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Open records my foot


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This year’s heat makes me think back to my summers as a child.

Some days, Daddy would drive over to Rhine, Georgia where we’d go swimming in a spring-fed pond and on other days, we’d take a day trip to Jekyll Island. Either way, the idea was to stay cool and have fun. And then there was the summer of 1976 when we had a severe drought.

That year was so dry our ducks left the tiny pond Daddy had made them to go find water.

Daddy hopped in his car one morning to go to town to buy a copy of The Macon Telegraph and, much to his chagrin, he saw his White Pekins and Mallards splayed alongside Highway 165 on the two-mile drive to Flash Foods. Apparently, they had awakened near sunrise and left their pen and pond while a small touch of morning coolness lingered in the air.

What I remember most about that morning was what I call my parents’ Depression-Era upbringing kick in after he returned from town.

“Y’all come help me. The ducks is all been hit and they’re laying on the side of the road. Come help me save them. We can eat ‘em,” perhaps he said. And then, I remember Mama yelling something about how undignified that would be, even though she’d admitted cooking an opossum for her father one time.

It was one big mess.

We have our own big mess in Clay County right now, but it’s not in the form of a splayed out duck. It is however, a mess of doubts and questionable actions bordering on extremely failed leadership.

By now, our readers are aware of the state fraud allegations investigation involving Clay County School Superintendent Charlie Van Zant Jr. Since those allegations were made public on Aug. 4, I have had to make two public records requests – one to the Clay County School District and the second to the Florida Department of Education.

See, as it turns out, an investigator from the Office of the Inspector General of the Florida Department of Education sat down on Aug. 15 and launched his own investigation into charges lodged by former Keystone Heights High Principal Susan Sailor after she first came public with the allegations on Aug. 4.

Shortly after receiving Sailor’s email to the school board from a source, I made a public records request to the school district headquarters in Green Cove Springs to obtain and verify my own copy of her email. As it turns out now, Carl Hendrick, the assistant superintendent for information technology, handles public records requests.

After emailing my request to Mr. Hendrick, I received an acknowledgement from him on Aug. 8 stating that my request had been received and was under consideration. However, it wasn’t until Aug. 18 that I received the school district’s final determination that my request “cannot be granted at this time based on Florida Statute and Board Policy regarding confidential investigations.”

That’s where the state department of education comes in. And that’s where I say, ‘thank you.’ Not only was I given the email from Dr. Sailor that I had requested from the Clay County School District, I was also provided documents relating to the investigation itself.

Florida’s Open Records laws are often viewed as an example for the nation and to not follow them is borders on failing to uphold the Florida Constitution. How is it that the state can provide the same documents that the local school district is refusing to provide?

I’m not convinced that this behavior is not a symptom of a larger problem and there is no transparency and no ownership regarding such poor decisions, only hiding behind Facebook videos. Throw in a dash of terribly bad legal advice from the school board attorney and it all smells like a cover up.

The voters of Clay County hold the future of our children in their hands when they head to the voting booth on Aug. 30. You decide whether you want to keep a “B” school district and one big mess.