TECUMSEH, MI – A former member of the Tecumseh Public Schools Board of Education has reapplied for the seat she won in November 2020 after it was determined she did not take the Oath of Office at a January organizational meeting.
Becky Brooks says she was assured she didn’t need to take the oath during a January 2021 meeting because she had been reelected to her seat rather than taking office for the first time.
Instead, she watched as new board members Tony Rebottaro and Greg Lewis took their respective oaths, along with Board President Kevin Johnson, who was appointed to fill the partial term of Milton Abbott, who resigned from his board seat in November.
Less than three months later, Brooks’ seat was determined to be invalid after it was pointed out by a fellow board member that she was, indeed, required to take the Oath of Office. Additionally, Brooks did not receive any of the paperwork required to validate her reelection to the board. She says she never received the paperwork in the mail and wasn’t invited into district offices to sign it prior to the January meeting like Rebottaro and Lewis were.
Brooks’ exit from the Tecumseh school board is the second departure in a matter of weeks that has come been under head-scratching circumstances. The Lenawee Intermediate School District is in the process of seeking a new board member to fill the seat of Johnson, whose board seat also was found to be invalid in March.
LISD Superintendent Mark Haag, who is overseeing the board appointments, said the situation is unprecedented locally.
“Quite frankly, we’re in uncharted territories here, because I can’t find record of this ever happening in Lenawee County, let alone twice within a couple of weeks,” he said.
While Johnson said he saw the similarly-puzzling circumstances that led to his seat being invalid as a sign to exit the board after a couple of years of drama, Brooks said she has reapplied and will fight for the seat she won in November.
“There was no incumbents that we reseated, so I didn’t question it,” Brooks said. “I ran for it, I was elected to it and I fully intend to do everything in my power to be reseated and continue to serve our district.”
A resignation letter in the spam folder
Johnson said he wasn’t “really enthused” about filling the remainder of Abbott’s term after he announced his resignation in November 2020. Johnson had lost his own reelection bid earlier that month, but volunteered to fill the remainder of Abbott’s term to “keep things stable.”
A couple of years of drama that followed a completely new Board of Education being elected in 2018 left Abbott “disgusted” and “very upset with the actions of some board members” he later wrote in a March 25 letter, leading to conversations between he and Johnson about quitting the board.
“We had a rough two years on the board and people would always get really frustrated, and Milt was no exception, and he would talk about quitting,” Johnson said. “I know he had written resignation letters before, and it finally came down to that point where he got past the moment of frustration and contacted me and said he was definitely ready to go.”
That conversation came after Abbott had penned a resignation letter on Oct. 13, 2020, that he scanned and faxed from his business office to Johnson’s school board email account. After initially not getting a response to the letter, Abbott called Johnson to ask if he had received it.
After meeting to speak with Abbott about his decision, Johnson convinced him to think about it before finalizing any resignation to the board. When Abbott returned from a vacation a month later, there was no doubt in his mind.
So, Abbott repeated the same process of sending another resignation letter via fax to Johnson’s board email address. When Johnson was once again unable to find the email after Abbott inquired about it a few days later, he did a more thorough search and eventually located the email in his spam folder.
Abbott made his resignation official at the following board meeting on Nov. 23, leaving the Board of Education with a 30-day window to fill the vacated board seat it would eventually appoint to Johnson.
Several months later on March 22, Tecumseh Public Schools Superintendent Rick Hilderley said he was contacted by a member of the Board of Education informing him of an allegation that Abbott had initially submitted a resignation letter on Oct. 13.
In Michigan, a school board member’s resignation is official the moment it is given – either verbally or written - to an officer of the board. Once a school board member resigns, it is not rescindable.
After the district opened an investigation to determine the timeline and authenticity of Abbott’s initial resignation letter to Johnson, an email search located the Oct. 13 letter, backdating his resignation timeline. The letter’s existence moved the 30-day window the school board had to fill Abbott’s seat back a month, making Johnson’s appointment to the seat in December 2020 null and void.
Johnson considered the technicality that invalidated his seat on the board a “moot point,” noting that Abbott had informed him of other resignation letters he had sent prior to October 2020.
