State Commissioner of Education John King has dismissed former Mineola Board of Education Trustee Irene Parrino’s appeal for the removal of former Mineola school board Vice President Terence Hale and declined to issue a ruling on her complaints of misconduct against Hale in light of his July 2 resignation.
“The appeal must be dismissed as moot,” King wrote in a decision issued Sept. 5. “The Commissioner will only decide matters in actual controversy and will not render a decision on a state of facts which no longer exist or which subsequent events have laid to rest.”
King wrote that since a copy of Hale’s resignation letter was included in the Mineola Board of Education’s response from Harris Beach, outside counsel retained by the board, Parrino’s application to remove him from the board is “moot.”
King also said that although Parrino named the school board as a respondent in the proceeding, he said her application did not specify claims or seek relief from the board.
“It came out exactly as we said it would come out and we wasted money to prove our point unfortunately,” said Artie Barnett, president of the Mineola school board. “It wasn’t necessary. I don’t know the point of all this was. I want for this to all be behind us.”
He declined to say how much the board had spent in legal fees on the case.
Hale sent a series of e-mails to fellow board members in April characterized by sarcasm, locker room humor and off-color comments aimed towards Parrino, Mineola Teachers Association President Teresa Hefner, and the Williston Times. His off-color comments included references to an incident in which one student saved another student from choking in the Jackson Avenue School cafeteria.
Parrino said she filed the complaint against Hale the day after she lost her board seat to educator Patricia Navarra in the May 21 school district election.
The board retained legal counsel to respond to Parrino’s charges against Hale after Barnett asked her to withdraw the charges at a June board meeting after Hale had announced his intention to resign. At the time, she told reporters she was pursuing the case because she wanted to make sure Hale would not “unresign.”
In an amended filing with the state education commissioner, King noted Parrino acknowledged Hale’s announced intentions to resign as of July 2, but said her petition “will never be moot” because of Hale’s possible unofficial participation in board meetings and the prospect of his seeking re-election to the board in the future.
King wrote that Parrino had submitted an “instant appeal” on May 28 and a letter dated June 3 requesting her first petition be withdrawn. Because of material differences between the two petitions, King wrote that he was considering the first petition as an exhibit in support of Parrino’s second, amended petition.
Parrino said her amended petition included additional information about procedure related to her serving papers on the board objecting to Hale’s behavior.
“I would have liked the commissioner to make a decision based on the facts,” Parrino said. “He obviously disagreed and said it was moot.”
Mineola school board Vice President Christine Napolitano declined to comment on the state education commissioner’s ruling beyond saying, “I think the decision stands on its own.”
Efforts to reach Hale for comment were unavailing.
