This Thursday May 2nd at 7pm, Citizens for an Elected Board (CEB) will hod a meeting at 8000 Marlboro Pike, Forestville MD 20747 (PGCEA building) to kickoff a petition drive in hopes of bringing County Executive Rushern Baker‘s Board of Education takeover to a referendum. More than 8,000 signatures are needed by May 31 to stop the bill from going into effect on June1. If CEB gets 25,000 signatures for their petition by June 30, the bill would be on hold pending the referendum. But juvenile, retaliatory behavior by School Board Chairwoman Verjeana Jacobs has me saying put your pens down. Jacobs and her merry band of jesters have voted to suspend the credit card of fellow board member and County Executive Baker BOE takeover bid supporter Carletta Fellows. It’s a sorry state of affairs on that Board.
Carletta Fellows, Courtesy PGC Blog
Carletta Fellows reportedly made purchases for her home office that included a Washington Gas bills ($103.22), Verizon Wireless bills ($212.71), Pepco bills ($26.45) and a $20 bill for alcohol. Ummm now Carletta, you can’t buy booze on my dime. According to the Gazette article, these expenses don’t qualify as expenses a Board of Education Member can charge, but to strip her of her card just reeks of retaliation, “Edward Burroughs III (Dist. 8), who put forth the motion to strip Fellows of her credit card at the board’s April 25 meeting. An emergency item was added to the agenda, where school system internal auditor Michele Winston presented the board with a list of expenses for February and March, during which Fellows’ county-issued Visa was used to pay Washington Gas bills ($103.22), Verizon Wireless bills ($212.71), Pepco bills ($26.45) and a $20 bill for alcohol.
“Board chairwoman Verjeana Jacobs (Dist. 5) said Winston first brought the issue to her attention in March, and that
Verjeana Jacobs, courtesy PGC Blog
multiple attempts were made to resolve the issue with Fellows before it came before the board. Winston said Fellows’ credit card was also used to purchase $116.55 in supplies from Staples, including paper towels and toilet paper. Fellows agreed to pay back the alcohol bill, but said the other items, totaling $722.56, were allowable home office expenses.” And please take note of this quote from Verjeana Jacobs; it’s priceless. “It doesn’t make sense,” Jacobs said. “How could it be retaliatory when she is the one who made the charges?”
This is the kind of foolishness that has the Board of Education at a loss of control. In the meantime, Debbie Sell, president of Prince Georgeans for an Informed Citizenry and a member of is leading the petition drive to keep the current school board in place. With behavior like this, you have to ask, why even bother?