One seat on the Plato R-V School Board is vacant, thanks to the resignation of recently re-elected board member Lori Crabtree who failed to file a mandatory report with the Missouri Ethics Commission.
Crabtree, who teaches in the Waynesville R-VI School District, placed third in a four-candidate race during the April 8 board election, receiving 90 votes compared to 120 for fellow incumbent Doug Caldwell and 103 for challenger Shellene Beacham. Crabtree barely edged out a fourth candidate, Pete Scurlock, who received 90 votes.
Crabtree’s failure to file the report “was discovered prior to the election, but too late to change the ballot. Consequently the election proceeded with all four candidates remaining on the ballot, despite the failure of one of the candidates to file the proper documentation,” according to an April 28 letter drafted by the school district’s attorney and sent to the school district which had requested legal advice.
“When the election was held the candidate, who was disqualified, was elected to the board by popular vote,” according to the attorney. “At that time, the candidate agreed to resign, due to her failure to satisfy all of the procedural prerequisites for holding such office. The candidate receiving the least number of votes now claims he should be automatically placed on the board, as the other candidate was ineligible for the position.”
The attorney, Joseph Weintge Jr. of the Mickes Goldman law firm in St. Louis, wrote that state law may give the district little choice but to go through the full interview and appointment process
Superintendent Leon Slape told board members Thursday night that county clerks had told him that it was too late to remove Crabtree’s name from the ballot. The Plato R-V School district covers four counties, Texas, Pulaski, Laclede and Wright, and the ballots were in different stages of preparation when Crabtree’s failure to file was discovered.
“By the time we got the notice, all the counties had sent their ballots for printing and one county already had their ballots back, and none of the county clerks wanted to go to the expense of reprinting,” Slape said.
Scurlock appeared at the board meeting to make his case in person and asked why county election officials weren’t notified of the problem in time to change the ballot.
“I know the district was notified by the 14th of February that Lori Crabtree was disqualified,” Scurlock said. “I’m wondering how we got to this point, knowing that notice was out there.”
Scurlock said the written notice was preceded by phone calls as well.
“There’s a lot of other things that could be said, but that’s all I want to say,” Scurlock said.
Later in the meeting, Board President Mike Friend asked if there’s any way to handle the situation except the full reappointment process that includes interviews with candidates.
“Can we actually appoint anybody without going through that policy we discussed before?” Friend asked.
Probably not, Slape said.
“Board policy says we take applications and narrow it down to three,” Slape said. “According to board policy, once a vacancy has been declared, we have to follow policy.”
“So we can’t just go ahead and appoint the next one in line?” asked board member DeWayne Baker.
“I wish we could, but we have to follow policy,” Slape said.
“So the only recourse for the candidate is to fill out an application?” Friend asked.
Slape said that’s probably the only alternative. Board members voted to set June 9 as the deadline for applications for the board vacancy, moved the June 12 board meeting from its standard time of 6:30 p.m. to 7 p.m., and agreed to hold candidate interviews at 6:30 p.m. The candidate interviews will be in open session, as required by the Missouri Sunshine Law.
“Maybe we’ll just have one person put in and then it’ll be easy,” Baker said.
That’s possible but not likely. At least two people took copies of the board member applications on Thursday night and more could file later, though it won’t be known until June 9 how many people will apply.