South St. Louis County News

St. Louis Call Newspapers

South St. Louis County News

St. Louis Call Newspapers

South St. Louis County News

St. Louis Call Newspapers

‘Not professionally written’ a real doozy of an objection

Mike Anthony
Mike Anthony

Over the years we’ve heard some real doozies of excuses from elected officials on why they couldn’t support this or that.

In fact, we thought we had heard every possible excuse out there — until last week. That’s when some Mehlville Board of Education members objected to a motion on the grounds that it was “not professionally written.” That’s a new one, we have to admit.

In his motion, board member Karl Frank Jr. called for an independent commission to review Mehlville’s Proposition P districtwide building improvement program.

“In order to begin the process of putting Proposition P behind us, moving Mehlville forward and gaining back the public trust, which is clearly lost, which we’re going to talk about here in a few minutes,” Mr. Frank said, referring to the next agenda item, a presentation about a recent telephone survey conducted by the Chilenski Strategy Group, “I move to form a commission of professional women and men …”

Board member Tom Correnti interjected, “Is that a part of your motion?”

Mr. Frank continued, “Completely independent of the Mehlville School District to review what went right with Proposition P and why and to this point what went wrong with Proposition P and why. This commission will be appointed by the board and will consist of but would not be limited to construction managers, architects, financial advisers, past administrators, possibly past board members or whoever else. After a thorough review of Proposition P’s passage and application, the commission will then announce their findings and make recommendations to the board during a public hearing or board meeting at which time the board will decide whether to adopt or deny their recommendations and policy changes, therefore taking the first step in moving Mehlville forward in the eyes of the public. I don’t see how you can disagree with that.”

Aside from a couple editorial comments, that’s a pretty good motion, in our opinion, especially for someone who’s been on the board a month.

But Mr. Frank must have hit a sore spot with his fellow board members given their bizarre objections. We hope Mr. Frank rewrites his motion and brings it back to the board.

Maybe then we’ll hear the real reasons why some board members object to a review of Proposition P by an independent commission.

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