Pictured are East Cleveland School Board President Una H.R. Kennon (in red sweater) and Sheba Marcus-Bey (in green sweater), whom the East Cleveland Public Library Board of Trustees fired as executive director last week. The library board members are appointed by the school board and Kennon told Cleveland Urban News.Com that a school board meeting is scheduled for Jan. 7 at 6 pm to consider the removal of two of the library board members.
By Kathy Wray Coleman, Publisher, Editor-n-Chief,
Cleveland Urban News. Com and The Cleveland Urban News.Com Blog,
Ohio's Most Read Online Black Newspaper and Newspaper Blog
Kathy Wray Coleman is a community activist and 20 year investigative journalist who trained for 17 years at the Call and Post Newspaper, Ohio's Black press with print newspapers in Cleveland, Cincinnati and Columbus, Ohio. (www.clevelandurbannews.com) and
(www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com).
EAST CLEVELAND, Ohio -The East Cleveland Board of Education, led by board president Una H.R. Kennon, a former East Cleveland judge who also leads the Black Women's Political Action Committee of Greater Cleveland, will meet tomorrow, Jan. 7, at 6 pm at Prospect Elementary School in East Cleveland for a special school board meeting to vote on whether to remove two of the members of the board of trustees of the East Cleveland Public Library. The anticipated removal of the library board members at issue is for alleged cause Kennon said, including alleged dereliction duty and possible violations of library board policies.
"The meeting is to determine whether two board members violated board policies and should otherwise be removed for cause," Kennon told Cleveland Urban New.Com Monday afternoon.
The East Cleveland Board of Education appoints the library board, the current members of whom are all Black
The public policy making position pays nothing, but its members can attend out-of-town conferences on the taxpayer's dime, and the four men members in particular regularly take that option for the library, public records show.
Keenon would not elaborate or give the names of the two library board members on the hot seat, though reliable sources told Cleveland Urban News.Com that the two board members slated for ouster are President William Fambrough, and Devin Branch, a community activist.
The East Cleveland library board, in a split four to three vote divided along gender lines, and led by Fambrough with Branches' support, voted at a special meeting last Monday to fire executive director Sheba Marcus-Bey, who is Black, from her $105,000 a year job just seven months into her tenure there.
Vice President Charles E. Bibb Sr., whose term on the library board ends later this year, and Edward Parker, a local artist who also teaches art classes at Cuyahoga County Community College, rounded out the majority vote for the termination action.
Library board members Dr. Mary Rice, Leontine Synor and Terra Turner, all women, voted against the firing.
Branch allegedly called the police on the women that attended the meeting Monday night in support of Marcus-Bey, many of them there in full force from the Black Women's Pac.
The three female library board members have said the firing of Marcus-Bey, which occurred without a complaint, information, hearing or just cause, is likely illegal, and Synor said last week that she has filed a complaint in the matter seeking an opinion by Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine and that Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty, whose office represents the library board in legal matters under state law, has been consulted for an assessment of whether the termination is legal.
The Ohio Sunshine Law, which requires that the media be notified at least 24 hours before a special board meeting of both the library board and the East Cleveland Board of Education, and in general relative to special meetings called by other Ohio public bodies, was purportedly not followed with respect to the meeting Monday that resulted in Marcus-Bey's ouster.
Marcus-Bey worked for the Cleveland Public Library for 13 years before getting hired in East Cleveland and has been replaced with interim executive director Monisa Ramseur.
Fambrough has had trouble with other women professionals that worked for the library, a Cleveland Urban News.Com investigation reveals. Two of them, a former executive director and library finance administrator, filed for protective orders in the common pleas court. Those cases are on pending after a state appellate court reinstated them last month following a trial court dismissal of the two complaints in 2012
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