BOARD OF ELECTIONS
The Spalding County Board of Elections held a meeting on March 18, 2014 to determine if District 1 School board Member Mike Kendall had completed his Continuing Educational requiems to qualify for the up coming elections.
At a request from the Board of Elections, the Spalding County School Board held a meeting Monday, March 17th and after a lengthy meeting ruled by a three / two vote that Mr Kendall had not complied with the School Board training requirement.At that meeting in response to the statute in question, Mr Kendall said, “My opinion from the outset I didn’t think, and I still don’t think, this law applies to me.
Tuesday March 18 at Nine AM the Board of Elections held a meeting at the Spalding County Office of Elections to determine if District One incumbent Michael Kendall has met the qualifying requirements to run for Spalding County School Board.
Attorney Jim Fortune was moderator of that Evidentiary Hearing. Mr Kendall asked that the hearing be postponed. He doesn’t know what year the School Board is questioning and he needs time to gather the associated data. He is not prepared to answer any questions about any particular year at this time.
Mr Fortune said, “ We will get into the meeting and if the Board feel this information is needed they can have a recess for Michael to get his information. “The threshold question is does the Statute apply to Mr Kendall. If the ruling is that it does not apply then the rest is mute anyway”.
Attorney Tim Shepard, representative from the School Board presented two documents to the Elections Board. One was the resolution the School Board adopted at their March 17th meeting. The other was a collection of data associated to the issue. Tim stated, “He was requested to prepare his opinion for the School Board. His opinion is not for the Elections Board.
Mr Kendall presented two documents to the Elections Board. One from Jeff Larier , Deputy Legislative Counsel. The other was from Wayne Allen of the Office of Legislative Counsel. According to these documents Mr Kendall said the Statute does not apply to him. It was put into law after he qualified to run for School Board in his first election.
After hearing from Tim Shepard, School Superintendent Curtis Jones, Michael Kendall, and questions from the board, Mr Fortune charged the Board. “Is Mr Kendall subject to the Statute? Does it applies to him in the present setting”? The Board voted four to one that it did NOT.
Mr Kendall is unopposed in his bid for re-election to the Board of Education District 1 Spalding County.
