Florida grand jury convened after the 2018 school massacre recommended that Gov. Ron DeSantis fire four members of Broward County School board from the office, stating that they and the district administrators displayed “deceit, malfeasance, misconduct, neglect of duty and incompetence” in their processing of campus safety program.
In a 122-page report released on Friday, panel advised DeSantis to suspend board members Patricia Goode, Donna Korn, Ann Murray and Lori Rich Levinson. BUT former member, Rosalind Osgood, also was a target, but since then she elected to the Florida Senate and passed office.
Levinson, board’s Speaker of Parliament angrily denounced the report as “axe-wielding political work” orchestrated by the governor. who a lot of view as a potential Republican nominee for the president in elections in 2024.
“This is a nasty partisan politics”, – said Levinson. “He should to be disgraced of myself.”
grand jury began meeting 15 months after 14 students and three staff members were shot to death down on February 14, 2018 at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School. in Parkland, a suburb of Broward County.
The shooter, Nicholas Cruz, pleaded guilty. in October and now on trial to decide whether he will be sentenced to death or life without parole.
Former Broward public School Principal Robert Rancy resigns last year after he was charged for alleged lie grand jury. He pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial.
The district is the sixth largest in the country, with more over 270,000 students on 333 campuses and an annual budget of 4 billion dollars.
School board consists of nine members, including two, Debra Hickson and Lori Alhadeff, who we elected after hickson husband chris and alhadeff daughter Alyssa died in Stoneman Douglas shooting. They were running on platforms that help improve campus safety.
Alhadeff, in in particular, often clashed with target members, especially over Rancy performance before his resignation.
Stand with Parkland, Mr. group which represents the majority of families of the victims, released a statement applauding the report, saying it “proves that we already suspect – active of incompetence, negligence and cover-up and the school board (who) is unwilling face facts.” groupPresident Tony Montalto, whose 14-year-old daughter Gina died in in attack is called on DeSantis to remove four members from board.
grand the jury said that Rancy and the accused board members of “unaware or even misinformed decisions” incompetent management and lack of of meaningful oversight” led to massive cost overruns and delays in school safety and education program approved by county voters in 2014. Report says 1 billion dollars program it had to be completed in 2021 is now predicted cost $1.5 billion when completed in 2025 – the jury’s assessments were called “making wishes”.
“It’s doubling of time and almost 50 percent increase in cost didn’t happen overnight.” grand written by the jury. “It was a slowly boiling frog, the result of years of of mismanagement on the part of several (district) officials”.
