Hylton Resigns from School Board
Embattled Pottstown School Board Member Thomas Hylton tearfully announces his resignation from the board.
POTTSTOWN, PA – In a stunning development, embattled Pottstown School Board member Thomas Hylton has resigned from the board, stating that he is tremendously sorry for all the problems and heartache he has caused in Pottstown during his 38 years in the borough. As part of his self-inflicted penance, Hylton yesterday met with Pottstown Borough Manger Jason Bobst and presented him with a check in the amount of $200,000. Even though Hylton only received close to $105,000 from the borough for his Trees, Inc. personal non-profit, he wanted to return the money and added an additional $95,000 for interest and emotional damages he caused to the good hard working folks of Pottstown. When asked what Hylton intended to do after his resignation, he stated that he was moving to Africa to build and operate a charter school for underprivileged orphans.
Happy April Fool’s Day Everybody!!!
We really had you going there for a while didn’t we?
But seriously folks…
Last night’s Pottstown School Board meeting was just as explosive as we thought it would be. Several Pottstown citizens called for the removal of board member Thomas Hylton in light of his 32-page self-funded paid advertising supplement which accompanied Wednesday’s Mercury and flies in the face of the year long hard work being done by the dedicated citizens serving on the President’s Task Force. The advertising supplement was assembled and even personally delivered by Hylton on Wednesday to several members of the task force, after School Board President Rick Huss specifically asked board members not to comment during task force meetings, citing that he does not want task force members unduly influenced by board member comments and personal opinions.
Curiously enough, the process for removing a Pottstown school board member can be found on Tom Hylton’s own website. Here is the page stating the procedure and here is the full document. At last night’s meeting Huss and fellow board member Robert Hartman instructed school board solicitor Stephen Kalis to research the procedure for removing Hylton from the board. The sooner the better as far as we’re concerned.
Today’s online edition of The Mercury has already posted a brief mention of last night’s meeting and the online comments by folks who did not attend the meeting are already flying fast and furious:
Code Blue, candidates call for Hylton’s ouster from school board
In addition to last night’s call to action, PSD Superintendent Reed Lindley read from a letter he received earlier in the day from Charter School Management, Inc. (CSMI), a for-profit company based in Chester, PA that specializes in charter school management, indicating its interest in opening a charter school in Pottstown. Tom Hylton was visibly irritated during Lindley’s discussion of the charter school letter, probably because Lindley beat Hylton to the punch (and poor old Tom was left in the dark about the letter until it was read during last night’s meeting).
A big THANK YOU goes out to all the concerned Pottstown taxpayers who attended last night’s meeting and publically called for Hylton’s removal. It’s easy to sit at home and post online comments after the fact but it’s more important (and a much bigger character trait in our eyes) to stand up and make your opinions heard loud and clear. Pottstown needs more folks to attend our public meetings and to speak out against injustice and wrong doing. That’s the only way to help move our town forward.
LOL! You had me going for a moment. Nicely done.
The letter from the charter school sounds to good to be true. Thanks for posting it. It’s more than we got from our lousy paper.
This charter school will come in, renovate 4 of our elementary school buildings and take all the students in K-5? Shouldn’t this bear some consideration in the current Task Force process? Seems like it could save considerable dollars. Why should we spend any money to renovate or close and expand some schools if this were a possibility?
@Musty Elbow:
Thanks for embodying this site’s trademark civility.
The Mercury finally received a copy of the letter from the district on Friday afternoon, although it was requested Thursday night, after being read into the public record.
Look for a story in Sunday’s paper.
I’m impressed at how quickly this site obtained the letter. Congratulations. Although it occurs to me there is a comparatively small list of people who would have such quick access to it.
Exactly what, pray tell, was uncivil in my comment? The word lousy? Or is it that any dissenting opinion anymore is automatically labeled as such? Please provide a list of approved words to civilly express my opinion that the Mercury is a substandard publication.
I think we as a society have lost a lot of our civility. Where is the defined line today between what is civil and what is not?
My guess, Evan, is that the civility of even the most tolerant and patient of individuals here (and in the town, as a whole) are starting to wear very, very thin. That, and the fact that Mercury (the planet) is in retrograde, might be creating a pretty challenging combination for some.
@Musty Elbow:
You know what? You’re right.
I apologize.
You are certainly within the bounds of civility to express your opinion about The Mercury. We say we welcome input and that’s all you were offering.
Forgive my response. On some days, my skin is not as thick as others.
If you are so inclined, feel free to offer suggestions about how we might improve.
Have a good weekend.
Touché, Musty Elbow… your comments are directly on point.
@ Amy,
You beat me to the reasonableness button.
I think everyone needs to read the online comments over at The Mercury from the past few days. Talk about people needing anger management training!
Tom and Frances are keeping themselves quite busy trying to do damage control with their numerous online profiles and comments. I don’t know how they keep all of their multiple-personalities straight.
Can someone explain to me again how The Mercury online commenters are more civil than the ones who post here???
I’m just not seeing it.
@BBQBill:
That’s because no one ever claimed it.