By Tracy Ouellette
Editor
An audience member at Monday night’s meeting of the East Troy School Board who came in a bit late, and hasn’t been keeping up with what’s been going on, would have no reason to suspect the board members have been stuck in a holding pattern and disagreeing sharply on appointing a new member.
For the majority of the meeting the board members worked together on solving several issues with no sign of discord and an almost universal consensus on what they needed to do regarding a new hire, funding for the Middle School sports program, an employee life insurance problem and more.
So why can’t they fill the open seat? What’s behind this stalemate?
That’s what board member Ted Zess wanted to know when they were discussing the appointment.
“What is the real issue here,” Zess asked. “We need to be open and honest with each other about what our problems are. If we don’t get to the root of the issue, we’re not going to get through it.”
“What’s wrong with Gina (Dingman),” board member Steve Lambrechts asked, pointing out half the vote in the April 7 election went to Dingman and half to Martha Bresler.
Lambrechts asked why appointing Dingman was a problem since both sides would be represented with both her and Bresler on the board.
Bresler said she wanted to reopen the application process for appointment to try to get a “neutral” candidate both sides could agree on. Board member Dawn Buchholtz said she didn’t think there was enough time from the publication in the newspaper until the deadline on April 24 for community members who might be interested to apply.
Zess and Lambrechts disagreed and said it appeared online at the district’s website and the newspaper’s website and entire week earlier. Zess also pointed out that anyone who keeps up with the School District and the School Board would have known what was going on and they are the people that would be interested.
Bresler said she has had community members tell her they were interested, but didn’t have enough time to apply.
Zess then asked why Bresler felt she couldn’t support Dingman.
Bresler said that while Dingman was qualified in her opinion, she didn’t think Dingman was “the right person at this time for this board.”
Zess asked if she could explain why and told him she could, but didn’t want to at this time.
“What do you want?” Lambrechts asked Bresler.
“Someone who can look at both sides of the issue,” she responded.
“All sides,” Lambrechts said and Bresler agreed, “All sides.”
Then the discussion turned to what many believe is the “root” of the problem. The division of the board members on the November 2014 referendum.
Buchholtz said there was no discussion allowed after the High School staff and administration said they could cut its needs down to $7 million instead of the original $14 million in renovations and additions planned.
Buchholtz and Bresler said they just wanted to look at where that extra $7 million should be spent.
“We never looked at the elementary options, at Prairie View,” Buchholtz said.
Zess disagreed, saying they had been looking at all the options for more than a year and that Bresler and Buchholtz were focused on Chester Byrnes as the solution to the elementary schools problem.
“Talk about revisionist history,” Zess said.
Buchholtz said she felt they weren’t listened to when all they wanted to do was take a little more time and wait until April for the referendum.
“Which we did anyway,” she reminded the board.
The full-page ad Bresler and Buchholtz took out in the East Troy Times asking voters to vote no on the referendum the week prior to the November election was brought up by Zess.
“The issue is what happened after the fact,” Zess said. The full-page ad in the newspaper and the cutting down of our administration. Disagreeing is fine, it’s how you handle it that’s the problem.”
In the end, the board tabled the discussion on appointing a new board member. It also tabled the discussion on appointing officers after Lambrechts motioned to have the board members retain their offices from the previous year.
Bresler, who motioned at the beginning of the meeting to have Zess be the meeting chairman said at the time it was contingent on rotating the chairmanship at subsequent meetings throughout the board, said she was under the impression after the last meeting that the board would be operating as a four-member board and that’s why she motioned the chairman position the way she did.
The School District’s attorney, Shana Lewis, encouraged the board to elect officers by the 30-day deadline after the fourth Monday in April, but again acknowledged there were no consequences to the district or the board if they didn’t.
“I think we need to give the district some stability,” Zess said.
“I don’t feel that there has been stability and a lack of leadership,” Buchholtz said.
The board deadlocked on the appointment of officers.
Lewis told the board it would be a good idea to keep the appointment of a new board member and officers on the upcoming agendas to give them the chance to act on those items if they could, but she said they didn’t have to go through the entire process every meeting if there was no movement on the board members positions.
