The Oregon Government Ethics Commission is investigating possible open meeting and public records laws violations by members of the Silver Falls school board.
The commission voted last week to begin investigating claims submitted by community member Chuck Sheketoff concerning incidents from 2018 and 2019. The 2019 incident was also addressed in a recent lawsuit, which the school district settled.
But Sheketoff argues the investigation will fail to hold some of the key players accountable, particularly the district's former superintendent, since he is not listed as part of the school board.
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Silver Falls School District, based in Silverton, had just shy of 4,000 students enrolled in the 2018-19 school year. The district employed about 16 administrators and 203 teachers the same year.
The seven-member school board is comprised of elected officials who take no pay for their roles in overseeing the district.
Claims made against members of the board and district administrators outline incidents occurring in May 2018 and May 2019, including alleged violations in executive sessions meant to evaluate then-superintendent Andy Bellando.
The Statesman Journal contacted the current school board members, as well as Bellando, former assistant superintendent Dandy Stevens, attorney Lisa Freiley and the Oregon School Boards Association for comment on the alleged incidents.
Most did not reply or said they were unable to comment, with the exception of current board member Shelly Nealon and board chairman Jonathan Edmonds, who said he would wait for the conclusion of the investigation to comment further.
"(As) a newer board member, it is very difficult to understand all the nuances of executive session laws," he told the Statesman Journal. Edmonds was elected to the board in Aug. 2018.
"At the time of the meeting mentioned in the complaint (May 2019), I had not even been on the board a full year yet," he said. "If I am found guilty of anything, I will happily agree to any course correction recommended by the commission.
"I certainly did not knowingly violate any ethics laws," he said. "It is worth mentioning that I'm far more focused on helping to serve the children in our district during the COVID pandemic than I am on this complaint."
2018: First letter, records denied
On May 14, 2018, the Silver Falls Board held an executive session for the evaluation of then-superintendent Bellando.
Board member Shelly Nealon said she noticed then-assistant superintendent Stevens was still in the room, though Nealon said the only people allowed in to discuss the evaluation were board members and the superintendent.
"When the chair got us started, Ms. Stevens was the first person to stand up," Nealon wrote in a statement to the ethics commission. "She had a document in her hand and she started reading from it.
"I was in shock that it was solely about me," she wrote. "It was a statement that went on and on berating me. I couldn't believe it. I was frozen with embarrassment and fear, and very upset."
A few days later, Nealon requested the document from Bellando, then Stevens, and was told by both that because it was presented in executive session, it was private.
(Story continues below)
2019: Second letter, denied again
A year later, upon the conclusion of the 2019 evaluation of Bellando, a similar incident occurred.
Nealon remembers packing up her belongings and getting ready to leave the room, when Bellando presented the board with another document.
In this letter, attorney Nathan Rietmann claims Nealon sought to "target, harass and undermine" Bellando in various ways.
Nealon wrote recently to the ethics commission that this was another surprise attack put under the guise of the superintendent's evaluation.
"I kept reading these horrific, defamatory accusations against me and was so upset and livid," Nealon wrote the commission. "As he continued talking, I kept interrupting, defending myself.
"I started crying, was shaking and felt just horrible," she said. "No other board member defended me except Jennifer Traeger. She said something to the effect of, 'I know that Shelly is not on this board to do any of these things. She is here for the kids.'
"However, Ms. Traeger did not stop Mr. Bellando, nor did our (then-chairman) Tom Buchholz or (then-vice chairman) Tim Roth."
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Nealon said she believes these actions by former district administrators were meant to silence her.
"They did not like that I asked questions or inquired about practices of the district," she wrote. "They did not like that I was doing my job."
When community member Sheketoff requested the Rietmann-Bellando letter in 2019, he said district leadership took the position — similar to 2018 — that the document was exempt from disclosure because it was "admitted in executive session in the development of the superintendent's evaluation."
2020: Lawsuit, ethics complaint
Sheketoff is part of a group that works to get women elected to local political offices. He helped get Nealon elected.
Parent of a district graduate and taxpayer to the schools, he describes himself as a "community watchdog." He filed both the state ethics complaint and lawsuit for these alleged incidents.
"I wanted to educate the district on how to follow public records and public meetings laws," he told the school board in recent testimony. "It is time for you to do what (our) school district hopefully teaches kids to do — admit when you are wrong and learn from your mistakes."
Sheketoff explained that individual board members should know Oregon's open meeting laws and speak up when they are being violated. If the violation continues, they should leave the room. Otherwise, even if they don't participate, they may still be liable.
The lawsuit Sheketoff filed in 2020 focuses on the 2019 Rietmann-Bellando letter and district leadership's refusal to release it publicly. This came after he filed a public requests, was denied and filed an appeal to the county district attorney.
"While a board can talk about an exempt document in executive session, discussing a document in executive session does not make the document exempt from disclosure," Sheketoff explained.
In other words, a document is not inherently exempt from public records requests simply because it's discussed in a private meeting.
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Because of this lawsuit — which was settled in June — staff with Silver Falls School District can never again claim documents are exempt from disclosure just because they were discussed in executive session or were part of the record of a superintendent's evaluation.
"(The district) will now have to find a legal basis for exemption in (the Oregon Public Records Act) if it wants to hide from the public a document used in an executive session or that is part of a superintendent evaluation," he said.
When searching through documents from a public records request pertaining to a different district issue toward the end of 2019, Sheketoff came across the emails showing Steven's denial of the first letter in 2018.
He filed the ethics complaint including both incidents, but the lawsuit focused on the 2019 letter.
Who is, isn't included
Two of the current board members, Janet Allanach and Lori McLaughlin, both of whom were elected in 2019, are not listed in the ethics investigation.
Members Nealon, Buchholz and Ervin Stadeli, vice chairwoman Traeger and chairman Edmonds are being investigated.
Three former members are also listed — Ronald Valoff, Timothy Roth and Todd White.
Though he is not being investigated by the Oregon Ethics Commission at this time, Sheketoff argues Bellando is equally responsible for the alleged violations.
"If the board ... continues to ignore the fact that Mr. Bellando played a role in causing the headaches you now have over public records and ethics violations," Sheketoff said in recent testimony, "I have little hope that you or your administrators will learn from the district's mistakes."
Bellando resigned in July of 2019 and is currently employed as interim superintendent for the Dallas School District. Former assistant superintendent Stevens was named the new superintendent of Gervais School District in March 2019 and left the Silverton district that following July.
Neither responded to requests for comment.
The ethics commission is set to discuss the findings of their investigation at its Jan. 29, 2021 meeting.
For more information on the Silver Falls board, go to silverfallsschools.org/school-board. For more information on the Oregon Government Ethics Commission, go to www.oregon.gov/ogec.
Natalie Pate is the education reporter for the Statesman Journal. She can be reached at npate@StatesmanJournal.com, 503-399-6745, Twitter @Nataliempate or Facebook at https://ift.tt/22QBVib.
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