Sunday, June 23, 2013
DATE POSTED: 6/20/13 3:36 PM
Sixth District School Board representative Shonda Harris-Muhammed has been burning up her computer keyboard this past week, taking to her city-issued email account to send a variety of provocative, headline-worthy missives threatening legal action against a pair of current and former city leaders.The first of Harris-Muhammed’s emails to go public was sent Tuesday morning, just hours after Monday’s Richmond School Board meeting. That email accused 2nd District representative Kim Gray of verbally assaulting 5th District member Tichi Pinkney Eppes.
And on Monday afternoon, not long before the School Board met, Harris-Muhammed sent another email, this one to former 3rd District School Board member Carol A.O. Wolf, claiming that Wolf had violated unspecified laws by continuing to include Harris-Muhammed on an email subscription list for Wolf’s education news blog, Save Our Schools.
“Ms. Wolfe this is my second request do not correspond with be via email or any other means,” Harris-Muhammed fired off at around 4 p.m. on Monday. “Send your correspondence to the clerk if you want me to receive any information from your or any entity you work for. Do not contact me again for any reason. I will contact the commonwealth attorney and the police department if you continue to do so.”
Wolf’s offending emails arrived addressed to Harris-Muhammed’s public, city-issued email account and were similarly sent to all board members and a number of other city officials.
Contents of email correspondence with city and state officials are subject to the state’s Freedom of Information Act, meaning they technically are part of the public record and are often — with certain exceptions when privacy or contracts are involved — available to the public on request.
In an email response, addressed to “(Not Dr.) Harris-Muhammed,” Wolf agreed to send further emails through the School Board clerk. She advised Harris-Muhammed that “if at some point an email from me happens to land in your in-box, I suggest you locate the delete key on your computer, rather than indulge in drama-queen behavior and waste energy and public money contacting ‘the commonwealth attorney and police department.' ”Referencing both the email allegations about Gray, as well as Harris-Muhammed’s earlier public shaming over her unsubstantiated claims of holding a doctorate degree, Wolf warned that more bad behavior “will bring further embarrassment to yourself and the School Board.”
Contacted by Richmond magazine via email, Harris-Muhammed would not address why she threatened to involve the police or commonwealth’s attorney, or whether Richmond residents could be prohibited from contacting an elected official through a city email address.
“Per my request to Mrs. Wolfe on two different emails, she should send all correspondence to me via the school board clerk Ms. [Angela] Lewis,” she wrote, not replying to a follow-up email asking for clarification.
Meanwhile, reverberations from Harris-Muhammed’s email accusing Gray of assault have already begun to subside. On Wednesday, Eppes told Richmond magazine that the altercation with Gray may not have been everything Harris-Muhammed claimed. Following up on her admission in a Richmond Times-Dispatch report that she’d threatened “whoop [Gray's] ass,” Eppes says she recognizes the error in her own actions.
“What I said was very, very inappropriate,” Eppes says. “School Board had no place for that language.”
Gray said that the interaction between herself and Eppes during Monday’s meeting didn’t escalate until Harris-Muhammed inserted herself into it. During the interaction, it was Harris-Muhammed who called on a school security guard to intervene.
And on Monday afternoon, not long before the School Board met, Harris-Muhammed sent another email, this one to former 3rd District School Board member Carol A.O. Wolf, claiming that Wolf had violated unspecified laws by continuing to include Harris-Muhammed on an email subscription list for Wolf’s education news blog, Save Our Schools.
“Ms. Wolfe this is my second request do not correspond with be via email or any other means,” Harris-Muhammed fired off at around 4 p.m. on Monday. “Send your correspondence to the clerk if you want me to receive any information from your or any entity you work for. Do not contact me again for any reason. I will contact the commonwealth attorney and the police department if you continue to do so.”
Wolf’s offending emails arrived addressed to Harris-Muhammed’s public, city-issued email account and were similarly sent to all board members and a number of other city officials.
Contents of email correspondence with city and state officials are subject to the state’s Freedom of Information Act, meaning they technically are part of the public record and are often — with certain exceptions when privacy or contracts are involved — available to the public on request.
In an email response, addressed to “(Not Dr.) Harris-Muhammed,” Wolf agreed to send further emails through the School Board clerk. She advised Harris-Muhammed that “if at some point an email from me happens to land in your in-box, I suggest you locate the delete key on your computer, rather than indulge in drama-queen behavior and waste energy and public money contacting ‘the commonwealth attorney and police department.' ”Referencing both the email allegations about Gray, as well as Harris-Muhammed’s earlier public shaming over her unsubstantiated claims of holding a doctorate degree, Wolf warned that more bad behavior “will bring further embarrassment to yourself and the School Board.”
Contacted by Richmond magazine via email, Harris-Muhammed would not address why she threatened to involve the police or commonwealth’s attorney, or whether Richmond residents could be prohibited from contacting an elected official through a city email address.
“Per my request to Mrs. Wolfe on two different emails, she should send all correspondence to me via the school board clerk Ms. [Angela] Lewis,” she wrote, not replying to a follow-up email asking for clarification.
Meanwhile, reverberations from Harris-Muhammed’s email accusing Gray of assault have already begun to subside. On Wednesday, Eppes told Richmond magazine that the altercation with Gray may not have been everything Harris-Muhammed claimed. Following up on her admission in a Richmond Times-Dispatch report that she’d threatened “whoop [Gray's] ass,” Eppes says she recognizes the error in her own actions.
“What I said was very, very inappropriate,” Eppes says. “School Board had no place for that language.”
Gray said that the interaction between herself and Eppes during Monday’s meeting didn’t escalate until Harris-Muhammed inserted herself into it. During the interaction, it was Harris-Muhammed who called on a school security guard to intervene.
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