THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 18, 1996 TAG: 9608170013
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J4 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: 46 lines
A not-guilty verdict in the Virginia Beach School Board case this week should give all members of the tarnished 1994-1995 board a sense of grim vindication.
When the Virginia Beach jury exonerated Tim Jackson and Ferdinand Tolentino of charges that they committed malfeasance in office, it also - by implication - cleared the names of their colleagues who resigned from the board rather than face a costly trial.
We hope this is the final chapter in the sordid tale of the school-budget deficit. When the school district ended the fiscal year with a $12.1 million shortfall, a special grand jury was convened to investigate. It's scathing report, delivered last winter, savaged the conduct of school administrators and five School Board members.
The report urged that all concerned either resign or face malfeasance charges.
All of the board members complied, bar two. Their insistence that they were innocent appeared to infuriate Commonwealth's Attorney Bob Humphreys, who went to a regular grand jury to get malfeasance charges against the men - despite the fact that Tolentino's term would expire before the case came to trial.
When the two asked the School Board to cover their legal fees, Humphreys sought additional charges of conflict of interest against them.
They got their day in court - and what a satisfying victory it was for them. Without putting on any evidence of their own, the defendants were acquitted of the misdemeanor charges.
Their attorneys have asked a judge to dismiss the conflict-of-interest charges facing them and, to his credit, Humphreys has indicated that he is rethinking that prosecution.
The jury made a reasonable decision: It ruled that the School Board members committed no crime in relying on the misinformation supplied to them by their school administrators.
But the new School Board has promised that blindly following school officials is a thing of the past. Its members claim they will make full use of their internal auditor.
``There is a system of checks and balances in place to make certain this never happens again,'' says School Board Vice Chairman Delceno C. Miles.
May that be so. Virginia Beach can ill-afford another episode like this one. by CNB