Rivette, Rocque clash again over conference

By Dan King
For the second straight meeting of the Whitehall Board of Education, the right side of the table was tense.
Board members Virginia Rivette and Mike Rocque got into another argument about an instance where Rocque went to an educational program for board members without first getting approval from the board. It didn’t quite rise to the level of the screaming that ensued during the May meeting.
The $270 conference was paid for with school money, and Rivette said she feels Rocque should pay it back.
“That’s misappropriation of funds,” Rivette said to Rocque.
“If you want to bring that up and make it an issue, we can do that,” Rocque countered.
Rivette then argued that Rocque told the board at the last meeting that he would pay the $270 and had not yet done so.
“I said I can pay it, not that I think I have to pay for it,” Rocque said.
Rocque argued that he went to the higher-ups and was under the impression that he could go to the conference.
To that, board President Jeremy Putorti said to Rocque: “I never told you you could do that.”
Rivette then repeated her claim that Rocque was “misappropriating funds,” to which Rocque countered, “hindsight being 20/20 we all know what should have been done.”
Board members Tony Scrimo and Pat Norton also jumped in.
Norton noted a previous seminar that she and Rocque both attended and said to Rocque: “Didn’t we all learn that we need a voucher to go on a trip, Mike?”
Rocque responded, “We learned a lot of stuff,” and Norton countered, “Well, I seem to remember (learning) that.”
Putorti put an end to the debate, telling Rocque: “All you had to do was ask if you needed approval.”
The board then voted 8-1, with only Rocque opposed, to accept the previous meeting’s minutes. Rocque’s opposition to those minutes was that they read that he said he would pay the $270. He said he believes that what was said was that he “can pay it.”