NEWS

No censure for Shelling on board agenda

Bonnie Bolden
bbolden@thenewsstar.com

The agenda for Tuesday's meeting of the Monroe City School Board does not contain any reference to board member Brenda Shelling, including a call for her censure, resignation or removal from board committee.

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

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On Oct. 4, board member Bill Willson stated the board was ready to request Shelling's resignation and take action against her. If Shelling doesn't resign, he said, board members were 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 that meeting.

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

Shelling, on Oct. 5, announced she would not resign, citing support from her constituents. She 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 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 said Oct. 5 that he planned 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 the racially charged comments was published. The general feeling, he said, was of disbelief.

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