Editorial

By Jon A. Brake

Where is Riley County Attorney Bill Kennedy? Has anyone seen him?

In May Kennedy appeared before the Riley County Commission demanding $30,000 so he could investigate high crimes. It was big, and involved the Commissioners friends and relatives. Later it turned out to be an Open Meetings violation by the Manhattan - Ogden School Board.

School Board members were appointed to Special Budget Committees by then Superintendent Tom Hawk. At several of those meetings the committees would meet and then return and report on what they had discussed. All Board Members were present.

It was a meetings violation because it was "prearranged" where three or more of the Board Members attended and was not open to the public.

Kennedy hounded the Board until he received a letter from Superintend Hawk that told all. Basically the letter said, "We didn’t do it, and we will never do it again."

Kennedy dropped the investigation, didn’t need the $30,000 and everything was fine. And everything stayed fine for, oh, I don’t know, a month and a half or two months.

On June 28th three Board Members attended another meeting that was not open to the public. Kennedy knew about the meeting and apparently did nothing.

Well maybe he did do something. The letter from Hawk was not released by Kennedy or Hawk until a schoolteacher stood at a Board Meeting and wanted to know why it had not been released.

It could be that all the Board Members have been arrested and are serving time in the new Riley County Slammer. No, too many people saw the Board Meeting Wednesday night on TV.

It could be that Kennedy took the Board Members before a judge and he fined them $3 million apiece. No, if they did that the School District would want to pay the fine and we all know they have financial difficulties.

Unless a teacher stands up and tells us, we may never know.