We have been away on vacation and haven’t had the opportunity to review the last two meetings involving the Colonial School Board (policy and finance committee meetings). There is about four hours of audio to listen to. Not something you want to do on vacation.

However, one parent at the meetings posted a short video from the policy committee meeting. Colonial School Board member Adam Schupack really doesn’t think through his line of questioning, and by asking these questions, what it now requires of him.

At the podium is Joe Perpiglia of the Association of Builders and Contractors. Schupack asks Perpiglia about the association’s political lobbying and support for candidates and appointed officials at the state and national level. The Association of Builders and Contractors represents non-union and unions shops and isn’t against Responsible Contractor policies and ordinances in general, but is against very specific language about apprenticeship programs. The Colonial School Board is set to vote on approving a Responsible Contractor Policy on August 15th.

Schupack is very selective of who he asks about political donations and endorsements. State Senator Daylin Leach (D) came to a prior meeting to speak in favor of the Responsible Contractor Policy and Schupack did not ask him how much union money had been donated to his campaigns. Weird.

Several people who spoke during public comment at prior meetings identified themselves as belonging to various unions and Schupack did not ask about donations their unions made or candidates they endorsed. Weird.

Schupack also goes on the attack when you point out donations to his campaign. When MoreThanTheCurve.com posted about Building Colonial’s Future (the umbrella organization used by Schupack and other candidates for school board to accept donations), Schupack called MoreThanTheCurve.com an “out-of-town- blogger.”

So based on his line of questioning, Schupack believes that political donations and endorsements are relevant. So we now encourage Schupack to do the following before the School Board meeting on Thursday, August 16th:

• Go through each campaign finance form for Building Colonial’s Future and point out which donors have an interest in actions or potential actions by the Colonial School Board
• For those donors, either return their money or acknowledge you do not really care about the issue of political donations influencing the actions of elected officials
• Commit in writing that you will make a motion on August 16th to issue RFP’s for all appointed positions and that you will not vote for any responders who have donated to Building Colonial’s Future
• Commit in writing, that if you choose to run in the future, you will not accept donations from outside the district, nor above the amount of $50
• Commit in writing, that in any future election for school board, you will not cross-file as a Republican, since you feel endorsing that party’s candidates, supporting its appointed officials, etc., is something that needs to be pointed out in a non-political school board meeting

If Schupack is not willing to the above, he should do the following:

• For any speaker, as a presenter or during public comment, Schupack should ask them their political affiliation, which political candidates/appointed officials they support and any donations they have made to political candidates and political action committees

If you are going to do it for one, you got to do it for everybody.