Aug 18 - Special Board Meeting
On Thursday, August 18, the Humble ISD Board of Trustees is holding a Special Board Meeting, with only two items on the agenda.
The first item is a waiver of the Board Operating Policies and Procedures.
The second item is the selection of Board Officers.
“Yep, that’s us. You might be wondering how we got here.”
During the June 21 Board Meeting, there was an agenda item to change the Board Officers. For the purpose of this recap specifically, Robert Scarfo was on the agenda to become the Board President, replacing Martina Lemond Dixon. Here is a screenshot of that agenda item:
The motion was made by Chris Parker and seconded by Robert Scarfo. No discussion was offered, and when it was time to vote, Lemond Dixon asked to go to closed session. When they returned to open session, Parker moved to withdraw her motion. Then Robert Sitton made a new motion to re-elect Lemond Dixon as President. Scarfo then made the point that Board Policy required a rotation of officers. There was then a discussion for a few minutes, ultimately with the motion being amended and Lemond Dixon being re-elected as President. Here’s the series of motions as notated by the district.
Here is the video of that interaction.
On August 9, in a regular Board Meeting, Robert Scarfo used his time to comment to object again to Lemond Dixon’s re-election as Board President. In doing so, he quoted two things. The first was the Humble ISD Board Member’s Creed, which states, in part, “I will consistently uphold all applicable laws, rules, policies, and governance procedures.”
The second he quotes was a section from the Board Policy, screenshot below:
Scarfo asked for Lemond Dixon to step down as President as allow the VP (Morrison) to act as President. Lemond Dixon declined to do that. Legal counsel for the Board also stated that they could not act on that now, as it was not on the agenda. Somewhere in there Robert Sitton said that Scarfo’s allegation was offensive. The video is worth watching (about 10 minutes long).
Now we have a Special Board Meeting to waive the Policy around officers altogether. I have no inside knowledge but it seems Lemond Dixon will remain Board President after policy and/or procedure is out of the way.
The real question - the one in my emails and PMs most - is why are we doing this at all?