The Left's Recall Petition Against Anna Hendricks
Anna Hendricks is the current Allendale Public School (APS) Board Vice President. She has been on the Board since 2020. Former Board members Jeanine Gasper and Aaron Haight seek to remove her through the recall petition process. To avoid name confusion, Hendricks is not Andrea Hendrick who sits on the Grand Haven BLP.
The recall process involves filing a petition for removal which is followed by a hearing. If the petition is accepted, a signature campaign period follows, and if enough signatures are collected, there is a special election. Hendricks has been the target of recall since May 5, 2023. Two petitions were rejected at recall hearings and now a third hearing is scheduled for July 10, 2023.
Hendricks is not a member of Ottawa Impact, having been elected to the board before the creation of Ottawa Impact. However, Hendricks voted with two Ottawa Impact vetted Board members, Cory Mango and Liz Ramey on January 9, 2023, to hire the Kallman Legal Group as the APS primary counsel and withdraw the APS from the Michigan Association of School Boards (MASB).
The Ottawa Impact members of the Ottawa County Board of Commissioners likewise voted to retain the Kallman Legal Group as county corporate counsel. The Kallman Legal Group is known as a conservative law firm. The MASB is connected to the National School Board Association. The NSBA is known for its letter to Joe Biden asking him to label parents protesting CRT and mask mandates at school board meetings as domestic terrorists.
The local left has been treating Ottawa Impact and the Kallman Legal Group like piñatas, and apparently, in the case of Hendricks, anyone who votes with them.
The People Behind the Recall Petitions
Leading the attack is former Board Trustee Jeanine Gasper, (appointed for a short time to fill a vacancy after her failed Board run in 2016) who has filed three recall petitions, and former Vice President Aaron Haight, who has been collecting FOIA documents in support of those petitions. Gasper has been using the FOIA information to craft the narrative that Hendricks violated the Open Meetings Act and wrongly voted "no" to postpone the vote to hire Kallman and terminate the MASB.
The Recall Petitions
The primary allegation in the petitions is that Hendricks violated the Open Meetings Act. The OMA, MCL 15.263(2) states: “All decisions of a public body must be made at a meeting open to the public.” There are seven APS Board members, making four a quorum. If four board members meet or have group conversations through text or email, it is a violation of the OMA.
The petitions further express dissatisfaction with Hendricks’ votes. She voted “yes” to hire the Kallman Legal Group and to replace the MASB with the National School Board Leadership Counsel (NSBLC) and “no” to postpone those votes.
Perhaps these petitions are simply to punish Mrs. Hendricks for her votes? In her letter to the elections committee in support of her second petition, Gasper assails the NSBLC based on the allegation of the far-left Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) that it is a hate group. To cite the SPLC as an authoritative source reflects a left-wing ideology.
The First Petition
The first petition was stamped received by the County Clerk on May 5, 2023. At the clarity and factual hearing, it was rejected by the County elections committee for lack of clarity.
The petition stated: “On 1/9/2023 Anna Hendricks lied during a school board meeting stating that she had the same amount of time, 24 hours, as all other board members to review a motion to change legal counsel. As early as 11/21/22 and through at least 1/7/2023, Anna Hendricks engaged in private conversations with two new and one current APS board member regarding the change in legal counsel. This directly violates the Michigan Open Meetings Act which requires the Board meet in public when four or more members are present and/or if discussing matters that could lead to a decision.”
The two new members were Mango and Ramey. The one current APS member is purely conjecture.
It's easy to see why this failed for lack of clarity since it is rather confusing as to the what, when, where, and how of the situation. As a factual matter, the petition falsely claims the existence of a quorum, and conflates review of the contract, which was received by all members at the same time, with the alleged motion in limbo.
The Second Petition
The denied first petition was quickly followed up by a second petition that was later denied for factual deficiency.
