Richland 1 board member alleges shouting, ‘intimidation’ in closed school board meetings
When Richland 1 school board members move discussions behind closed doors, debate can deteriorate into shouting matches, one board member says.
In a deposition filed Friday as part of a lawsuit, board member Beatrice King said another board member needed to be physically restrained during one closed-door meeting.
King discussed those incidents when she testified Aug. 19 as part of a lawsuit against the school district.
King confirmed in the deposition that she had recorded at least two executive sessions of the Richland 1 board, although she said she had not shared those recordings with anyone else.
The board member, who is not running for re-election this year after 10 years on the school board, said she made the recordings for two reasons.
“One is because I was personally convinced it was breaking the law,” she said of the board’s decision to meet behind closed doors. “The topics were not privileged in (the Freedom of Information Act). Secondly, it was for my personal safety. There have been instances where behind closed doors I have received threats, I have been yelled at and intimidated, and so I have to protect myself.”
Richland 1 resident George Bowie filed suit last year claiming the Richland 1 school board was not giving proper notice about its closed door executive sessions to the public, in violation of the FOIA.
In her filing on Friday, King said she would be willing to testify to what happened in those meetings and turn over the tapes if a court finds the Richland 1 board meetings violated the state Freedom of Information Act. Bowie’s attorneys have subpoenaed those recordings, but the school district has asked the court to quash that request.
King asked in the Friday court filing to be allowed to intervene in the case as a separate party from the rest of the board, saying she disagrees with the school board’s position and doesn’t feel her interests are being adequately represented in the case.
Bowie’s attorney, Wesley Peel, asked King during the deposition about the district’s meeting policy. But the district’s attorney, Eugene Matthews, objected to King giving away any details of the matters discussed in executive session, so little information about the subjects under discussion behind closed doors was shared. But during the Aug. 10, 2021, meeting, King objected to an executive session to discuss the resignation of board member Yolanda Anderson.
King did not say what was discussed during the executive session, but said she could not identify a reason the discussion needed to take place out of the public eye. It was the same with a special-called meeting six days later to discuss the district’s face mask policy, also held in executive session.
King was represented by her own attorney, Chris Kenney, in the deposition. King said in the deposition she was told in a letter that “(the district) would not represent me.”
Her objections to moving those and other meetings behind closed doors, she said, were often ignored. But members often went after her more directly once they went into executive session.
“One instance was I felt I was going to be physically attacked,” King said, “and certainly verbal abuse and verbal and physical intimidation, board members getting up from their chairs and leaning over and pointing fingers and slamming doors.”
In one instance, King describes a 2017 meeting to discuss whether board member Jamie Devine should recuse himself from a vote on a contract. When the meeting went into executive session, board member Cheryl Harris became angry over King’s questions about FOIA, King said.
“She got up from her chair and was offensive toward me, was irate and had to be restrained by three men,” King said.
“The first one to jump in between me and Ms. Harris was Daryl Black,” King said later in the deposition, “and then there was Mr. Bishop, there was Mr. Devine and then there was Superintendent (Craig) Witherspoon and Dwayne Smiling also kind of asked her to calm down.”
Cheryl Harris and Aaron Bishop are current members of the school board. Darrell Black and Smiling are former board members.
Harris told The State she did not recall the incident described by King, “and I don’t think she does either.”
“What I can say is that this did not happen and my fellow board members can verify that,” Harris said.
King said she filed a report with the sheriff’s department after the meeting.
More recently, at the July 26 meeting this year, King said Bishop became angry with her during the closed-door portion of the meeting.
“Mr. Bishop became very agitated and acted like a bully and got up from his chair,” she said. “Got up from his chair which in itself is a physical — physical intimidation, and he yelled and pointed fingers at me and Mr. (Robert) Lominack.”
When reached by The State, Bishop said, “That allegation is totally false,” but declined to discuss specifics of the meeting citing the confidentiality of the executive session and the ongoing lawsuit. “I don’t want to put myself or the district in any jeopardy,” he said.
In her whole time serving on the board, King said she could recall “less than ten” instances where such incidents occurred behind closed doors. One of the meetings she taped was an executive session last year when former board member Anderson resigned, and the other was a meeting on board-staff relations on June 8, 2021.
Peel, the plaintiff’s attorney, asked King if board members have “used the covered executive session to attempt to intimidate you” and if “There is a behavior change from what we see in the open meetings to when you go into executive session towards you?” King answers “yes” to both questions.
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