BOE Election 'Catch and Kill' Conspiracy Revealed
As the Montgomery County Board of Education election took shape earlier this year, candidate Bethany Mandel (D), a local social media darling and founding member of the county's largest online mom's group, couldn't help but wonder why all the online candidate hate was directed at her.
Surely the three incumbents at the center of a botched investigation into sexual misconduct and bullying allegations against the former Farquhar Middle School principal should be the trolling targets. Mandel smelled a rat and filed a FOI request.
This week Mandel received BOE documents and gave The Montgonion exclusive access. The collection of secret meeting minutes, staff reports, and emails reveal an elaborate BOE conspiracy to bury bad news about its current members, using a "Catch and Kill" scheme coordinated with a local media mogul referred to only as "He Whose Last Name May Not Be Pronounced." Reimbursements to the mogul were made with gift cards to skirt potential campaign finance violations.
Caught and Killed
Lynne Harris, the current board vice president, has been vocal in her support of LGBTQ+ books and curriculums and criticized a rowdy parent protest demanding an “opt-out” for them. When a Forest Oak attendance office clerk threatened to reveal Harris kept her own child home from school for three weeks during a horticulture class unit on hermaphroditic plant reproduction, the Catch and Kill crew went into action. Two days later a BOE procurement entry cryptically notes, "May Not Be Pronounced owns Veggie Tales. Stained Glass Pub gift cards $2K."
Harris allegedly kept her child home from school for three weeks during a horticulture class unit on hermaphroditic plant reproduction
Rebecca Smondrowski, chair of the powerful Policy Management Committee, unilaterally changed policy last October to allow single-source school vendors for contracts over 10 million. A month later Dunkin' LLC was awarded the contract for food service in all 210 county schools--and a Dunkin' Home unit was covertly installed off Smondrowski's kitchen. Two days after an installation technician went to a local media outlet to expose Smondrowski, MCPS ledgers record "May Not Be runs on Gentleman Jim’s $1,900." The story was buried.
A Dunkin' Home unit was allegedly installed off Smondrowski's kitchen.
Shebra Evans, when board president, was highly criticized for scuttling plans to hire 2,800 MCPS restroom attendants. What angry parents didn't learn was that Evans is also a majority shareholder in Shady Grove Paper, MCPS' paper supplier, which stood to lose its contract in lieu of linen. A procurement order reading, "Cottonelle for Continental Pizza $2,200," is the tell-tale catch-and-kill evidence.
Evans allegedly killed the bathroom attendant plan to protect her paper company investment.
Mandel says she feels vindicated and will file a complaint with election officials. "Rubber stamps within the county led to a total crisis of leadership, without anyone standing up and saying what’s plainly obvious: there is gross malfeasance and prejudice against circular pizza with those who have been elected to run this school district," Mandel said.
The Montgonion investigators could not determine the identity of He Whose Last Name May Not Be Pronounced. Jason Makstein (maK-steen) from Moderately MoCo, Sunil Dasgupta (das-gup-ta) from I Hate Politics, and Jennifer Farkas (far-kus) from MoCo360, all vehemently deny any involvement. David Lay (ley) from Source of the Spring and Alex Tsironis (t-s-ih-r-ah-n-ah-s) from The MoCoShow did not immediately respond to our inquiry.
