Daily emails demanding his resignation are what Morgan Hill Unified School District Board of Education President Bob Benevento endured over a period of several months as a pair of recall community activists tried to pressure him into stepping down from the dais.
That’s what was revealed after MHUSD staff released numerous electronic messages sent from one-time recall movement leader Rob Guynn and his wife Monica Guynn addressed to the board president and other emails that included the entire seven-member board. The Morgan Hill Times filed a public records request in October asking for the email exchanges between the Guynns, as well as another community activist, Karen Fitch, and the district’s seven-member governing body.
“I have never been subjected to electronic harassment such as that generated by the Guynns,” Benevento said. “Daytime, evening, in the middle of the night, they came with regularity.”
More emails to be released at future date
Superintendent Steve Betando notified The Times this week that more emails are to follow as the district’s technology staff continues to search its email server, extract and review hundreds of emails, redact any confidential information, and get final approval to release them from its attorneys.
“No emails were withheld,” said Betando. “We’re extracting more emails.”
In November, the board was able to review the emails set to be released to the media Nov. 30 and voted 5-0 in closed session to approve the motion. Porter-Jensen had resigned so she was not part of the vote and Vice President Ron Woolf abstained.
“Each board member had the opportunity to ask that they not go out,” Betando explained. “We believe that the public had the right to see them and none of the board members filed any request to withhold them.”
Benevento has been the target of a recall effort led by a community group calling themselves “Parents For Positive Change,” which was formed shortly after the board’s high-profile decision to move sixth-grade classes out of the elementary schools and into the middle schools for the 2016-17 school year.
After the 4-3 vote in August, Benevento—who was served with the recall paperwork by Rob Guynn at the district office in September—began getting peppered with emails demanding he step down and resign. However, it was another board member, Amy Porter-Jensen, who resigned in late October after receiving additional unwanted emails from the same community activist.
“There is no point in responding to such communication, as it only invites further assault,” said Benevento, who only early on responded to two of the Guynn emails. He thanked them for their message in one response and then told them “please don’t insult our intelligence” in another.
In two emails with the exact same message sent Sept. 25 and 26, Rob Guynn, who has said his sole purpose was to keep sixth graders in the elementary schools, wrote: “A HALF MILLION DOLLARS out of our children’s educational funds. Urge Benevento to Resign!.” Guynn was referring to the estimated cost of a special recall election.
In an email sent Sept. 28, he wrote: “Mr. Benevento, I urge you to resign as a MHUSD Trustee.” In identical Sept. 28 emails sent by both Guynns, they repeated the word “resign” 18 times.
“I have received voluminous emails on other subjects, such as the Charter School Morgan Hill renewal, but those came from many individuals, were typically civil and respectful, and I responded to well over 200 individuals,” Benevento said.
Also included in emails sent solely to Benevento, who saved all of them in a special file, and some to the entire dais were the Morgan Hill Times web poll results having to do with the recall as well as several posts left by commenters reacting to Times articles covering the board meetings.
“In light of the current situation, I feel it necessary to let our teachers, principals and staff know we support them, and we take this issue very seriously,” wrote Betando in a Dec. 8 press release. “The behaviors and messages revealed to us all are intolerable. Whatever action occurs to those involved will not deter us from the great work we will continue to do for our students and the Morgan Hill community.”
Last week, the Times reported on the insulting emails directed at board members, the superintendent and community members sent out by Trustee David Gerard to Rob Guynn.
Gerard appeared at the Dec. 8 board meeting and participated in general discussion as always, with no mention of these emails by the public, district staff, his colleagues or himself.
