Beaufort Co. school board member: If deputy isn’t at meetings, I want to ‘bring my weapon’
Beaufort County Board of Education member Rachel Wisnefski told the board Monday night that if they decided to stop paying a sheriff’s deputy to be present at public meetings, she would seek permission to bring her own gun to meetings.
“I’m not planning on not coming home from one of these meetings,” said Wisnefski, noting that she has a concealed carry permit.
In 2017, the board contracted with the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office for $45 an hour to provide security at meetings just a few weeks after a verbal confrontation occurred between then-board chairwoman Mary Cordray and board member John Dowling, who at the time was a private citizen.
Current operations committee chairman David Striebinger said the security adds up to between $7,000 and $8,000 annually.
Though the previous board was seen as dysfunctional and the current board has since earned a reputation for its civility, discussion about security became contentious Monday night.
After Striebinger moved to end the contract with the sheriff’s office, Wisnefski said she was “vehemently opposed” to that and pointed out shootings that had occurred at a 2010 school board meeting in Panama City, Fla., and a 2008 city council meeting in Kirkwood, Mo.
“To say that we haven’t had a problem yet — every place that this has happened, they said the same thing,” board member Earl Campbell said. “I’m not concerned about board members; I’m concerned about somebody coming in from off the street. I can handle board members.”
Striebinger stressed that the operations committee’s recommendation to end the contract was not motivated by cost.
“The reasoning was twofold,” he said. “One is there’s a very limited amount of things that law enforcement can do at meetings, as we know. The other is we don’t like the image of having law enforcement at a board of education meeting.”
At the Sept. 11 committee meeting, Striebinger said the arrangement with the sheriff’s office began because a then-board member had concerns about her safety.
“That situation no longer is valid,” he said then.
Deputies can only step in if there’s a violation of law, something “County Council found out,” Striebinger pointed out.
The limitations of law enforcement played out at a County Council meeting in June. Council chairman Stu Rodman asked deputies to remove a citizen a minute into the man’s public comment at the beginning of a meeting. Deputies declined because to do so would have been a violation of free speech.
“If someone is out of order or if someone can’t get order in the chamber, they need to take a recess,” Sheriff P.J. Tanner told the Packet and Gazette at the time. “Our officers are there for security measures.”
STAND for Students member and frequent board meeting attendee Jodi Srutek used part of her public comment to address the issue, saying she was opposed to removing law enforcement.
“More than once, I have asked someone to escort me to my car after a meeting,” she said. “I know I’m not alone in that.”
When Dowling was removed from a school board work session in 2017, it was by the district’s then-chief auxiliary services officer Gregory McCord.
After the meeting ended, Dowling had confronted Cordray about her comments on a letter she sent to board member JoAnn Orischak last December that asked Orischak to cease and desist from “all actions which adversely affect the functions and operations of the District and the School Board,” he said.
According to previous reporting by the Packet and Gazette, Dowling told Cordray, among other things, to “shut up and listen” and told her that she was a “sick coward.” Cordray then called him a “stupid piece of doo-doo.”
“There has never been an incident during a meeting that required the involvement of a sheriff’s deputy,” Dowling said Monday.
While Cordray is no longer on the board, Wisnefski echoed her concerns Monday.
She later acknowledged that state law prohibited her from bringing a firearm to public meetings, and said she wanted other security options available if the deputy was removed — especially since no deputy was present at Monday’s meeting.
The board voted to continue its contract with the sheriff’s office.
“I’ll state it on the record, I don’t feel safe,” Wisnefski said. “So I think if all it takes is a board member saying she doesn’t feel safe, this discussion is moot.”
This story was originally published September 24, 2019 at 4:41 PM.