NEWS

Shelling: I won't resign

Bonnie Bolden
bbolden@thenewsstar.com

Monroe City School Board member Brenda Shelling said Wednesday that she will not resign, pointing to continued support from her constituents.

Monroe City School Board member Brenda Shelling addresses the media Wednesday in her office at Tiny Tots Academy in Monroe.

Shelling held a news conference at her business, Tiny Tots Academy, and read a prepared statement in which she apologized to her constituents and the community for "all that is transpiring" with the board.

"It was never my intent to create this atmosphere, and (I) pray that it ends at this juncture," she said.

Shelling said Bill Willson's statement that the board is willing to take actions against her constitutes a violation of Louisiana's Sunshine Law because the stance was gathered through conversations held outside of a meeting. Willson has the right to make whatever comment he wants to make, she said, but they would have to be legitimized

"Bill Willson suggested that the board, the full board, agreed to remove me from office, which indicates there has been discussion outside of the board meetings. Therefore, as I've just stated, there has been a violation of the Sunshine Law. We cannot discuss personnel issues, we cannot discuss these kinds of issues. We cannot discuss anything pertinent to the removal or firing of anyone. Certainly I cannot be fired because I was elected by the people of District 7. However, to go into a discussion about my future of the Monroe City School Board without my knowledge of it and also to agree as a full board that I be removed is a violation of my right, it's also a violation of the Open Meetings Law," Shelling said.

At the meeting Tuesday, Willson said the board is ready to request Shelling's resignation at the next meeting and take action against her. If Shelling doesn't resign, board members are ready to censure her and remove her from all committee assignments.  Willson said the board has no legal authority to remove Shelling from office — her constituents could hold a recall election or she could resign. Shelling was not present at the Tuesday meeting.

On Wednesday, she said she's received an outpouring of support from her constituents telling her to stay in office.

Willson said he's received at least five calls from her constituents, three of whom live in the same subdivision as Shelling.

"I'm sure all of my constituents don't support and love me," he said.

Pressure on for Shelling to resign; board ready to censure

Board President Rodney McFarland said the board did not make a motion or vote regarding Shelling. Willson's statements, he said, were compiled by Willson and do not violate the law. To get an item on the agenda, McFarland said, the majority of the board has to express their support, so some discussion among members is required.

Shelling said there has been an attack on each board member, she's just the most recent. She pointed to an attempt to removed Daryll Berry from the board in February and stories about McFarland's tax information in the spring.

In his statements Tuesday, Willson cited five instances in which he said Shelling behaved unbecomingly of a board member, including statements racist comments, cursing or acting aggressively. The most recent incident involved Shelling saying she hates white people and homosexuals. Other incidents involved cursing and calling former board member Clarence Sharp a racial slur. Sharp is African-American.

Willson said Wednesday he plans to ask for the board to vote on the issues he brought up but he does not know how the vote would go. He said he was speaking on his own behalf and expressing what he had gleaned from one-on-one conversations with multiple board members after the story about Shelling's most recent comments was published. The general feel, he said, was of disbelief.

Shelling launches social media attack

On Wednesday, Shelling said some of her best, dearest friends are in the LGBTQ community.

"I shouldn't have said it. Out of all the things that I said (in that conversation), I regret that the most," she said.

Shelling said the person she made the comments to, Chaz Wink, apologized to her online.

Wink said he replied to Shelling's comment "you started this Chaz" with "yes I did, and I'm sorry for that."

"I felt bad for the flak she received after I saw that her husband was undergoing dialysis," Wink said Wednesday.

Willson said, to his knowledge, Shelling has yet to apologize to any of the people involved in the other four instances he referenced. He said she's done good work in the past and is an intelligent woman, which makes the current situation such a shame.

Shelling said she came to the Tuesday night board meeting an hour early at 5 p.m. because of confusion about the 6 p.m. meeting time and had a scheduling conflict with a training session for her business. She said she did not miss the meeting intentionally.

Shelling said she spoke with board attorney Doug Lawrence before the meeting Tuesday afternoon and was told the board would not go into executive session because of information provided to her earlier.

"I was told 'No, m'am, we're not going into executive session.' ... Needless to say, we all know there was an executive session last night," Shelling said.

During the meeting, Lawrence told the board that he would give his attorney update during the executive session.

McFarland said the executive session to discuss the consent decree was on the original agenda as provided, as was the time of the meeting. For the board to have not gone into executive session, he said, they would have had to unanimously voted to remove it from the agenda or voted not to adjourn for the session.

Willson said, historically, McFarland has been flexible in setting meeting times when all board members can attend. Most meetings, he said, run longer than an hour.

Shelling said she hopes the board can get past its problems and unite before going into court regarding the consent decree on Oct. 12.

Shelling said board members had a good relationship when they were sworn in January 2015, and the problems came up when it came time to renew Superintendent Brent Vidrine's contract. "And then everything all of a sudden, everything went helter-skelter," she said.

In May 2015, the board also came under fire from the community after the board voted 4-3 to reject all bids to repair the roof at Neville. The project was unanimously approved by the board in June 2015. Board actions in hiring an independent court monitor to assist with the consent decree were contested in December and January.

Willson said the board got along "OK" until the Neville room discussion came up and "quickly splintered" in arguments over how the independent court monitor was hired. He said the atmosphere of the board was different then. He called Shelling's comments about the board getting along recently "disingenuous."

In June, Shelling personally drew attention after a video of an argument between her and Nici Hanks, a Monroe resident who petitioned the court for the ability to be in the consent decree, gained more than 160,000 views.

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