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ANGER OVER ACCUSATION OF POLITICAL FAVORS FLARES AT WEST LAFAYETTE SCHOOL BOARD
Lingering beefs on the West Lafayette school board simmered to the top Thursday, this time over comments made about a campaign contribution from a school board campaign six years ago and possible political favors that followed in an appointment to the West Lafayette Public Library board.
“It may not show on my face or my voice, but this is actually the angriest I’ve been in a long time,” board member George Lyle said, referencing comments board member Dacia Mumford had published during a library board nomination process.
“The same school board member who had concerns about this appointment process has accused me of essentially trading this library board seat in exchange for a political donation,” Lyle said. “Accusations of corruption or influence trading are serious. I take my integrity seriously. I will not tolerate having my honesty and integrity questioned.”
Lyle went on to suggest the Mumford “repeatedly conducted (herself) with self-interest at heart,” accusing her of secretly recording other school board members and being “at the heart of misinformation campaigns and doxxing campaigns.” He demanded that Mumford retract and correct her “potentially libelous blog post,” published in a monthly “Meeting Summaries” Substack she compiles.
Mumford tried to step in, calling for a stop what she called bashing of a school board member. School board member Melissa Prochnau told Lyle during the meeting that she found his comments inappropriate in that venue.
But later, Mumford stood by comments she wrote ahead of the vote, including that Lyle might abstain from the library board nomination vote “because of the appearance of a conflict of interest” over a $10,000 donation one applicant made in 2020 to a political action committee that backed a slate of school board candidates – two years before Lyle ran for school board for a first time and four years before he was elected.
“Some people seemed surprised to hear Lyle go off topic during a public meeting to criticize me personally,” Mumford said after Thursday’s meeting. “This doesn’t often happen in our public meetings, but (school board member Amy) Austin and Lyle have made similar and at times much more disparaging comments to me outside of public meetings. There has been a slate of candidates running together in every contested West Lafayette school board election since 2016. This has been damaging to our community and harmful to our schools. My view is that each candidate should run independently and demonstrate that they will represent the community rather than a handful of donors.”
At issue was one of two school board nominations to the West Lafayette Public Library board.
