APS Board Chair, El, Faces Two Ethics Complaints about Alisias
(APN) ATLANTA — Khaatim El, Atlanta Public Schools Board of Education Chairperson, faces two ethics complaints filed with APS today, Atlanta Progressive News has learned.
One of the complaints El filed against himself, while another was filed by Janet Kishbaugh, an APS parent.
Kishbaugh alleges El violated several sections of the ethics code under the APS charter, where violation of any one of the items cited would have to result in dismissal from the APS Board.
APN is the only news agency to have reported on the various conflict of interest and ethical violations involving El and the Alisias Group, to date, even still after the fact that the AdvancEd/SACS CASI report cited the situation as one of at least two outstanding ethical issues facing the APS Board.
El’s one-page against himself asks the Commission to look into the following statement by AdvancED:
“Although the Board of Education has established policies and procedures to provide for the effective operation of the schools, the Board chair circumvented such policies by improperly placing a procurement item on the Board’s agenda for approval.”
“The agenda item was a contract for the development of a communication plan by a communications vendor, Alisias Group, despite the fact that this contract had not been properly vetted according to established policy and procedures,” the report said.
“Additionally, evidence indicates that the chair authorized work to be done by the Alisias Group prior to Board knowledge or approval. This issue of not following policy and micromanagement by members of the Board threatens the recognition and preservation of the executive, administrative, and leadership authority of the administrative head of the system,” the report said.
However, El denies violating APS procurement policy. El’s complaint against himself barely scratches the surface of the evidence against him, nor the substantive violations involved, as evidenced by the second complaint against El, by Ms. Kishbaugh.
Attached to El’s complaint are nineteen pages of documentation of the official procurement of the Alisias PR firm, which was not ultimately approved by the Board.
As previously reported by APN, the Alisias PR firm covertly produced PR materials and press releases for four out of five members of the Board Majority, including El, Courtney English, Yolanda Johnson, and Nancy Meister.
Alisias allegedly had a PR contract with Glenn Delk, who had represented the Board majority legally in the governance dispute, and represented English in his ethics complaint.
The work for the majority was allegedly being done at the direction of Delk, but also with the knowledge and approval of the Board Members, according to Rick White, CEO of Alisias, who spoke with APN.
Board Members El, English, and Meister, however, denied to APN any knowledge of the work allegedly being done on their behalf.
El had placed a formal contract for Alisias PR on the APS Board agenda, but removed it after controversy ensued.
Alisias had insisted that its work for the Board majority, which had occurred prior to the proposed APS contract, and separately from the work for Delk, was done pro bono, which in itself raises ethical questions. But it may not even be true: APN later obtained a copy of an invoice of over 20 pages detailing copious hours of work done for the majority by Alisias.
The invoice was submitted to APS by Delk. So despite the fact that the formal contract was rejected, and despite the fact that Alisias said its work was pro bono, APS still received a bill for the work.
According to Kishbaugh, El violated 3-106 number 3, “engaged in conflicts of interest;” number 5, “voted on or influenced in any way a decision or action by the Board or a school system employee that directly affects the Board members or any of his or her relatives;” number 6, “discussed or otherwise communicated with vendors… who are soliciting business from the school system regarding the solicitation or any matter related to the solicitation once the solicitation is issued by the school system and until such time as the Board has rendered a decision on the solicitation;” and number 7, “consistently, intentionally, and willfully violated the procedures, norms, rules, or regulations regarding the prohibition against involvement in the day-to-day operation of the school system.”
Kishbaugh also claimed that El violated several other Board policies.
The Ethics Commission has scheduled a meeting for February 09, 2011, this Thursday, at 7pm, on whether to initiate an investigation into either complaint.
The Commission had previously scheduled to consider the pending Courtney English complaint–which they previously voted to investigate–on that evening; however, that meeting has been rescheduled to February 16, 2011.
The Commission in the meantime has begun investigating the case against English, sending out at least two requests for information and documentation: one to Kim Kahwach, who filed the complaint, and another to Atlanta Progressive News.
The Commission asked APN to provide information regarding the English complaint as follows: “Please provide any notes, files, records, videos, audio recordings and records, and documents of any type which reflect and support decisions you made regarding your reporting of the Ethics Complaint filed against Atlanta Public School System (the “APS”) Board Member Courtney English on July 21, 2010 and please provide notes, files, records, videos, audio recordings and records, and documents of any type which reflect and support the impact of the recent AdvanceED Report issued regarding the APS on the decisions you made related to the reporting of the complaint against Board Member Courtney English.”
Specifically, in looking at whether English defrauded the public with a misleading press release distributed by Alisias, the Commission wants to know how the press release impacted APN’s reported on the English complaint. APN will demonstrate how the news agency declined to cover the credit card misuse issue until after the SACS report came out because English’s press release deceived the news agency into believing it was only his first time committing such a violation.
Allison Adair, an APS parent, wrote in an email to Howard Grant, an APS public information officer, that she thought El’s complaint against himself was not actually a complaint.
“There is no complaint with the exception of the SACS report verbiage. There are no violations cited. In my opinion, in absence of an actual complaint by the filer and citing of violations by the filer, this document does meet the standards of an ethics complaint. This is document is a an argument [sic] by Mr. El in favor of Mr. El and would be best presented at the hearing phase of an actual ethics complaint regarding this matter. I would like to contest the interpretation of this document as a complaint and request that it be dismissed. It is makes a farce of the ethics complaint process and a mockery of all APS stakeholders as beneficiaries of the process,” Adair wrote.
In addition, both APN and Ms. Adair have requested in writing that the Ethics Commission to appoint an independent investigator and hearing officer to handle the pending Courtney English case.
(END / 2011)