“I just said, ‘Summer’s coming up and I’ve got kids and I haven’t had a good, solid, carefree summer in a few years with the school board, so I decided to peace out and take it,” Johnson said.
Out of the ordinary oath
As the LISD began the process of seeking new candidates for Johnson’s open board seat, Hilderley received a phone call on April 2 notifying him of another potential invalid board seat.
The three-way phone conversation included the district’s attorney and Rebottaro, the newly-appointed board president, who was asked to look into Brooks not taking the Oath of Office in January, Hilderley said.
The district attorney determined that Brooks’ failure to take the Oath or Office during the January meeting, in addition to not having a certificate of acceptance from the November election on file with the Lenawee County Clerk invalidated her seat on the board.
While Hilderley believes the certificate of acceptance should have been mailed to Brooks by the Lenawee County Clerk’s Office, he said the school board and district erred in telling her she did not need to take the Oath of Office in January because of her incumbent status.
“I know we played a role in the advice that we gave her that led to the mix-up,” Hilderley said. “As far as the signing of the acceptance certificate, I don’t know that’s as much our responsibility, but there is some responsibility on our part.”
Lenawee County Clerk Roxann Holloway said the two documents victorious school board candidates are required to sign to take office – the acceptance of office and constitutional oath of office – aren’t sent out by the clerk’s office. Instead, the forms typically are on file with individual school districts - in this case with notary public and executive assistant Teri Hoeft.
The clerk’s office instead issues a certificate of election to the elected candidates, which does not require a signature of any kind. Those certificates are sent by the clerk’s office in one packet to each of the county’s school districts, Holloway said, rather than to individual candidates.
The acceptance of office and constitutional oath of office forms are typically signed by candidates when they are invited into district offices to sign. That was the case for both Rebottaro and Lewis, who were invited in to sign the documents together prior to taking their Oath of Office in January. Brooks said she was not invited.
Johnson said he had previously gone through the same process, with Hoeft supplying the paperwork, noting he believes the district “made an error administratively.”
“I don’t know if the district had never sworn in people who were reelected or if it was just this moment, but when everybody was sworn in, it was believed by the administrative office that they didn’t have to swear her in, because she was seated,” Johnson said.
Cruel intentions?
Brooks believes the intentions of the board member who raised concerns about her not taking the Oath of Office, Tim Simpson, were potentially nefarious. Simpson referred questions surrounding Brooks’ board seat to Rebottaro.
While Brooks initially believed she must have “fallen off a list” in not getting the paperwork, she wonders why concerns about her status as a board member were raised months after she was supposed to take the Oath of Office.
“I understand a law was broken - it was not intentional, it was completely an oversight from whatever level,” Brooks said. “I can’t be mad at someone for pointing that out, I suppose. However, if there was any question, they certainly could have brought it up at that time when we had a 30-day window to fix it. Doing destructive things that tear down the board and give the district a black eye, is not helping anyone.”
When Hilderley announced Brooks’ seat had been vacated during the district’s board meeting on April 12, some board members traded barbs over Simpson raising the issue of her board member status.
The exchange between Simpson and board member John Benzing revealed the ongoing discord between board members when Hilderley said would ultimately endorse Brooks being reappointed to the open seat she has applied for.
“I know at least one member that won’t support it, that’s obvious,” Benzing said, looking toward Simpson and describing him as “the man that got her thrown off.”
Simpson responded arguing that he didn’t get Brooks thrown off the board, “Michigan law got her thrown off.”
“Would you like this board to break Michigan law? Is that what you’re asking this board to do? Yes or no,” Simpson said.
While the decision ultimately rests with the LISD, who will conduct interviews for both Johnson and Brooks’ seats in the coming weeks, Hilderley said he thinks it’s important that the results of the election be upheld, placing Brooks back on the board.
“These are two rather unique situations that happened to come about in a district that really doesn’t need any more problems coming to the school board,” Hilderley said.
READ MORE:
The Tecumseh School Board wanted to make its district great again. What it got was a ‘meltdown’
Tecumseh Schools hires fifth superintendent in five months
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