{"id":1,"date":"2017-07-19T02:53:50","date_gmt":"2017-07-18T23:53:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/?p=1"},"modified":"2017-07-22T23:33:05","modified_gmt":"2017-07-22T20:33:05","slug":"%d8%a3%d9%87%d9%84%d8%a7-%d8%a8%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%b9%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%85","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/%d8%a3%d9%87%d9%84%d8%a7-%d8%a8%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%b9%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%85\/","title":{"rendered":"Dearborn Public Schools Board Member Sues District Over New Appointment"},"content":{"rendered":"

By:\u00a0Eli Newman
\nThe Yemeni American News<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Dearborn Public Schools is facing a lawsuit from one of its own trustees over the appointment of the district\u2019s newest board member. Trustee Hussein Berry is suing the district over the appointment of Celia Nasser to the board, claiming his refusal to vote for Nasser should not have counted as an abstention. Dearborn Public Schools counted Berry\u2019s non-vote towards the majority that gave Nasser the four votes needed for the seat. \u201cI did not have a choice. I did not want to do this,\u201d Berry said during a Board of Education meeting last month. \u201cThree out of six is not a majority vote.\u201d Berry said the issue at the heart of the lawsuit is with process, not with Nasser or any of the other candidates. He also claimed there were violations of Michigan\u2019s Open Meetings Act in regards to the appointment process.
\nThe dispute stems from the result of a special meeting last month to fill the vacant seat of Board Trustee Mariam Bazzi. Bazzi left her position in May to accept a judicial appointment in the Wayne County Circuit Court. Wadeeah Alshawi, Roxanne McDonald, Adel Mozip, Celia Nasser, Alex Shami, Zeinab Sobh and Irene Watts entered as the seven candidates to fill the vacancy. \u201cMs. McDonald and Mr. Shami have both served on the Board, McDonald from 2012 through 2016 and Shami from 1995 to 2002,\u201d Dearborn Public Schools said during the special meetings announcement. \u201cAdel Mozip is no stranger to the Dearborn Public Schools serving on the District\u2019s Strategic Plan Committee and having previously run for a seat on the Board.\u201d Bazzi\u2019s vacancy left the school board 30 days to fill the position.
\nDuring the month of June, Dearborn Public Schools Board of Education held various public meetings to interview the candidates with input from various community members. In the first special board meeting, Berry moved to bring the appointment process directly to the Wayne County Regional Educational Service Agency. Wayne RESA has the ability to appoint board members, though that would occur when a majority vote fails to pass the Dearborn Public Schools Board of Education. Though Berry offered no reason for the motion and his subsequent withdrawal of the measure, he had been critical of board procedures relating to the appointment of a new member, insinuating plans were set in motion to fill the vacancy even before interviews were held.
\nOn June 12th, the Dearborn Public Schools Board of Education held a vote to fill the position. Nasser earned three votes from Trustees Fadwa Hammoud, Michael Meade and President Mary Lane, while McDonald earned two votes from Trustees Jim Thorpe and Mary Petlichkof. Berry did not participate in the vote. Because no clear majority had been met, the board carried on their official conversation on filling the vacancy as if a final decision on the matter had not been made and were making plans to resume the conversation in the future. However, Nasser was sworn in as the board\u2019s newest member the following week. According to the Press & Guide, board attorney Timothy Currier said any abstention counts towards the majority vote.
\nMany community members responded to Nasser\u2019s appointment negatively. In a YouTube video titled \u201cDearborn School Board Meeting June 19th Open Comments Part 1\u201d by Hassen Berry, many resident spoke about not having their voices heard by the board. \u201cI can\u2019t believe it went down like this,\u201d one commenter said. \u201cEverybody in this room supported somebody else. To stand up and make this decision with no integrity is embarrassing.\u201d Many of the public commenters put forward support for Mozip, who earned more than 11,000 votes in the 2016 board election, a runner-up spot following Berry and Hammoud.
\nStill, others have seen Berry\u2019s non-vote and following lawsuit as a hindrance to the district and the Dearborn community. The Arab American News Editorial Board compared Berry to President Donald Trump. \u201cBerry decided it was in his best interest not to vote during the process of filling the vacant board seat. He has stated on multiple occasions that the process was tainted, but has yet to state anything concrete to substantiate his accusation,\u201d the Arab American News wrote. \u201cThis is a classic Trump move. Throw out accusations but never back them up with evidence or proof.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By:\u00a0Eli Newman The Yemeni American News","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":143,"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions\/143"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}