A week from Thursday voters in East Lansing will decide on a $53 million bond for school improvements. But controversy surrounding the plan and how the school board made decisions leading up to this point is causing conflict.
It's become a bitter battle over words. When Dr. Donna Rich-Kaplowitz and Nell Kuhnmuench of the East Lansing School Board wrote an open letter last week singling out the rest of the board. They accused their colleagues of violating public trust.
They were concerned about the language in a January 23 board meeting agenda.
Kuhnmuench and Rich-Kaplowitz say the agenda did not explicitly say the board was voting to close Red Cedar Elementary School and to add a sixth grade wing to McDonald Middle School, no matter the outcome of the vote next week.
They say this intentionally left the public out of the loop.
When we tried to reach board president Rima Addiego for comment last week, she was unavailable.
But Monday, Addiego says nothing in the agenda was unclear and that she doesn't feel any decision by the board violates public trust.
"I don't agree that the public trust was violated at all. All of the changes that were made, which were very, very minor, were made at the table in a public setting. There was nothing else. There was nothing else to say. If they had disagreements with the resolution, as it was written, as it was distributed to them four days prior to the meeting, then they could have said that at the meeting on the 23rd," said Addiego.
Rich-Kaplowitz and Kuhnmuench say up until January 23 all documents read that should the bond fail the board would reconsider its decision about Red Cedar and McDonald schools.
Addiego insists nothing was written in code. She says the portion of the agenda that referred to the resolution was clear. It says it was a resolution in support of the bond proposal and Addiego says if those in the community wanted to protest they could do so.
