the 9/13 school board meeting, School board member Rabih Abuismail asks Ms Shelley about the situation expressed by Ms Carver.  Shelley admits providing FOIA information to another “private citizen”.   She is clearly referencing Lieberman.  Shelley attempts to dance around mentioning Lieberman’s name.  In Lieberman’s YouTube video from 9/8, he references email exchanges with School Board member Lisa Phelps which was the exact information requested in the FOIA. 

We will continue to dig on this story because it has broader implications with regards to ethics and possible corruption. Is it ok for a school board chair or school administration to contact a political candidate running for office and give them precise information from a FOIA request that was not properly fulfilled by the administration? Is this how Spotsylvania schools operates with FOIA requests ?

The special meeting of the Spotsylvania County School Board on August 23 went into chaos after the far-left block of Shelley, Braswell, and Daniels voted against adding public comment to the agenda.  The motion to add public comment failed 3-3 with Grampp absent.  A large group of citizens attended the special meeting.   The meeting was adjourned shortly thereafter. 

At the previous emergency meeting on August 11, public comment was not originally on the agenda but a motion passed to allow public comment.  Twigg, Abuismail, and Phelps wanted public comment added to the August 23 special meeting just like the August 11 meeting.  This would allow citizens the opportunity to speak on the masks issue. Mr Abuismail stated “As elected officials, we are public servants and these guys out here pay our paychecks….we owe it to them”.

In true authoritarian manner, the school board chair Dawn Shelley was adamant about censoring the public from commenting on this hot button issue.  Both Braswell and Daniels followed Shelley’s lead. The citizens that attended the meeting were clearly upset at the censorship and authoritarian behavior of Shelley, Braswell, and Daniels.

Shelley banged her gavel and attempted to remove people from the crowd individually.   Courtland District Member Rabih Abuismail immediately reacted and said “he is a tax paying constituent; he has every right to stay in the audience.  Unbelievable. I will not stand for this.   If we are going to do this, I call to adjourn the meeting right now”.  Abuismail further added “I move to adjourn if we are going to be treating these people like this”. 

Spotsylvania County School Board Chair Dawn Shelley commented on our July 26 post on the Spotsy Wire facebook page. During the July 26 school board meeting, we posted this “Shelley claims, without evidence, there are more people that want masking.” A few days later, Mrs Shelley responded to our facebook post saying “Wow…I did say I had more emails.. Lol”. After we asked Mrs Shelley to provide specific information to support her claim, she immediately deleted her post on our facebook page.

After she deleted her post, the Spotsy Wire emailed Mrs Shelley for information to support her claim. We emailed her 7 days ago. Since Mrs Shelley has not responded, we believe that the school board chair made up the claim. Here is a screen capture of Mrs Shelley responding to our facebook post.