The Grand Jury Report and the School Board Election
BY BUDDY NEVINS
The devastating Statewide Grand Jury report roasting the Broward County School Board can’t help but hurt the reelection campaign of Donna Korn.
Korn is the only incumbent mentioned in the report negatively running for reelection.
Donna Korn votes while Superintendent Robert Runcie watches.
The report specifically calls for the governor to remove Korn and four other members. But the rest of the group — Rosalind Osgood, Patricia Good, Laurie Rich-Levinson and Ann Murray — are not up for reelection or have moved on.
Members Nora Rupert and Lori Alhadeff are running for reelection. Both fought against Superintendent Robert Runcie’s lies and obfuscations, according to jurors.
Korn is the only one who was slammed on the ballot next week.
And she has to run against this plainly worded Grand Jury statement:
We find that Broward members Patricia Good, Donna Korn, Ann Murray Rosalind Osgood and Laurie Rich Levinson have engaged in acts of incompetence and neglect of duty. We recommend that the Governor remove them from their elected offices….
They are accused of failing to oversee the failed $800 million school improvement bond issue, allowing the money to be frittered away by Superintendent Runcie.
Korn is singled out in the report, like in this excerpt:
We believe the imperious attitude of this collective is apply encapsulated by the testimony of Board member Donna Korn, who when questioned regarding accountability, had this to say:
Q.: [T]he phrase you used was that, if individuals in roles of authority are not able to meet expectations, we should identify what improvements need to be made and institutes methods to ensure expectations are met.
A: Yes.
Q. You were comfortable holding Mr. Runcie to that standard?
A: Yes
Q: Arre you comfortable if that standard is applied to the school board?
A: I don’t believe that that is appropriate.
Au contraire. It is not only appropriate, but long overdue.
Osgood, now a state representative, publicly called the School Board members “the leading ladies.” Unfortunately, they didn’t lead the School Board. Instead, jurors say they were led around the nose by by a “lying” Runcie, his incompetent aides and the downtown Fort Lauderdale business community represented by the Broward Workshop.
Meanwhile, roofs continue to collapse and the bill to fix them climbs.
Every candidate on Tuesday’s ballot should be asked if they read the Grand Jury report and what they are going to do about it.
It’s not enough to just say, “Oh, the Grand Jury is political.”
“Oh, the Grand Jury is a creature of the Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis,” as one Democrat told me after the document’s release.
Yes, the timing of the release is suspicious due to the looming election. It looks political.
But the School Board failures were documented repeatedly in the media. A shout out must be given to the fine job the Sun-Sentinel and reporter Scott Travis has done for years on the school bond debacle.
I went to lunch with Runcie very early in his career in Broward. I found Runcie to be a charlatan and a liar from about ten minutes into the lunch….and I told several others this on the phone during my drive home.
I called Runcie a liar repeatedly on Browardbeat. I don’t blame Board members for ignoring me, because Browardbeat is my opinion.
I do blame them for ignoring the well-documented stories by Scott Travis and the Sun-Sentinel.
Instead of taking the media stories seriously, the Board and school bureaucrats did what all government hacks do: Blame the messenger. The stonewalled and hid behind that wall. They saw themselves in a “war” with the Sun-Sentinel and refused to believe them, according to jurors.
Korn was part of that.
I don’t see how Korn overcomes this public denouncement on Tuesday.
(Unfortunately, reports have started to circulate that Allen Zeman, the leading opponent running against Korn, has some of the same questionable supporters that has gotten the school system in trouble in the past. See here. )
Korn not alone in the fallout.
The report could drag down the extra school tax referendum on the same ballot as Korn.
The promise is that teachers will get that money. Yet the extra money will be handled by a school system that is on record lying repeatedly about finances.
It will be interesting to see the final vote Tuesday on this.
The Grand Jury report is here:
August 20th, 2022 at 8:54 am
I agree with the Grand Jury. Every one of the Board members named as culprits should be thrown out.
Donna Korn was either complacent allowing the mismanagement or took part in it. She needs to be defeated.
August 20th, 2022 at 8:57 am
Doctor Zeman???? Doctor of what???
FROM BUDDY:
Zeman has a PhD in Labor Economics and Econometrics from Florida State University, according to his campaign biography,
August 20th, 2022 at 12:03 pm
Filthy
August 20th, 2022 at 12:31 pm
I am lost on this one. Someone from the Republican party that is up close and personal with this needs to let me know who won’t give the rest of this country away to the Democrats.
Congress district 23, Senate 34, House 100, Ccounty Commission 6, School Board 1, Municipality Hollywood Dist 1….HELP!!!IM surrounded by Elitist Democrats!!!!!
August 21st, 2022 at 7:21 pm
Vicki Neale…look at the voter guide from the party you support. It can be found online
August 22nd, 2022 at 8:37 am
Donna Korn’s advertising said she is endorsed by BSO. FALSE. BSO endorsed nobody.
August 22nd, 2022 at 11:38 am
Phony Internet posts and emails circulated in the past few days purported to be from Donna Korn and claiming she was endorsed by BSO.
Here is the story:
Korn received the endorsement of the I.U.P.A. local, a union which represents some of the employees at the Broward Sheriffs Office. A campaign worker mistakenly placed the emblem of the BSO on Internet and social media Korn campaigning postings. The worker also mistakenly wrote that the endorsement was from the agency.
The mistake was discovered and removed within an hour. But not quick enough to prevent many voters and Korn opponents from seeing the mistaken post.
The union representing employees of BSO generally endorses candidates, but not BSO.
Thus, BSO endorsed no one. It is a public agency. The union representing employees of BSO endorsed candidates, but not BSO.
August 22nd, 2022 at 12:45 pm
Buddy, also worth noting that there was zero political about the timing of the release of the grand jury report.
School board members filed suit to block the release of the report. After losing at the trial court and the fourth district court of appeal, the report was ordered released. Then I’m a last ditch effort to avoid the release of the report before the election, those members who were challenging it appealed to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court quickly rejected the appeal and ordered the release of the report last Friday promptly after rejecting the appeal.
If anyone is to blame for the timing of the report being released, it is the board members who sought to block and delay it coming out. I wonder when we will find out which board members were trying to block it. Donna Korn has refused to answer that question during the Sentinel interview.
August 23rd, 2022 at 1:25 pm
Dont forget there is a question on todays ballot to give this school board more money to squander by raising our taxes. I took interest to tell all my friends about this sleaze tactic to use this primary to slide this under the radar and I took great pleasure to vote NO for this tax increase. And yes, these people named in the grand Jury report should be removed from serving any longer. Broward Schools are a mess.