-SCHOOL NEWS-
By Elizabeth Perry
Sto-Rox School Board President Cameron Culliver recommended board member Ken Hohman resign after he was publicly censured for the fourth time.
Hohman was in trouble for openly discussing matters which had occurred within an executive session regarding an employee who had been fired.
“We’re only as strong as our weakest link,” Culliver said.
Hohman, who is a sports contributor to Gazette 2.0, was not at the Sept. 29 meeting, which he missed for personal reasons. He said Culliver called him after the meeting and informed him of what transpired.
“Mr. Culliver’s statements were politically motivated because we don’t agree on issues,” Hohman said. “If you look at my record, I don’t vote with a rubber stamp. I voted against the recovery plan and the tax increase.”
Hohman said he doesn’t plan to step down.
“As of right now I'm not going anywhere, I've been involved in athletics for 49 years. I've been around the school forever,” Hohman said he bleeds green and white. “I am a walking encyclopedia of Sto-Rox school history.”
The director has been on the board since November 2015.
His other censures were in 2015, 2019 and 2021. Director Tyler Kochirca said the reason for the censure, and the previous censures of Hohman on which he also voted, had to do with a pattern of sharing privileged information.
“It’s a failure to keep confidential information confidential,” Kochirca said.
He added that some censures could result from a board member saying something which did not reflect the board or district. Typically, censures are a technique to distance a group from the statements of an individual legally, Kochirca said.
Samantha Levitzki-Wright was the only director to vote against the censure at the Sept. 29 meeting, saying she didn’t know enough about the situation to vote yes. Kochirca said in an interview after the meeting he agreed with Culliver and thought Hohman should resign.
“If he doesn’t step down and keeps doing what he’s doing he’s going to bring a lot of legal issues down on the district,” Culliver said in an interview after the meeting. “It’s going to hurt us. It’s going to hurt these kids. He says he is so passionate about Sto-Rox, yet he’s hurting Sto-Rox.”