The second petition states: “Anna Hendricks has displayed a pattern of acting outside of the best interests for Allendale Public Schools (APS) and its stakeholders. She has shown this by participating in a group text thread with 3 other APS board members where on December 26, 2022 she shared the following proposed actions: replacing the district's legal counsel with Kallman Legal Group and terminating the district's relationship with the Michigan Association of School Boards. These actions were proposed publicly at a January 9, 2023 APS Board of Education (BOE) meeting where Ms. Hendricks voted against giving 3 remaining APS BOE members more than one day to review the proposed actions. Further, she has failed to acknowledge the electronic quorum the group text tread established.”
At the June 20, 2023 clarity and factual hearing the three members of the elections committee ruled that the first sentence invalidated the second petition because it states an opinion. Two of the members of the committee expressed that the last sentence of the petition likewise struck them as an opinion. Rather than simply approve or deny the petition, the committee guided Gasper on how to fix the petition by removing the first and last sentences, which is reflected in the third petition, discussed below.
The Texts
Gasper appears to have cobbled together a series of text messages, referenced in the petitions, to amalgamate them into an ongoing text group to create a quorum. Again, there are seven board members, four are required to create a quorum. There were three FOIA documents disclosing the following series of texts: 11-21-22 to 12-11-22, 12-9-22 to 1-7-23, 1-6-23, and 1-8-23. The FOIA documents also disclosed an email exchanged on 1-12-23. Although taken as a whole, the documents show messages involving multiple board members, there was never a quorum.
Fox 17 was reported on January 16, 2023 “Text messages suggest Allendale Public Schools board chose legal group ahead of time.” The article highlighted the series of text messages exchanged 11-21-22 to 12-11-22, 1-6-23, and 1-8-23 and says that it shared the texts with WMU Cooley Law School professor emeritus, Gerald Fisher, who “said he did not see any legal issues.”
Fisher stated: “Based upon the summary that I read and as supplemented by the good information that you provided to me, it does not sound to me as though we had a violation of the Open Meetings Act here… Number one, it doesn't sound like we know for sure that there were four or more engaged in it, …. And number two, some of these people in any event have not been sworn in yet. If they're not sworn in, then they're really not public officials yet.”
The Third Petition
There is now a third petition scheduled for a clarity and factual hearing on July 10, 2023. Following the lead of the elections committee at the last hearing, this petition removed the first and last sentences of the second petition. The third petition states:
“On December 8, 2022, Anna Hendricks shared language in a group text chat with other Allendale Public School (APS) Board of Education (BOE) members regarding a motion to dismiss Thrun Law Firm and hire Kallman Legal Group. On January 7, 2023, Ms. Hendricks was provided a contract from Kallman. Three remaining APS BOE members were notified of this motion and the contract on January 8, 2023. Ms. Hendricks voted against giving the three remaining APS BOE members more than one day to review the motion and the contract provided by Kallman.”
As a matter of clarity, this petition shares the same problem as the first, what exactly is the point the petitioner is making? It is another unspecific rehash that Hendricks talked with unnumbered unnamed board members about a motion to hire Kallman, received the Kallman contract a day before three unnamed members, the three unnamed members were informed by unnamed person(s) of the motion and the contract a day later, and then Hendricks made an unspecified vote at an unspecified venue against the unnamed three members.
Then, again, much ado is also made of Hendricks voting not to postpone the Kallman vote. In fact, the vote was not “against the three remaining APS BOE members more than one day to review the motion and the contract provided by Kallman.” This is simply Gasper's attempt to vilify Hendricks.
Factually, at the January 9, 2023 board meeting alluded to above, the actual motion was “Amendment 2: Motion by Cannata, seconded by Thurkettle, to postpone the decision [to utilize Kallman] until the next regular board meeting.” The motion failed 4-3. Cannata, DeJong, and Thurkettle voted yes, Hendricks, Holstege, Mango, and Ramey voted no.
Hopefully, when the elections committee reviews Gasper's third petition, it will recognize that it has the authority to make a determination of truth. Otherwise, Mrs. Hendricks will have her reputation besmirched and the potential signer will most likely accept the petition statements at face value, misleading them. If nothing else, it should be rejected for lack of clarity.
This appears to be just another rabid and baseless attack against Ottawa Impact and anyone who dares to associate with them. Another example of the left's politics of intolerance and personal destruction.