February 7, 2022
The Eddyville-Blakesburg-Fremont Community School District Board of Directors met at the district
office on Monday, February 7, 2022 for a special board meeting. Visitors in attendance: John VanZante
and others not signed in.
Regular Board Meeting: Call to Order - Establish Quorum: President Brinegar called the special board
meeting to order at 6:00 p.m. Van Mersbergen called Point of Order, saying that the meeting was an illegal
meeting as board policy was not followed in calling the special meeting. President Brinegar denied the
point of order. Board policy 2.8: Meetings of the Board of Directors Letter E. states: Special meetings
may be called by the President, or by the Secretary upon request of a majority of the members of
the Board. Public notice will be given of special meetings. Superintendent Williamson explained
to the board that if the president does not call a special meeting, then a quorum of 4 board members
could request that the secretary call a special meeting.
Roll call: Eric Klyn, present; Rena Shepherd, absent; Lara Vandello, present; Micah Van Mersbergen,
present; Curt Houk, present; Mark Haselhuhn, present via phone call; and Doug Brinegar, present.
Quorum established.
Personnel: Van Mersbergen called Point of Order on the hires stating that special meeting was called to
act on a single resignation and hires should not be added. Hires were stricken from the agenda. Van
Mersbergen called Point of Order stating that only the resignation received on February 3, 2022 should be
acted on. Second resignation was stricken from agenda. Houk motioned and Haselhuhn seconded to
accept the resignation from Joe Overton. Vandello stated she understood that board members are not
privy to information regarding an employee investigation, but was there not a power outage on January
21st for the whole town of Eddyville and did this have an effect on the smoothwall and could this be
relevant to the investigation. Superintendent Williamson stated that this only effected the student’s
smoothwall as they have different rights vs staff. Van Mersbergen called Point of Order and asked the
board to suspend the rules and allow any visitors attending to address the board. President Brinegar
denied the point of order, stating only one motion can be acted on at a time. Motion carried to accept the
resignation of Joe Overton with a vote of 4 ayes and 2 nays. Van Mersbergen motioned and Vandello
seconded to suspend the rules to allow visitors to address the board. 2/3rds vote is required to allow the
suspension of rules. Motion did not pass with a vote of 3 ayes and 3 nays. Since the motion did not pass,
Superintendent Williamson told the visitors that any that would like to discuss this can call and schedule a
meeting with him. Vandello requested to read a letter to the board and read it to everyone. Van
Mersbergen then stated that he didn’t know what happened, but did not think the situation was handled
properly. Parents had not been notified and so 12 to 15 students showed up for a zero-hour class with no
supervision. Parents should have been notified he felt.
Adjourn: Klyn motioned and Vandello seconded to adjourn board meeting. Motion carried
unanimously. Meeting adjourned at 6:13 p.m.
