By Rick Madewell

Assistant Editor

Ethics complaints have been dismissed against School Board Member Jay Wheeler, according to Wheeler’s weekly email blast.

Kaye Starling, with the Florida Commission on Ethics in Tallahassee, would neither confirm nor deny that the complaints were dropped, saying details of the investigator’s findings should become public record Wednesday. The commission met Friday in closed session to consider the allegations, which were filed in 2010.

In his email blast today, Wheeler stated that the commission had dismissed all the allegations/complaints made against him by Osceola County School Board member Tom Long. Long had not yet been elected to the School Board when he filed the complaints.

“We can only wonder how much of state taxpayer money he wasted with these frivolous and unfounded complaints,” Wheeler stated.

Wheeler later stated in another email that he hopes “board members will finally start to focus on education instead of all the rubbish they waste time on.”

“Mr. Wheeler openly hung a political sign on School District property that included a political disclaimer,” Long said today. “He bragged that he handed out his political campaign material during a 2009 teach-in. A teacher wrote a letter to the editor attesting to it.

“We have School Board rules that are supposed to prevent these types of actions by seated board members, as well as any candidate.”

Long accused Wheeler of misusing his power as a School Board member to gain political advantage for an election. Wheeler at the time was running against Nancy Gemskie.

Long cited in one instance Florida Statute 112.313 (6) Misuse of public position: “No public officer, employee of an agency, or local government attorney shall corruptly use or attempt to use his or her official position or any property or resource which may be within his or her trust, or perform his or her official duties, to secure a special privilege, benefit, or exemption for himself, herself, or others.”

Long also contended Wheeler asked the School Board attorney Suzanne D'Agresta if he could hang political signs on area school grounds and the attorney “clearly told him no.” But Wheeler, he said, proceeded to use his authority and had school employees hang up the signs anyway.

Also, Long said Wheeler, during a teach-in, handed out campaign emery boards to students, as well as bumper stickers and T-shirts without receiving approval from then-Superintendent Michael Grego.

These incidents, said Long at the time charges were filed early last year, would “open the flood gates for every candidate and their operatives, to hand out campaign material in classrooms and on campus. The legal costs to any district that would not allow campaign material could cripple every district in the state.”

He added at the time that Wheeler was in direct violation of school board rules, citing statutes that read:

• “School Board employees shall not solicit support for any candidate, partisan or non-partisan, during regular work hours.”

• “Facilities are only for use in the education program and are not for personal political activity.”

• “No individual, including an employee of the School Board, group, or organization may use buildings for private profit or personal gain.”

• “The facilities of the district shall not be used by any School District Board employee for the purposes of advocating a position concerning an issue pending before the School Board or the voters of Osceola County at any general or special election.”

• “School facilities shall not be used for advertising or otherwise promoting interests of any commercial, political or other non-school agency or individual organization ….”

• “Literature or materials which originate from out-of-school sources shall be approved by the Superintendent or designee prior to distribution to students.”