Court Papers Served on WASD Board Member Daywalt
WAYNESBORO Waynesboro Area School District board member Rita Daywalt was served Monday morning with court papers challenging her right to remain on the school board while living in Michigan.
A new hearing has been set for Oct. 19 before Judge Shawn Meyers.
Daywalt said she was served by a process server at about 7:15 a.m. Monday while she was at her son's school bus stop at her Michigan home.
She said she was not pleased with the way the documents were served, accusing the process server of "creeping around my house after dark" while she was on vacation, looking in the windows of her Michigan home, "staking out my house" and then choosing a public place like a bus stop to serve the papers.
"The whole thing is extremely upsetting to me," she said. "I know it is legal to do that but it doesn't make it right."
She defended her decision to stay on the board after she moved to Michigan the summer of 2014, saying that since she doesn't get paid as a board member she considers it a volunteer position.
"Basically the district attorney is asking me to come to court to defend my right to volunteer in my community," she said.
In his "quo warranto" civil action in Franklin County Court, Assistant District Attorney Zachary Mills argues that when Daywalt left Pennsylvania in August 2014 and moved to Redford, Michigan, she forfeited her right to hold the school board office to which she was elected in 2011.
He quotes state law which reads "Whenever, by the requirements of any law, a particular residence is a necessary qualification for the election or appointment of any officer, a removal from such residence shall operate as a forfeiture of the office."
Daywalt said in a telephone interview Monday night that she considers a Prices Church Road property still jointly owned with her estranged husband to be her official residence.
At least one other board member disagrees with Daywalt's assessment of her right to remain on the board and attend meetings by video conference.
Sherry Cline said she has expressed concern about the situation in the past.
"I do not support Ms. Daywalt," she said. "It speaks poorly of her integrity and she should step down."
Cline said the school board's solicitor refused to give the board any guidance on the issue until after the district attorney's office opened the case. He then told board members "to keep quiet," she said.
"I expressed my disappointment in him," she said.
The only other WASD board member to respond to a request on Tuesday for comment on the Daywalt issue was Firmadge Crutchfield, who said that as a sitting member of the board, he would rather withhold comment while the issue was working its way through the judicial system.
Board President Chris Lind did not return a request for comment, but had previously said in an email complaint about an editorial about the case that the board's hands were tied.
"We cannot simply dismiss a director who is timely serving in their seat just because one (person) complains, even if we wanted to," he said at that time.
He also said in that email that it is now up to the court to decide on Daywalt's eligibility to serve on the board.
Daywalt took District Attorney Matt Fogal to task in her telephone interview Monday.
"Part of his job on these obscure laws is (to use) good judgement," she said.
Fogal was out of town serving on Pope Francis' security detail and not available for comment. Mills was in court and had not returned a call about the case late Tuesday afternoon.
Daywalt said Fogal made the decision to pursue the case on the basis of a complaint by former school board member Pat Heefner, whom she defeated in the 2011 election, instead of "weighing in" on the opinions of the Waynesboro community as a whole.
Heefner acknowledges that she was defeated by Daywalt in 2011 but denies that was a factor in taking the case to the district attorney's office. Instead, she said she was told by Lind that it was the proper venue to address the situation.
"If Ms. Daywalt had not suddenly pulled up stakes and returned to live in Michigan, there would have been no issue," she said.
Daywalt said her constituents haven't complained about her not living in her district for the past year. She said that so far she has received 57 emails supporting her decision and two objecting to it.
She keeps up on issues and communicates with constituents through social media and email, she said.
"The only difference is that now I'm not running into my constituents during lunch at the Parlor House (a popular Waynesboro restaurant)," she said.
She called the court case "a waste of money and resources" by the DA's office.
Asked if she thought avoiding service drove up those costs, she denied that she was responsible in any way for that.
"Quite frankly, it is the DA's responsibility to serve me by whatever means necessary," she said. "Obviously paying for this was his decision."
She also took Fogal to task for even considering taking on the case in view of the fact that her term in office is nearing its end.
"The DA's office has much more critical criminal cases to focus on than this, especially since by the time this goes to court, there will only be one more school board meeting left," she said.
According to the WASD calendar on its web site, there will be four more meetings this year following the Oct. 19 court hearing: Oct. 27 and November 10, a Dec. 1 reorganizational meeting and a final meeting, with a new board, on Dec. 8.