Poli-ticks

Arlen Violet: No shame in the game

By Arlene Violet
Posted 12/7/18

Sometimes I think that too many folks have lost their moral compass. It is particularly disturbing when the people involved are supposed to be role models for children. When those very children are …

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Poli-ticks

Arlen Violet: No shame in the game

Posted

Sometimes I think that too many folks have lost their moral compass. It is particularly disturbing when the people involved are supposed to be role models for children. When those very children are the “alibi” for the distorted actions by the adults then their behavior becomes even more egregious.

Right now in South Kingstown, where the National Educational Association (NEA) represents 95 percent of the teachers and school personnel, one of its top union organizers got elected to the school committee. Her running for office smacks of self-dealing for the retention of her union position and union colleagues. Here’s why:
South Kingstown has lost over 1200 students from 4200 to about 3000. The then-leaders in 2017 studied and decided to close Wakefield Elementary School because of this attrition. Enter Sarah Markey, the union honcho, who actively spearheaded the opposition to the closing. In fact, she tried to get herself appointed to fill a vacancy on the school board so she could further the union agenda of preserving the NEA jobs in the school. She solicited the assistance of fellow Democrat, Bryant Da Cruz, who refused his endorsement because he saw the apparent conflicts of interest. He noted that there would be a direct correlation to keeping the school open and her job as the union organizer to do so and her potential role on the school committee to rule on such matters. Undeterred, she ran for the school committee and in 2018 and was elected. She is now its vice-chair. She is obviously myopic as to her conflicts since she brags, instead, of her expertise on school matters as a result of her NEA position which fetches her $166,000 per year.

As of this writing she has refused to seek an advisory opinion as to her ethical responsibilities since she claims she knows it all. Her union colleagues have rubber-stamped her running for this position. In fact, over the years, the NEA has had a stealth campaign of supporting candidates for school committee around the state who belong to the union precisely to increase their bargaining power. After all, it makes it quite easy to negotiate contracts when you are on both sides of the table. All RI communities should beware!

To date, Ms. Markey has received not one but two legal opinions from school committee lawyers to seek an advisory opinion from the Ethics Commission as to what she can or cannot vote on. Instead, it would appear that she is threatening the present lawyer, Sarah Rapport, by raising the issue of the appointment of counsel by the new school committee. In any event, as bad as the failure to seek any guidance, the reality is that she should not have run for office in the first place. Even were it legal it is immoral to game the system as she and the NEA has done.

She will sit in on the school committee positions re: contract negotiations. She has espoused the view that she can at least comment on school closings, the budget, personnel, etc. She probably feels that the voters have spoken so she is entitled to be in that position. I would counter that not everything legal is necessarily moral. As somebody in her field of education, she and her union are deficient. It’s a shame.

Arlene Violet is an attorney and former Rhode Island Attorney General.

Arlene Violet

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