Thelma Parks isn’t well known for holding her tongue, but her vote?….Well, that’s a different story. Mrs. Parks is the Oklahoma City Public School System’s longest-serving school board member. She was first elected to fill an unexpired term in District 5 in 1988 and has run unopposed in five elections since.
There’s no grand tally we know of that totals how many times she has abstained from voting in the past two decades, but it’s far too many. The most recent abstention came last week when she didn’t vote on whether to hire a woman the superintendent had recommended as an elementary school principal. The action, simply, further solidified a long record of avoiding her duty to represent constituents.
In 1991, she abstained rather than vote for or against the contract renewal of then-Supt. Arthur Steller. She took the same pose that year as the board decided whether to revise its student discipline policy.
Abstentions typically count as no votes--a procedure that’s been a source of contention through the years. In the mid-1990’s, she went round and round with fellow board members over the issue and didn’t want abstentions to count as no votes. In the midst of that debate in 1996, she, simply, stepped away from the board table as her colleagues voted on an early retirement and resignation plan to help the district cover a potential budget shortfall. That wouldn’t be the last time she stepped away on a controversial issue.
In subsequent years, Mrs. Parks would cast a non-vote on annual operating budgets, a multimillion-dollar agreement with a bottling company, school building proposals and even on a construction contract for the new Douglass High School, which is in her district. She also abstained on a vote to suspend controversial former Supt. John Q. Porter before, eventually, siding with the majority on a subsequent vote for suspension.
Mrs. Parks stood behind her chair rather than vote at one meeting in Nov. 2000 when the board decided to create the board chairman’s post.
Public officials can have valid reasons for abstaining from a vote when there are potential conflicts of interest, but, in Mrs. Parks’ case, she has taken a pass on so many important issues that we can’t imagine a plausible defense. She’s done her constituents and the district a grave disservice in purposely deciding not to vote on some of the most important issues that have come before the board in the past two decades.
That’s inexcusable, and is something District 5 patrons ought to remember should Mrs. Parks decide to seek re-election in February.
