In front of a crowded Kingfisher High School cafeteria, the board of education’s split vote Monday was the final step in settling the civil case with Mason Mecklenburg.

After hearing from five citizens in the public participation portion and also after several minutes of comments from Superintendent David Glover prior to the meeting reconvening, members voted 4-1 to approve the settlement agreement and consent judgment that was reached in the federal civil case last month. Had there been no settlement, the federal jury trial was set to begin Tuesday in Oklahoma City.

Board member Carly Franks made the motion with an amendment to the original agenda item that added “at the advice of our counsel” to the end of the item as more than 175 peo in the crowd looked on.

The move was seconded by Dana Golbek as Terry Payne and Charles Walker voted in favor.

Brad Wittrock, who was out-of-state for the board’s last special meeting before the settlement agreement was reached, voted against the measure and took several minutes during the discussion of the agenda item to address some concerns - and possible misconceptions - of the crowd.

( Editor’s note: A “Letter to the Editor” from Wittrock appears on the front page of this edition as well.)

The settlement agreeple ment pays Mecklenburg, who sued the district and four football coaches alleging a culture of hazing, abuse and torture within the football program, $5 million.

Of that, $1.25 million will be paid from the school’s general fund by Feb. 3, 2024.

The agreement states the remaining $3.75 million plus interest will fall to taxpayers of the school district over the next three years.

The agreement also states head football coach Jeff Myers’ extra-duty contract will not be renewed by the district and that he cannot coach in Kingfisher again.

Myers is currently on paid administrative leave after being charged with a felony count of child neglect after an investigation that was prompted by Mecklenburg’s allegations.

Some who spoke Monday were upset the school board decided to settle. Others were unhappy with a majority of the burden falling to the taxpayers.

Other concerns raised were related to the school’s insurance.

The district has had to cover the costs of attorneys’ fees for the district and the coaches due to its claim not being covered by a previous carrier.

“Who is responsible for the lapse in liability insurance since this would have covered a settlement payout?” asked Debra Parks, the second person to address the board.

Parks also referenced Attorney General Opinion 84-39, which states in part that it’s a school district’s “general duty” to liquidate assets to pay outstanding warrants resulting from possible penalties.

“What is the reason for Kingfisher not abiding by this legal opinion?” Parks asked. “It’s sad that we’re not getting any kind of response.”

Steve Forman was the last citizen to address the board, noting “my family has been here since the Land Run” and also owns commercial property here.

“I just absolutely can’t understand how we got to this point,” Forman said. “There have been statements made here tonight about responsibilities. What I don’t understand - and I still haven’t had it explained - how a school board could have approved an insurance policy that didn’t have liability coverage.”

Two people called on Payne, the pastor at LifeWay Church, to resign from the board citing alleged potential conflicts of interest with someone closely connected with the lawsuit.

“I became aware of an ongoing business relationship between Justin Mecklenburg and board member Terry Payne involving Lifeenough Way Church,” said Morgan Winters in her address.

Justin Mecklenburg is the father of Mason Mecklenburg and was among those at the meeting.

Winters said she researched public records and produced documents that “show Justin Mecklenburg has an obvious interest in LifeWay.”

She provided documents to Walker, the board’s president, before speaking. They included a certificate of incorporation for Lifeway Church, Inc., from the office of the Secretary of State.

The amended not-forprofi t certificate was filed in June 2015 and lists Payne, Justin Mecklenburg and Ray Belcher as incorporators and directors.

She also provided other documents to the board, which she said show a connection between Justin Mecklenburg and the church.

Winters continued to reference the documents as she spoke.

“As a very concerned citizen in this district, I’m respectfully asking for the resignation of Terry Payne from this school board,” she said.

B.J. Waeger also addressed the board and asked Payne to resign, accusing Payne of telling multiple people “your goal was to get Coach Myers fired,” before and after running for the school board seat, a claim which Payne audibly denied.

“You got your wish,” Waeger added. “And I hope you resign.”

Waeger referenced one of Payne’s sons being a witness for the plaintiff in the lawsuit.

“The conflict of interest with your vote is very high,” Waeger said.

Jeff Rutledge was another citizen to speak to board members.

