After Lea Grover told of her background and a bit about her previous interaction with Charlie Kirk, eleven people spoke during the Public Comment period.
(I gave a hand-written FOIA request for Grover’s statement the night of the meeting, but District 47 is slow-walking producing the document, which I was told would be posted the next day.)
Unlike the Crystal Lake Park District, whose President Fred Tiesenga allows anyone who wants to speak do so with a three-minute limit, but no limit on total Public Comment, whether or not they have signed up ahead of time, the District 47 Board allows audience members forty-five minutes with a maximum of five minutes each.
Board President Debra Barton divided forty-five minutes by eleven, giving each speaker four minutes and some seconds to speak.
First up was Michelle O’Connell.
She said she was “extremely concerned” about Grover’s Facebook postings, “that she frequently uses to insult, slander and vilify people with political views different from her own.”
She criticized Grover for posts “mocking” Charlie Kirk’s murder.
“Her behavior is unprofessional, immoral and violates the Code of Conduct for Members o School Boards,” O’Connell added, pointing out Grover’s personal, but public Facebook page “is a stream of targeting people with different politics that her with all sorts of insults and accusations and lies.”
As an example O’Connell cited people didn’t care about children just because “they differ with her politically.”
“Her mocking and shrugging off a public and brutal assassination follows the same trend.”
Grover was accused of making “vitriolic comments and accusations” about many people she is supposed to represent.
Specifics included
- accusing people of wanting to hurt others
- being indifferent to sex crimes including against children
- having no morality. ethics or integrity
Quoting directly: “To everyone left in the MAGA cult, you disgust me. Every week you find more ways to disgust me.”
Grover contended such people were worse than a sickness, a condemnation of your soul.
“This is very divisive, vilifying and dehumanizing language” O’Connell asserted.
“She is an embarrassment to those who might be even slightly aligned with her.
“How can a woman like this represent our district and make decisions that affect our children?”
O’Connell then asked, “How do we know her extreme biases won’t affect her decision in choosing a new superintendent?
“How could her politics not cloud judgment when she sees supporters of the sitting U.S. President as worse than a sickness and condemned?
“When she mocks a murder?”
And, after posting this online she “shows no remorse, and continues to double down.”
O’Connell then pointed out she believed that Grover had violated the Code of Conduct for School Board members.
Besides not having met those standards, her “first response to the first political assassination this country has seen in almost sixty years is to mock it.
“How can the public have confidence in a school board with her on it?”
O’Connell called for Grover’s censure.
