Opinion
To Get Elected, They Promised That They Wouldn’t Negotiate With Wolk. Guess What?
On Monday night (June 13), The Lower Merion School Board voted unanimously to approve a settlement of the lawsuit that attorney Arthur Wolk had filed against the School District, ending six years of costly litigation and divisiveness within the community.
The actual total cost of the litigation is something that you are not entitled to know, even if you paid for it with your tax dollars.
For five of the board members (left to right: Subha Robinson, Shawn Mooring, Lucy Klain, Peter Lee, Shayna Kalish), their votes in support of the settlement was a campaign promise broken. The mere fact that they acquiesced to allow the district and its lawyers to even discuss a settlement, was in direct opposition to what they had promised in 2019, when they were seeking the endorsement of the Democratic Committee of Lower Merion Narberth (DCLMN).
Click above to expand.
In late February and early March of 2019, Robinson, Mooring, Klain, Lee and Kalish were seeking DCLMN’s endorsement for the School Board Primary Election. Two other candidates, Mary Brown and Tannia Schreiber were also eager to win the committee’s endorsement, although both of them would have been content if the committee had just opted for an “Open Primary” (no endorsement).
The reason why the committee did not endorse Brown and Schreiber had nothing to do with their resumes and had everything to do with their positions on the Wolk Lawsuit.
Although former School Board President Robin Vann Wright’s letter condemned Brown and Schreiber (without naming them) for “embracing” the position of “settling” – the opinion that both Brown and Schreiber actually expressed was a lot closer to “it couldn’t hurt to talk” – even to Arthur Wolk. They flunked the litmus test.
Robinson, Mooring, Klain, Lee and Kalish, on the other hand, were willing to provide assurances they wouldn’t even enter into a discussion with “the man who seeks to undermine generations of work to maintain quality public education in the Lower Merion and Narberth communities.”
The committee members liked what they were hearing from Robinson, Mooring, Klain, Lee and Kalish – and rewarded them with their endorsement.
And as we all know, candidates who win DCLMN’s endorsement, also win their primaries and their general elections.
What we don’t yet know, but are certainly entitled to know, is why have they now decided to renege on the one campaign promise they made that got them endorsed and elected?
To read the full settlement agreement, click above
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[…] one time, that seemed like a tall order for a board that claimed five members who had been elected almost entirely on the basis of promising never to allow the dist… (who was considered by many to be an “Enemy of Public Education”, much less agreeing to […]