Governor Ron DeSantis is once again exercising his privilege as governor of the state to remove corrupt Democrats from their positions overseeing schools in Broward County.
Today he suspended four board members after a grand jury investigating the school board recommended their removal.
Here’s more from NBC 6 in South Florida:
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has suspended four members of the Broward County School Board after a grand jury recommended they be removed over alleged incompetence, neglect of duty, and misuse of authority.
DeSantis announced Friday the immediate suspensions of school board members Patricia Good, Donna Korn, Ann Murray and Laurie Rich Levinson.
DeSantis said the move was made in response to a grand jury report released last week that recommended the school board members be suspended due to “deceit, malfeasance, misfeasance, neglect of duty and incompetence.”
“It is my duty to suspend people from office when there is clear evidence of incompetence, neglect of duty, misfeasance or malfeasance,” DeSantis said in a statement. “This action is in the best interest of the residents and students of Broward County and all citizens of Florida.”
The grand jury began meeting 15 months after 14 students and three staff members were gunned down on Feb. 14. 2018, at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.
Former Broward Superintendent Robert Runcie resigned last year after he was indicted for allegedly lying to the grand jury. He has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial. The district is the nation’s sixth-largest, with more than 270,000 students at 333 campuses, and an annual budget of $4 billion.
The school board has nine members, including two, Debra Hixon and Lori Alhadeff, who were elected after Hixon’s husband Chris and Alhadeff’s daughter Alyssa died in the Stoneman Douglas shooting. They ran on platforms promoting better campus security. Alhadeff, in particular, has frequently been at odds with the targeted members, particularly over Runcie’s performance before his resignation.
The grand jury said that Runcie’s and the accused board members’ “uninformed or even misinformed decisions, incompetent management and lack of meaningful oversight” has led to massive cost overruns and delays in the SMART Program, a multimillion-dollar bond specifically solicited for school safety and renovation initiatives approved by county voters in 2014.
The report said the $1 billion program that was supposed to be completed in 2021 is now projected to cost $1.5 billion when it is finished in 2025 — estimates the jury called “wishcasting.”
The grand jury report said the Broward school district seems to be more focused on how it is viewed publicly than on actual accomplishment.
This wasn’t a unilateral decision by DeSantis to remove these corrupt school board members. This was the recommendation of the grand jury and DeSantis simply acted on it, as he should, to remove them from office.
Of course Democrats are using this to try and paint DeSantis as an ‘autocrat’ or something:
Ron DeSantis just removed 4 democratically elected school board members from office.
This is the work of an autocrat. I’m terrified.
— Jack Petocz (@Jack_Petocz) August 26, 2022
You’re terrified you might be removed from office by a grand jury for "deceit, malfeasance, misfeasance, neglect of duty and incompetence,” and making “uninformed or even misinformed decisions, incompetent management and lack of meaningful oversight” of a billion dollars? Okay. https://t.co/m2mDPyhjZc
— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) August 26, 2022
Here’s more on the background on the grand jury report if you want to watch…