David Dyer’s Quid Pro Quo?
Mr. Dyer forfeited his duty to defend the District’s legal position in a federal case to play dirty politics.
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Just call your new school board member, David Dyer, “King Barefoot the Second.” In order to get what he wants, he will bully other board members. Mr. Dyer does as his predecessor did and then goes to the palace scribe, Ray McNulty, to launch attacks and defamations in the scrolls of 32963 - Vero News.
It is a well-known strategy. Back in February, during the fight for Brian Barefoot’s call to rescind his resignation, the DeSantis team already had a pile of data. With a stack of Vero News, they simply assessed he is a political animal and fights through the media. Mr. McNulty covered for Mr. Barefoot in the My Take column. For example, he promoted the false story of Barefoot’s resignation because he thought he moved out of his district. On behalf of Mr. Barefoot, he crafted direct confrontations with board member, Jacqueline Rosario.
Sixteen days into his term, Mr. Dyer fully deployed the John’s Island political machine with a vengeance. However, Mr. Dyer’s plea, in Mr. McNulty’s December 5th My Take column, to remove Ms. Rosario from the IRC-NAACP Workgroup is destroying any hope for ending the lawsuit against the District. He has maligned the Defendant, your School District, and its school board where he is a member. Mr. Dyer should be rightfully defending the District’s position and its Workgroup team. The Workgroup process may be irrevocably damaged from the imperious behavior of Mr. Dyer.
By all observable legal metrics and in the spirit and intent of desegregation, the school system is fully integrated. Since March of this year, Dr. Moore has repeatedly said the district is fully compliant and deserves to be acknowledged for unitary status. Anyone, with basic understanding of the case, can easily back up the claims of the teams’s leader, the newly crowned Superintendent of the Year.
But, Mr. Dyer is not really trying to help the district achieve unitary status and end the lawsuit. Through his irrational position about ‘losing his right to vote’ (as board-elect he had no rights) against Ms. Rosario, he has undermined the School District’s position in the 60 year-old case. He is openly siding with the Plaintiff, a political organization, that has overtly rejected the preponderance of evidence supplied by the District. In March, NAACP president, Tony Brown, dismissively demanded to “not keep throwing in my face” the court ordered 2018 Joint Action Plan.
A return of political favors
Mr. Dyer’s campaign was to end culture wars and focus on the kids. He has done just the opposite. Matter of fact, he could not execute this particular culture war assault without Teri Barenborg and Peggy Jones nodding in approval.
Mr. Dyer’s favoritism makes sense only in politics. Mr. Brown was one of his most ardent supporters, and even attended his victory party with Dr. Jones also present. Is Mr. Dyer’s attack on Ms. Rosario a political quid pro quo to the president of the NAACP?
Mr. Brown cannot manipulate Jacqueline Rosario. She holds people accountable to the process. On her appointment to the IRC-NAACP Workgroup, Mr. Brown told Mr. McNulty in the May 6th Vero News, “We expect she’s coming in to be divisive and disruptive.”
Mr. Brown was not giving Ms. Rosario any deference. After 7 straight months of cancelled mandatory meetings, Mr. Brown’s team finally agreed to meet by video conference on October 14th and 28th. Are they afraid to meet her in person? The October 28th meeting is referenced in Mr. McNulty’s latest writing. In her effort to bring clarity to the discussion, Ms. Rosario read Mr. Brown the rules of the court ordered agreement. Mr. Brown would not stand for it.
Mr. McNulty never attempted to reach Ms. Rosario for this column to defend against his accusations or presumptions. That would go against palace rules. Had he asked, he would have known that the NAACP spent the summer cancelling court-ordered monthly meetings.
In the October 28th meeting, NAACP member, Merchon Green, who was defeated for school board by Ms. Rosario in 2018, informed the District in addressing their attorney, “don’t worry … you have until November 19th and Rosario will be off the group…”
Who made that promise of Ms. Rosario’s removal to Ms. Green?
Mr. Dyer sent a September email revealing his future voting intentions with a threat of legal action. Members of the NAACP were piling on in October, rejecting the rules set forth in their agreement. If anything, the avoidance of Ms. Rosario and the vicious grandstanding has shown that the NAACP doesn’t have much of an argument to continue the desegregation order. However, they continue the costly lawsuit because their lawyers work pro-bono (for free). Meanwhile, this charade is costing taxpayers an average $105,000 or more every year.
The writer’s false and unverified accusations of racism
Mr. McNulty has already attacked Ms. Rosario, the only minority on the board, accusing her twice this year of racist sentiments toward the people of Gifford. His claims are based on no actual evidence. After she was appointed to the Workgroup, in his May 6th column he wrote, “It was McDonald’s vote that provided the 3-2 majority needed to replace Jones with Moms puppet Jackie Rosario, who has proven to be no friend to our Black community.”
