CCSD board president declines request to resign

Embattled Clark County School Board President Erin Cranor ended her silence Friday to declare she won’t resign or pull out of the November election, as requested by her opponent in the race for District G.

“Thank you for writing. You are misinformed about what occurred,” Cranor wrote in an email to challenger Joe Spencer. “I will remain diligent in my offer to serve our community and state for a second term.”

Spencer responded with another request – for Cranor to identify and disprove any “misinformation.”

The conflict was spurred by a Review-Journal story revealing that the Clark County School District wrote and signed Cranor’s name to a $100,000 settlement check that freed her from a lawsuit – which threatened her personal assets – without board approval.

District spokeswoman Kirsten Searer asserted Wednesday that district officials didn’t inform board members about the payout – written Sept. 12 – or seek their approval because the district’s settlement check didn’t exceed $100,000. District regulation states that board approval is required if the “claimant’s award, total settlement or collective payments” exceeds $100,000.

But the total settlement of $100,100 – offered by the district in August – did exceed that regulation requirement by $100. The district simply issued a check for $100,000 and then had its outside legal counsel, Kolesar and Leatham, pay the remaining $100 to Business Benefits Inc.

The former health care consultant filed its lawsuit against the district and Cranor as an individual in May 2014, claiming its contract was cut short and Cranor stepped outside her duties as a board member by demanding that the district kill the agreement “as soon as possible,” as shown in an October 2013 email from Cranor to Skorkowsky.

Searer said district officials didn’t show Cranor the $100,000 settlement check or ask permission to stamp her signature on it. District officials also didn’t discuss the conflict of interest in having Cranor’s settlement check bear her own signature, Searer said. The settlement uses taxpayer money to pull Cranor out from under a lawsuit that put her personal assets at risk.

“One would have to believe that you (Cranor) were well-informed of everything since it involved you and since your name was endorsed onto the settlement check from CCSD (Clark County School District),” Spencer wrote Cranor.

Contact Trevon Milliard at tmilliard@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0279. Find him on Twitter: @TrevonMilliard.