Tag: Bay Waveland School Board

Bay-Waveland School Bond Vote Not Even Close

Based on what little I did discuss with folks down there it was pretty obvious the bond issue was a crash and burn proposition.

Voters shoot down BWSD’s $37.8 million bond issue – Geoff Belcher

I think it was the overbuilding and accompanying price tag in the District’s construction plan that was the deal breaker for most people, especially with flood insurance rates on the verge of skyrocketing for so many people down there.

I think reasonable people could agree there are some construction needs at the BWSD that may require bonds to finance. My recommendation would be that any other such proposal be focused like a laser beam on the worsts of the needs only. With the beating the voters gave the bond proposal it would probably be wise to not get in a rush to schedule another bond election.

Tomorrow is School Bond Election Day in the Bay

Slabbed broke the details last August in fact, months before the official rollout earlier this year. The lede of that old post was perceived as a cheap shot by officialdom and I get that point of view. The bonds weren’t being kept secret as much as it was a situation where they were buried in the meeting agendas coupled with locals not engaging the issue due to the pandemic in a governmental beat that is no longer covered as a matter of routine by the local newspapers and certainly not the Tee Vee news.

I suspect the short campaign season was designed to keep opposition from coalescing but there is opposition to the $37.9M bond issue including from Waveland Board Trustee Mike Bell, who ultimately voted against putting the issue on the ballot along with at least 2 Bay St Louis City Councilmen. I have not spoken at length about this with the good people down in Bay-Waveland but I do get a general sense that the 60% majority will be hard to come by. Since it is not our tax dollars, we won’t make any recommendations on tomorrow’s election besides saying to make your voice heard and to go vote.

Bay-Waveland School Board Secretly Discussing $37 Million Dollar Bond Issue (Updated)

The discussions about issuing bonds by the school board in executive sessions has become an open secret. This is the type of thing that has no business being discussed behind closed doors, especially when the accompanying tax increase will total between 10 and 12 mills.

I can think of a few reasons to have such financial discussions in secret and none of them are good.

Issuing bonds may be exactly what Bay Waveland Schools needs for a variety of reasons. Those reasons need to be shared with the taxpaying public.

Update: Since this post was published Slabbed has communicated with School Board Attorney Ronnie Artigues and Superintendent of Education Dr. Reed, who disputed these items were discussed in secret but instead were brought up in public at the regular meeting of July 13, 2021 (Introduction of bond counsel) and at the Special called meeting held on July 28, 2021 (list of potential capital projects which total $37 million dollars).

Slabbed reviewed the meeting agendas posted to the School District’s website and could not find a specific mention of either items on the agendas. Upon further inquiry of Dr. Reed, bond counsel was included in the heading “Superintendent’s Report” in the agenda of the July 13, 2021 meeting.

Continue reading “Bay-Waveland School Board Secretly Discussing $37 Million Dollar Bond Issue (Updated)”

Bay Waveland School Board Holds Special Called Meeting

We still get tips that are worth fleshing out in greater detail and this is one of them. I’ll preface the post by saying it is based upon rumors floating around among more informed circles of citizens there in Bay-Waveland.

Special Called Agenda by Slabbed on Scribd

The agenda embedded above looks innocuous enough but there is something interesting too in the executive session. Typically you only see those in special called meetings when there is something big brewing such as a sex scandal involving students and faculty or all the other myriad of ways people create disasters. The special called meeting on the 2nd of August above comes less than a week after another special called meeting on July 28th that tackled contracts that needed to be approved in advance of school starting etc. The board packet is posted to the webpage for that meeting as well, an informational item that is missing from the meeting of August 2’s webpage at the time of publication of this post on August 4.

Continue reading “Bay Waveland School Board Holds Special Called Meeting”

Hope everyone saw Lana on the news last night

The reason WLOX ended up seeking her commentary on the recent activity inside the Bay-Waveland Schools as opposed to some of the loud mouths bloviating on social media is because Lana actually attends School Board meetings such as the one held this past Monday. For those that missed it the video from last night’s 10:00PM WLOX newscast is embedded below:

WLOX.com – The News for South Mississippi

Was Assistant Superintendent Kristen Ladner really supervising the business manager like former Board President Mike Bell claimed? Ladner, who oversees special education, has no background in finance so such an arrangement, unique among Mississippi public school districts, would certainly raise the eyebrows of people that know better but if Ladner were really the CFO answering to the Superintendent like Mr. Bell claimed, wouldn’t she be presenting the cash balances and the claims docket to Vikki Landry?

IMG951935

Bullshit Chinese firewalls may sound good to $435/hour hired guns but it certainly didn’t pass muster with the locals.







That was quick….

Yesterday afternoon rumors were flying that Bay Waveland School Superintendent Vikki Landry would be resigning and sure enough it came to pass:

Bay-Waveland Schools superintendent resigns without explanation ~ Cassandra Favre

Slabbed had this bit of news last night on Twitter as well:

Meantime School Board Trustee Mark Kidd of Waveland told Cassandra some whoppers implying the School Board is somehow, just now, becoming politicized.

At the end of the meeting, Kidd spoke on the events that transpired during the meeting.

“One thing about the school board is that it shouldn’t be political, but it’s getting that way,” Kidd said. “It’s a shame, really, what some of them are doing. Some of them have their own political agenda. I was really surprised what they were looking at trying to do. We’ve got really good people that work for our school district.”

