Cape School Board member says board violated Sunshine Law; president says meetings in question not under same expectations

It's a state-of-the-art scoreboard. Digital, with video. Many of the latest bells and whistles.

And come this football season, it will rise above Cape Girardeau Central High School's new events stadium, now under construction.

Most on the Cape Girardeau School Board see the agreement that will pay for the scoreboard as an act of great generosity. One board member, however, sees the way the deal was arrived at as anything but transparent.

While a Missouri Sunshine Law expert sees no violation of the state's open government codes, she says the creation of the agreement does raise some public perception questions.

On Thursday in a special meeting, the school board on a 4-1 vote approved a contract with Coca-Cola Refreshments USA Inc., making the soft-drink giant the exclusive beverage supplier of the new stadium's concessions, beginning Aug. 1, 2012. Coke would make a $50,000 donation toward the purchase of the stadium's digital scoreboard.

Paul Nenninger was the lone dissenting vote, with board president Stacy Kinder, Phil Moore, Kyle McDonald and Don Call voting in favor of the motion. Board members Luther Bonds and Tony Smee were not in attendance.

The Cape Girardeau Public Schools Foundation will take out a loan to cover the cost of the scoreboard, financing the borrowing through advertisement revenue. As of Thursday afternoon, the foundation had commitments from local businesses to fill four of six panels on the big scoreboard.

Supporters see the arrangement as a sweet deal, providing the high school with a state-of-the-art scoreboard while keeping the district -- and therefore taxpayer -- dollars out of an extracurricular purchase.

Nenninger isn't crazy about the district giving up a revenue source. More so, he sees the many discussions of an ad hoc school enhancements committee made up of district officials, the foundation, businesses and athletic boosters as an infringement of open meetings laws.

"The district definitely was affected by what this committee was going to do, raising money that the district was going to have to take some action on," he said. "To me, that's enough interest that the public needs to be aware what's going on. Those minutes should be provided."

Kinder counters the meetings didn't involve the school board. She described the group as a "short-term" committee formed last fall, made up of superintendent Jim Welker, Neil Glass, the district's director of administrative services, parents, interested business people and "enthusiastic boosters." Kinder also said she was a member; not as a board member but as an interested parent.

Kinder said the committee did not take minutes, although she said there are notes from the meetings. The temporary committee and the foundation, according to the school board president, do not fall under the same open record expectations that Nenninger asserts. Both Kinder and Welker said the meetings were cleared with the district's attorney, and that the school board was given periodic updates about the committee's activities.

"I could not imagine a more open committee. Month after month we were trying to recruit people to come," Kinder said. "The idea of any kind of secrecy going on is just laughable."

Nenninger said he can't recall any updates to the school board, and if there had been, that's a stronger indication that minutes should have been taken. He said he first found out about some of the plans from a prominent businessman who said he had pledged a substantial amount of money to the campaign.

Jean Maneke, a Kansas City lawyer and an open records expert, said if the committee didn't consist of a quorum of board members, it operated within open meetings laws. Kinder said she doesn't recall any other board members in attendance.

Still, Maneke said the public perception question is at issue.

"I am concerned that a lot of money is going through [the foundation] and the public doesn't have lot of information about it," said Maneke, who also serves as lawyer for the Missouri Press Association. "But I can't argue it's a public body, because it's not."

Kinder, most of her fellow board members and foundation officials say they don't understand the concern. The foundation's mission, they say, is to serve the needs of the school district.

"Personally I am thankful for the people in the community and the business folks who have jumped on board," she said.

Nenninger said he, too, supports the foundation's work but that when district business and officials are involved the work needs to be done in the open.

"We demand rigor from our students. We are setting the standard for leadership," he said. "We should be above reproach in everything we do."

mkittle@semissourian.com

388-3627