He referenced the board of education voting unanimously in March 2022 to reject the initial settlement offer by Mecklenburg, which was $1.5 million. ( Editor’s note: The settlement demand also stated Myers must be fired and the settlement was only with the school district and not the four coaches also named in the lawsuit).

Rutledge noted the school district’s finances at that time, which included several million in the general fund, as well as at other times in the past two years.

“Yet the board chose again to spend the funds on projects rather than be prepared in the event of a settlement or reward,” he said. He specifically noted the $1.7 million approved to install synthetic turf on the football/soccer and softball fields.

“Doing so, again, with the knowledge of pending litigations with possible monetary penalties withstanding,” he said.

“KPS failed to settle this issue in 2022 and then proceeded to spend the remaining funds, leaving the burden on the taxpayers in the form of an estimated 12 percent ad valorem property tax hike to carry over for three years.”

Rutledge repeated multiple times: “We are not liable for your mistakes.”

Retired pharmacist Tom Edgar, who has lived here for nearly 60 years, was the third person to speak to the board.

“The people in this town are probably better than any town in Oklahoma,” he said. “So we want to preserve that.”

He called the settlement amount “a lot of money” for taxpayers to pay “for hazing,” he said.

“I’vebeenaroundschools for a long time and hazing went on a lot,” he said. “Not that it’s right. It can get out of hand. But a $5 million settlement for wet towel popping in the shower?”

He added “this will be a precedent for more lawsuits,” which elicited applause from several in the crowd.

“The whole thing has got out of hand and we’ve got to get it back under control,” Edgar said. “Because it’s unintentionally destroyed our great town.”

Before the vote, Wittrock spoke for several minutes.

“I think there’s a lot of people here that are upset and angry, looking for answers,” he said. Wittrock made note of a “Letter to the Editor” written by Randy Mecklenburg - the father of Justin and grandfather of Mason Mecklenburg - that appeared on Page 1 of The Times & Free Press’ Dec. 3 edition.

“I wanted to let you guys know there’s a lot of holes in that,” Wittrock said. “I hope those holes can be filled soon because it completely changes the dynamic of how you can look at your school board.”

Wittrock proceeded to address some of the concerns brought up by those who spoke.

“It is my understanding that insurance did not ever lapse. The school has always had insurance,” he said. “The problem is that the insurance carrier notified us that they were not going to be carrying us. We went immediately and retained another insurance carrier.”

The initial carrier to which Wittrock referenced was Oklahoma School Resource Management Trust (OSRMT). The second is Oklahoma Schools Insurance Group (OSIG), the district’s current provider.

“Then the lawsuit came out. When we took that to our current carrier, they said they did not have our coverage at that time (of the alleged incidents). So we had to go back to our other carrier and the other carrier was insolvent and that cannot be held on any previous administration or board member.”

Board members had to begin the meeting in the Board of Education office before voting to reconvene at the cafeteria.

As they made the trek over, Glover addressed the crowd for about five minutes and provided them with his insight as to “why we got to where we are right now.”

“Over the past 20 years or so, our school district, it dropped the ball on some things,” he said. “There was no disputing that. And the school district was the one going to be on trial starting tomorrow.”

Mecklenburg’s original lawsuit, filed in July 2021, alleged mental, physical and sexual abuse suffered as a member of the KHS football program from 2017-2020.

A motion filed by his attorneys in April to extend the relevant time frame of the case to 2005 was later granted by Judge Charles Goodwin of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma.

Glover encouraged those in the crowd to read some of the depositions from the case.

“You’ll see that the school it made some errors in policy and how we administered those policies over the years,” Glover said, adding that put the district at risk of losing the case, which he said is also what the district’s attorney advised.

“The gamble was, had we gone to trial, the judgment could have been a lot more,” Glover said. “And that totally would have went on to taxpayers. By law, any judgment would have gone to you guys. That’s why the decision was made.

“I’ll tell you this….I wish there was a different outcome. The risk for our school district and the risk for our taxpayers was really what these individuals (the board) were looking at when they made the decision.”

( Editor’s Note: The board of education voted 3-2 at the meeting to table employee stipends, which have served as a holiday “bonus” for staff when approved in previous years. See the weekend edition for comments from board members in making that decision as well as other moves by the board at the December regular meeting.)