In his most recent column, he writes again without evidence, “And as far as working with the NAACP: Rosario’s electoral district includes Gifford – the largest Black community in the county – but her positions on race-related issues are 180-degrees opposed to those constituents, leaving it to other board members to give them a voice.”
What positions? Mr. McNulty’s conjectures are part of a pattern of bullying and defamation of Ms. Rosario’s character offered by the political machine.
In the primary of 2022, Ms. Rosario won precinct 18 which contains Gifford. Ms. Rosario split the precinct vote for the 2022 general election against Democrat, Cindy Gibbs. In 2018, she defeated NAACP member, Merchon Green, in Gifford by 16 points, 58% to 42%. Mr. McNulty is intentionally wrong. How does a person that is “proven to be no friend” in Gifford consistently receive strong and often majority support?
Ms. Rosario is more of a friend than Mr. McNulty. Statistically, the NAACP’s political views are the minority in Gifford.
Personality politics 1-0-1
On his first day Mr. Dyer proclaimed, “We should focus on the things that will make a difference in kids lives and keep the politics to the minimum that they can be.”
Then he did the opposite. His first action did nothing for the kids. It was completely political. At the board workshop, his first discussion item was to amend Resolution 2025 - 6 - SCHOOL BOARD MEMBER APPOINTMENT TO THE (IRC-NAACP) WORKGROUP passed by the board 2 months earlier. Mr. Dyer stirred Sunshine Law concerns when, in an email he sent as board-elect, he announced his vote prior to being seated on the dais. His intention of his amendment is to terminate Ms. Rosario’s term on the IRC-NAACP Workgroup 8 months early.
At the workshop, Ms. Rosario queried Mr. Dyer. She asked, “Where is this coming from because the board already took action on this and passed the resolution?”
Mr. Dyer reiterated a point from his email. He said, “You have taken away a vote that is very important to me in my first year on the school board, and I want to be able to vote.”
Ms. Rosario pressed the issue with Mr. Dyer. She shared many other votes the board had taken since he won election. One vote was the final budget hearing. Mr. Dyer campaigned on his knowledge of multi-billion dollar budgets. She followed with the question of whether or not the board had taken away those votes as well. Mr. Dyer responded, “I have no comment.”
Ms. Rosario responded, “It seems like you just want to discuss this item and that we took a vote away from you. But you were not a board member….”
“I am now,” snapped Mr. Dyer.
The chair reprimanded Mr. Dyer for speaking out of turn. Ms. Rosario added, “You weren’t a board member when we voted on this … So, nobody took a vote from you. You are taking this very personal.”
She asked a second time why he was making this proposal. He replied, “No further comment.”
Next, Dr. Gene Posca laid out the scenario to Mr. Dyer based on comments noting that Mr. Dyer had written that September email expressing that he would take ‘legal action’ to get his right to vote. Mr. Dyer kept interrupting Dr. Posca’s speaking time to deny he threatened legal action.
Dr. Posca responded, “You sent an email and threatened everybody with legal motions if you did not have the ability to vote on something that you clearly had no standing to even be apart of. What I am saying here today is ‘that was delusional.’ And to go out on a limb of your delusions and to make threats of a lawsuit to start your career here on this board is disgraceful.”
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Ms. Rosario returned with follow-up asking if Mr. Dyer believed in board unity. He would not directly answer. She commented, “In your speech earlier today you said that you wanted to take politics out of the board and as the board functions, and that there is no place here for politics. Yet, the only thing you find to be important enough to add to the agenda is an item that was ‘taken from you’ which you had no legal right to, and you had no legal standing to vote on it. The only thing that is on that item that is clear, is me. As far as I’m concerned, that’s personality politics 1-0-1.”
Mr. Dyer started laughing nervously. In the tyrannical court of King Barefoot the Second, all of the ire is focused on Jackie Rosario.
In this school board discussion, Mr. Dyer was said have stated that he had a voter mandate. The school board elections were decided at the primary. Deciding elections at the time of a primary is terrible election law as it disenfranchises general election-only voters, a group that in presidential election years make up roughly 60% of the voters. Mr. Dyer’s so called mandate consists of his 57% of the primary vote multiplied by the 40% of the voters that bothered to vote in the primary, which results in his mandate being roughly 23% of those who voted in the 2024 election season. Some mandate! Elections should never be decided at the time of the primary.
Who keeps voting for these people? Do any of his supporters have children in our school district?