Infighting bad

Home

Editorial

Infighting bad

Other Sun Publications

FREE DELIVERY!
Get Free Delivery! Request your Osceola News Gazette Today.

Login Form

2013 Osceola Health

2013 Sexual Predator Sexual Offender List sexualpredatorcover13

Windows on the Classroom March 2013

School Calendar
2012-2013

View our other Special Sections

Infighting bad

Opinions

Friday, 08 October 2010 14:31

The infighting between two Osceola County School Board members has gone way too far, with Jay Wheeler making public statements to the media and disseminating e-mails about his opinion of Cindy Hartig’s mental health.
Wheeler in both the e-mails and to media essentially called Hartig mentally unbalanced and in need of professional help. While Wheeler is entitled to his own opinions, making such a statement publicly about another board member is irresponsible.
We know there is no love lost between these two School Board members – as demonstrated by past tiffs, such as when Hartig started a nonprofit with a name that Wheeler thought was inappropriate and misleading – but for Wheeler to go off the deep end about Hartig making a public records request to see 400 e-mails is unacceptable. If Wheeler uses his personal e-mail for Osceola County School District business, then those e-mails – whether 40 or 400 – are public record and must be made available through Florida’s Government in the Sunshine Law whether it’s Hartig requesting them or this newspaper.
Hartig has been no angel in this fight, as there has been name-calling from her end as well. However, as far as Hartig’s behavior as a School Board member goes, we haven’t seen anything that would lead us to believe that she “sees conspiracies” behind every corner as Wheeler has said. We have seen Hartig question procedures or contracts in the past that indeed were deficient in some way.
Hartig recently wrote a letter to the editor concerning campaigning and campaign finance and we incorrectly tagged the letter with a St. Cloud hometown when it should have been Kissimmee. Soon after the letter was published, Wheeler called us suggesting that we should look into whether Hartig lived in the district she represented. With that call in mind, we wonder who is looking for conspiracies.
Wheeler’s recent behavior as it relates to this issue – whether it is a conflict of personalities or of political philosophies – is not a good example for the 53,000 students in our School District. We urge both Wheeler and Hartig to bury the hatchet (not in each other’s backs, though), as they likely will be serving together for at least two more years.
School Board Chairman John McKay has called for a workshop Tuesday on board member behavior. Let’s hope the meeting will help these two board members work through their issues.