As promised, now-former Broward County School Board Member Dave Thomas showed up at the school board meeting to say his goodbyes after his surprise resignation last week.
Then to his credit he took media questions, but a lot of them regarded the other board member who quit: Jennifer Gottlieb.
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She didn't show up. In her resignation letter Gottlieb said she wanted to spend more time with family. But unlike Thomas, Gottlieb has had a long track record at the board -- and one that is marked by controversy.
Gottlieb was tight with lobbyists Neil Sterling and Barbara Miller, whose clients made millions while the board went broke. She was slammed by the statewide grand jury for using her influence to get the $25 million Beachside Village Montessori school built in her city of Hollywood. Racy emails between herself and a school board banker were leaked. She was extremely close to former Supt. Jim Notter, who also recently resigned under duress.
"Rumors swirl," Thomas said of Gottlieb's ghostly departure. "I know there was lots of controversy that she was singled out during the grand jury report, Beachside Montessori and all that stuff. But that was before my time. I don't know what all the ins and all the outs were."
Who knows what is behind these resignations, but today when I saw Thomas address the board -- and the press -- he seemed sincere. He indicated that in addition to his wife's health scare -- which was certainly real -- he was finding the job a little much to take.
"The job of school board member, contrary to what people think, is a very time-consuming job," he said. "There's the reading, there's the research, there's going to all the meetings ... and I could not in good conscience do what I needed to do for my constituents to represent them properly and still be able to give time to my wife. So I had to make a choice."
When asked about Gottlieb he said her resignation came as a "shock" and that he didn't hear about it until I told him about it on Thursday during a call about his own resignation.
She'd already missed a couple meetings prior to the announcement.
"Were you surprised that Mrs. Gottlieb didn't show up today," I asked Thomas. "No I imagine that she is going to remain to herself."
"Why do you imagine that?"
"Because I imagine that she thought you were going to be here."
"You" in this case didn't just mean me, but the press in general. In other words, it's the school board version of a renter leaving a home in the middle of the night. And that's just not good enough.