{"id":1179,"date":"2012-01-12T17:01:41","date_gmt":"2012-01-12T22:01:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/who-gets-to-serve-on-the-brooks-county-school-board-vdt.html"},"modified":"2012-01-12T17:01:41","modified_gmt":"2012-01-12T22:01:41","slug":"who-gets-to-serve-on-the-brooks-county-school-board-vdt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/who-gets-to-serve-on-the-brooks-county-school-board-vdt.html","title":{"rendered":"Who gets to serve on the Brooks County School Board —VDT"},"content":{"rendered":"The VDT caught up with the TV stations today on the Quitman 10 story,\nand provided updates and context they did not.\n

\nDavid Rodock wrote on the front page of the VDT today,\n\nGov. suspends `Quitman Ten’ officials<\/a>,\n

\nOn Tuesday, Deal issued his order prior to the Brooks County Board\nof Education\u2019s first meeting of 2012. Dr. Nancy Whitfield-Dennard,\nElizabeth Diane Thomas and Linda Faye Troutman were notified of this\nsuspension at approximately 4:30 p.m., according to sources.\n<\/blockquote>\nThat’s a bit more context than\n\nthe TV stations provided.<\/a>\n

\nThe VDT also says who gets to serve instead:\n

\nFollowing the governor’s suspension this week, Brooks County school\nboard member Brad Shealy, who is also an assistant Southern district\nattorney, was appointed to serve as president of the board with\nboard member Larry Cunningham serving as vice president. Shealy\nserved many years as the school board president prior to\nWhitfield-Dennard being named president last year.\n<\/blockquote>\nThat seems to be\n\nthe same Brad Shealy who used to be chairman\nuntil the recent election.<\/a>\n

\nThe VDT adds this context:\n\n\n

\nWith Whitfield-Dennard, Thomas and Troutman being black, the\ngovernor’s suspension returns the Brooks County school board to a\nwhite majority.\n<\/blockquote>\nThat and returning the chairman defeated twice in the election makes for\na de facto annulment of the election.\n

\nExcept not quite:\n

\nHarold Eddy, an attorney with a Gainesville-based public-education\nlaw firm, said the school board remains uncertain what it will do\nwith the three vacant seats caused by the suspension.\n

\n“They were not actually dismissed,” said Eddy.\n“They are temporarily suspended and, pending the proceedings,\nthey could be found not guilty and return to the board. We just\nfound out about this (Tuesday) afternoon and are trying to determine\nwhether there is any type of statutory provision that would address\nthis. If not, it would be up to the governor’s office to appoint\nreplacements.”\n<\/blockquote>\nSo when will this trial be?\n

\n“…the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial,\nby an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall\nhave been committed…”\n
\n—Sixth Amendment, U.S. Constitution\n<\/blockquote>\nWe’re getting the public part, with the review committee and\nD.A. on TV.<\/a>\nI wonder when we’ll see the impartial jury part.\n

\nHere’s the best part of the VDT story:\n

\n\n<\/a>\n“My concern as a community activist and concerned citizen is\nwhy I have not seen their attorneys,” said George Rhynes, who\nhas covered the case on his online blog since it started in 2010.\n“We have state representatives, the NAACP and (famed civil\nrights activist) Joseph Lowery who have came out to support the\nQuitman Ten, yet so many things about this case have not been\npublished.”\n<\/blockquote>\nThe VDT finally acknowledges George Rhynes for his work on this story.\n

\n-jsq\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The VDT caught up with the TV stations today on the Quitman 10 story, and provided updates and context they did not. David Rodock wrote on the front page of the VDT today, Gov. suspends `Quitman Ten’ officials, On Tuesday, Deal issued his order prior to the Brooks County Board of Education\u2019s first meeting of […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[97,15,49,20,1526,3,133],"tags":[1587,8705,1484,8701,2129,3220,8710,46,69,1586,8834,3219,605,8742],"class_list":["post-1179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-education","category-elections","category-law","category-quitman-10","category-transparency","category-vdt","tag-brooks-county","tag-education","tag-election","tag-georgia","tag-governor","tag-joe-mulholland","tag-law","tag-nathan-deal","tag-publicity","tag-quitman","tag-quitman-10","tag-trial","tag-tv","tag-vdt"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-j1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1179\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}