Huntley School Board Secretary Kim Sjaka Tied to Tape Gate

The audio visually impaired Huntley School District 158 had “an audio recorder and two DVD recorders fail to record the meeting, but a backup VHS recorder also failed,” according to a Saturday Daily Herald article written by Jameel Naqvi.

I doubt NASA has redundancy to the fourth degree.

But, NASA and other school boards obviously have more technically proficient AV operators.

Superintendent John Burkey express the obvious in this comment to the Herald:

“I know how this looks. I know the board has questions. They have a right to have questions. I’m very upset about it, and I’m responsible.”

At the meeting when ousted former Board President Mike Skala was appointed to replace Jim Carlin, the man who beat him, minority board members Larry Snow and Aileen Seedorf said that the decision to pick Skala was made by three of their colleagues before the secret meeting began.

Current Board President Shawn Green denied the accusation and said that he would release the recording law mandates be made of executive sessions.

Naqvi discovered a problem, however.

Burkey told him that only 2-3 minutes of the closed door meeting was recorded.

No one noticed that the recorder stopped, Burkey said.

Sounds like a violation of the Open Meetings Act recording requirement to me.

And, the paper reports, the open meeting wasn’t recorded either.

Here’s what was in the article:

“The DVD recorders recorded only half an hour of the open session because board Secretary Kim Skaja pressed the record button twice, causing the recorders to stop after 30 minutes, Burkey said.”

Skaja, of course, is a member of the board majority, not an employee acting as recording secretary.

Notice that this tape gate is not like the one in the Richard Nixon Administration. No one is accusing anyone of erasing anything.


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