From the outside looking in my impression was Trustee Bell got on fairly well with Trustee Favre right up to the point where Kidd was elected to the Board to succeed Sherry Ponder. Mr. Kidd’s arrival on the school board scene also times up pretty well to screwy things occurring like sanctioning nepotism in the Central Office and cutting classroom teachers while adding Central Office Administrators. Politics does make for some strange bedfellows.

In any event the hot political rumor is that Mr. Kidd is just using the Bay Waveland School Board as a place to pass time while he waits for the next municipal elections in Waveland. Kidd ran for Mayor last go round and lost to current Mayor Mike Smith. Prior to that Kidd was an Alderman, having beat Charles Piazza for the seat by a coin toss due to a tie vote. Piazza is the incumbent Alderman setting up a rematch should Kidd run for Waveland Alderman as expected. Waveland Municipal elections are scheduled for later this year. Continue reading “That was quick….”







On Tap Tonight: A New School Board Trustee

The Lady that will be appointed – her name was dropped a couple of time in comments here, I’m sure she will make a fine trustee.

As for outgoing Trustee Joan Thomas, her goose was cooked by her own hand, almost one year ago to the day:

Siblings working for Bay school district an ethical concern, says commission – Justin Vicory

Either the superintendent or the business manager of Bay St. Louis–Waveland School District — who are brother and sister — should resign from office to avoid the appearance of nepotism, a Mississippi Ethics Commission opinion says.

Yet the majority of Bay–Waveland School Board members disagreed, and recently voted 4 to 1 to approve an additional 18-month contract for business administrator John McCraw, as well as a contract for Superintendent Vikki Landry, his sister.

And the so called Chinese firewall the high priced lawyers constructed to rationalize and prettify such nepotism? It is bullshit, or put another way if it weren’t, the exchange where the lawyers advised the school board in an official meeting would not have been purposely omitted from the record and the business manager would to this day not be presenting cash balances to his sister for the School Board to approve. It’s sad folks:

At the February meeting, board attorney Ronnie Artigues and James Keith, a longtime education attorney with the North Pike and Pearl River County school boards, told the board it was acceptable for them to appoint an employee other than Landry for McCraw to report to. In response, the board appointed Kristen Ladner and Cherie Labat as assistant superintendents.

School board meetings are open to the public, and an audio recording is normally taken and saved. But when Lana Noonan, a member of political watchdog group Hancock County Alliance for Good Government, contacted the central office secretary to get a copy of the February recording, the conversation about McCraw and Landry was not on the tape.

The flawed decision making that created a mess in the district’s elementary schools, along with multiple assistant superintendents to go with the family at the central office has to be fixed folks. Tonight’s school board appointment will flip the Board majority away from those that would disregard state ethics opinions.







So MDE was Down Investigating Bay Waveland School Board Trustee Casey Favre……

Folks I could go three for three posting quotes from Macbeth but not today. This past weekend I almost felt like we were treated to some old news and in a way it was old news:

Bay-Waveland School District retains accreditation status after MDE investigation – Cassandra Favre

A preliminary report of an investigative audit dated Dec. 4 from MDE to Superintendent Vikki Landry and BWSD School Board President Mike Bell – provided by BWSD board attorney Ronnie Artigues – stated that MDE found the district in violation of “Process Standards 1 and 1.1.; a board member is acting individually and outside of the role prescribed by law by giving directives to district staff members.” According to Standard 1, “the local school board’s responsibilities shall pertain to matters of setting policy and shall not interfere in the day-to-day operations of the school district that include, but are not limited to, such duties as those relating to personnel and management decisions.” 1.1 states that “the school board assigns all executive and administrative duties to the superintendent.”

And for all the lurid things found by MDE auditors late last year all it took was a response from School Board Attorney Ronnie Artigues supported by the minutes to cause MDE to withdraw their recommendation that the district be placed on probation.

On Jan. 30, MDE issued its response – also provided by Artigues – where MDE withdrew its recommendation for probation.

However, Office of Accreditation Executive Director Jo Ann Malone said in the letter that MDE “still has concerns regarding the allegations made that prompted the investigative audit” because the superintendent and other board members did not provide information in the district’s response that “confirms or contradicts MDE’s findings.”

“Therefore, the MDE will continue to monitor the actions of the board member(s) of the district throughout the 2017-2018 school year or until such time the Office of Accreditation determines the district is fully compliant with all process standards of the Mississippi Public Schools Accountability Standards, 2017,” Malone said in the response.

It took me a couple of reads of Cassandra’s story for everything to sink in and the bottom line is it appears some elements of school board, my guess being the faction that will soon find itself in the minority after Mayor Favre makes his pick top replace School Board Trustee Joan Thomas, dropped a dime on Mayor Favre’s son Casey and blew a whole bunch of smoke up MDE’s hiney about him and that brings us to the old news quality to Cassandra’s story because it was alluded to here on Slabbed in comments last October on the post Bay Taxpayers, Utility Users Stuck paying Excessive Post Katrina Engineering Firm Fees by commenter SuperStar. Starting with this comment and reading down it is clear SuperStar had no use for Casey Favre. Continue reading “So MDE was Down Investigating Bay Waveland School Board Trustee Casey Favre……”