{"id":50146,"date":"2022-04-03T09:08:47","date_gmt":"2022-04-03T13:08:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=50146"},"modified":"2022-04-03T09:08:50","modified_gmt":"2022-04-03T13:08:50","slug":"move-to-remove-wcasd-board-members-is-an-attack-on-democracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=50146","title":{"rendered":"Move to remove WCASD board members is an attack on democracy"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Mike McGann<\/strong>, Editor, The Times<\/em> @mikemcgannpa<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"Court of Common Pleas Judge William P. Mahon vacated his order Friday removing five members of the West Chester Area School District Board of Education \u2014 but the case and the possibility that duly-elected public officials could be removed from office remains a possibility.<\/p>\n

So for now, Sue Tiernan, Joyce Chester, Kate Shaw, Karen Herrmann and Daryl Durnel are back on the board after an effort to remove them for voting to keep masking rules in the district as long as the Centers for Disease Control recommended them. As the case numbers dropped, per CDC guidelines, the mask rules have since been dropped.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s be clear on this: it stinks to high heaven that it ever got this far.<\/p>\n

Aside from various legal and procedural issues with this, it\u2019s just wrong from a big picture standpoint.<\/p>\n

In a democracy, if you dislike what an elected official does, you vote them out of office. In the case of WCASD\u2019s board, a minority of people screamed bloody murder over masking throughout most of 2021. As there was an election in November, 2021, the voters got to pass their judgment.<\/p>\n

Guess what? Pro masking candidates mostly won. In a democracy, majority rules.<\/p>\n

Most people knew it was important to take a pandemic seriously \u2014 it has killed more than one million Americans \u2014 both to ensure the safety of students and staff, but also to avoid crippling litigation should a student or staff member die from COVID when a district doesn\u2019t follow CDC guidelines. Insurers made it clear they would not cover such suits \u2014 so the potential for multiple multi-million dollar suits was a very real threat.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

If lost, such suits would increase taxes to the Act 1 limit, and see cuts in services, extra curricular activities and boost class sizes. Additionally, a weakened local district means your home value could drop.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So, the WCASD board (and pretty much every other school board in the county) moved to protect students, staff and the wider community, despite literally insane claims that masks trapped CO and impaired breathing. There was no perfect solution \u2014 masks make it harder for kids to interact and read emotion, but actually being in school as opposed to virtual class was seen as the least bad solution.<\/p>\n

Before you run off and scream: \u201cBut it was unconstitutional!\u201d No, actually, it wasn\u2019t. While Gov. Tom Wolf\u2019s statewide mask mandate was ruled by a 4-3 margin to be in violation of the state constitution, school boards have latitude to make rules on the basis of health issues \u2014 temporary measures have been taken in local school districts during outbreaks of hoof and mouth disease and mumps in recent years.<\/p>\n

So WCASD\u2019s board made the best choice they could, balancing various needs \u2014 and the voters of the district ratified that decision with the November, 2021 elections, with three of four seats being won by Democrats who supported the masking policy. That should have settled the issue.<\/p>\n

But not with today\u2019s Republican Party. In their minds, the only legitimate election is one where the GOP wins \u2014 Democratic candidates cannot be allowed to win, ever.<\/p>\n

Hence, this pathetic attempt to remove school board members from various school boards around the county, all of whom are Democrats. In short, this is a coup and an open attack on democracy.<\/p>\n

People like Beth Ann Rosica and the political action committee that backs her \u2014 Back to School, funded by Bucks County venture capitalist Paul Martino \u2013 don\u2019t believe in democracy or majority rule. They are seeking to destroy our public school system to enable for-profit schools.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In the end, it is never about some \u201cfreedom\u201d or \u201cparental rights\u201d effort \u2013 it is about putting more money in the pockets of fat cats at the expense of the rest of us. It is about naked greed.<\/p>\n

But Judge Mahon also deserves heavy criticism for his handling of this case.<\/p>\n

He clearly misinterpreted the rules on this filing, both in terms of timing and substance. And as someone who often refused to wear a mask in his courtroom when it was required under county rules, one has to wonder exactly how impartial Mahon is in this case.<\/p>\n

I also question why this case wasn’t rejected out of hand.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Roscia\u2019s 10-person petition is fatally flawed. WCASD has three election districts \u2014 removing five members with just one petition signed by 10 voters seems illegal. At minimum, there should have been three petitions, one from each election district. How can voters not eligible to vote for a candidate in the first place sign a petition of removal? If this is legal, why can\u2019t I, as a resident of the Unionville-Chadds Ford School District, sign and circulate a petition to remove members of the Oxford Area School District School Board? Obviously, I never would \u2013 but you get the point.<\/p>\n

So the whole thing should be have been tossed from the get go.<\/p>\n

In terms of the law, Act 14 of 1949, it\u2019s never been used to remove a school board member. Elsewhere in state law, the bar is very much higher to remove an elected official \u2014 law that likely supersedes Act 14.<\/p>\n

Bottom line: even if Mahon rules against the school board members, it is highly likely that the Commonwealth Court would immediately issue a stay and reverse the decision \u2013 both because of law and common sense.<\/p>\n

If this is sustained, Republican members of school boards will be subject to the same treatment \u2013 wasting public funds and time \u2014 and creating chaos.<\/p>\n

If a handful of people \u2014 10 petition signers and a judge \u2014 can overturn thousands of votes, not because of misconduct, but because of policy disagreement, we no longer have a representative democracy.<\/p>\n

We have mob rule.<\/p>\n

This must not stand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Mike McGann, Editor, The Times @mikemcgannpa Court of Common Pleas Judge William P. Mahon vacated his order Friday removing five members of the West Chester Area School District Board of Education \u2014 but the case and the possibility that duly-elected public officials could be removed from office remains a possibility. So for now, Sue […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":50145,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1805,68,7426,1597,13310,5359],"class_list":["post-50146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary","tag-back-to-school","tag-elections","tag-featured","tag-judge-william-p-mahon","tag-school-boards","tag-west-chester-area-school-district"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50146"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50146\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50147,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50146\/revisions\/50147"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/50145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}