Centennial Rebukes Their President/Emperor Trainee

Sheep on the Centennial board? Perhaps not. "...board members expressed concern that Monaghan made the directive without the issue first being considered by the full board. 'He has no authority to do that. He should know that just because you are president doesn’t mean you can do things unilaterally. You have no more power than other board members,' Vice President Cynthia Mueller said."

On our board, those same complaints go unheeded and unchecked. The Emperor continues his autocratic rule out of his personal accounting offices, inviting only a few sheepish cronies to share information at his pleasure and whim.

Added signs questioned
The full board never discussed including 30 advertising signs in its zoning board application for a scoreboard at Claude Lodge Field, officials said.
By JOAN HELLYER

Centennial school board members want to know why their board president allegedly directed a district employee to make an addition to a zoning board application without their knowledge.

The application is for the new Coca-Cola scoreboard at Claude Lodge Field behind William Tennent High School in Warminster.

Without the other school directors’ knowledge, board President Michael Monaghan allegedly told Centennial Director of Facilities Vic Lasher to add 30 signs for Tennent’s baseball field to the application.

Some board members said they learned of the addition during a recent Rotary meeting, when Monaghan discussed the advertising signs. They brought it up during the board’s operations committee meeting Tuesday night.

“It’s embarrassing that we did not know about the signs,” board member Jane Schrader Lynch said.

Monaghan didn’t attend the committee meeting because he was representing the district at the Bucks County Schools Intermediate Unit #22 meeting in Doylestown.

The Courier Times was unsuccessful this week in its attempts to reach Monaghan for comment despite calls made to his Warminster home and messages sent to his district e-mail address.

Board members said their first concern is that the addition to the application might jeopardize approval of the 36-foot-by-24-foot Coca-Cola scoreboard. It’s scheduled to be installed in the newly renovated sports facility Aug. 15.

In addition, board members expressed concern that Monaghan made the directive without the issue first being considered by the full board.

“He has no authority to do that. He should know that just because you are president doesn’t mean you can do things unilaterally. You have no more power than other board members,” Vice President Cynthia Mueller said.

Board members Joseph Simpson and Thomas Reinboth said they didn’t want to discuss the issue any further until they had a chance to hear from Monaghan.

The school directors expect to discuss the signs again during an Aug. 11 finance committee meeting, Mueller said. At that time, they’ll decide whether to direct Lasher to remove the signs from the application before district officials seek the Warminster zoning board’s approval for the scoreboard on Aug. 13, she said.