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At Tuesday's School Board meeting, District 3 member Jon Arguello said an investigation into him was "a work of fiction".
The Osceola County School Board voted to reprimand and censure one of its own Tuesday after an investigation found he breached Board rules regarding conduct toward a School District vendor.
The Board voted 4-0 to take action against District 3 member Jon Arguello, who abstained from voting, and forward the matter to Gov. Ron DeSantis for review.
An independent investigator ruled Arguello “engaged in intimidating and hostile acts against a vendor’s business interests that appear to be beyond his scope as a Board member of oversight of School District contracts and funds.”
That behavior violates School Board Rules 2.70 VB-2 and 3, which prohibits “forms of harassment prohibited by law.”
Through his company Macy Island Consulting, Mike Horner, a former state representative, has provided legislative lobbying services for the district since 2018. At a July 13, 2021 meeting, Arguello asked the District to sever its $5,000-a-month contract with Horner, noting breach of contract issues and that Horner was not registered, therefore out of compliance, to lobby the Legislature.
This followed an exchange, detailed in the investigation, from June 2021 that Arguello had asked Horner for campaign contributions to Jennifer Arguello, Jon’s sister, who has filed to run in District 1 against current Board Chair Terry Castillo. Horner informed him he’d be supporting Castillo in the race, which will be later this year. During the investigation, Horner said his relationship with Jon Arguello “transformed within a matter of weeks to repeated, very public criticisms.”
As part of the investigation, a Horner client reported Arguello called him to say Horner’s district contract should be terminated and “that Mr. Arguello was looking for validation for him as a client to stop doing business with Horner.”
In his interview for the report, Arguello stated he was fulfilling “oversight of vendors providing services to the district … in regards to his criticism of Mr. Horner.”
As part of a 50-page transcript of his investigation interview, Arguello called Horner “a representative of the corruption level we have in Osceola County … at the district he is a problem. He is a liability. The liability centers around that fact they don’t care about conflicts of interest.”
Board Member Clarence Thacker made a motion during the meeting to forward the findings to the Governor’s office, noting state statute gives DeSantis authority to “suspend or discipline,” and formally censure Arguello for his actions.
“I want to make it clear, I consider this a very serious offense,” Thacker said. “This is not the way, I believe, we should act as a School Board member, or let the community think this is how we conduct business. It’s embarrassing to be having this public discussion.”
Board Member Julius Melendez said that, “We should look at this with the same scrutiny as any other district employee.”
Reached Thursday morning, Horner called the Board’s vote “an appropriate action.”
Arguello called the entire investigation “a work of fiction.”
“I never asked Mr. Horner’s clients to fire him or anything of that nature. I did ask Mr. Horner for a contribution, just like everyone else here has, as well as other vendors,” he said Tuesday. “No one who represents what Mr. Horner represents deserves to be a member of a community that’s serving their students … anyone who has taken a contribution from Mr. Horner should abstain from voting on this issue. If you vote on this issue while you’re taking money from that same lobbyist, it says far more about you than the sham investigation says about me.”
He contended Tuesday, like he has much of his term that started in August 2020, that School District contracts often go to a network of tied-in conflicted interests. Many in the audience applauded his comments.
