2013 Top 12 Countdown: New Board of Ed gets off to rocky start

NORWALK, Conn. – Today we bring you the sixth story in our Top 12 countdown – the 12 stories that drew the most page views on this site in in 2013.

Each day, through New Year’s Day, we will rehash one of our most popular stories, along with any updates, with a link to the original story. We will present them in reverse order; we began Saturday, Dec. 21, the 12th most popular, and will work our way to No. 1.

Throughout the holiday season, as official action slows to a crawl, we also will be taking a look back at what we feel were the biggest Norwalk government, school and social service stories of the year, and we’ll take a look ahead at what 2014 may bring.

Our seventh-most-read story of 2013 ran Nov. 20, just a day after new Mayor Harry Rilling took office, and was headlined “New board has rough start as Dem-majority BOE re-elects GOP chairman.”

The Board of Education met for the first time since the Nov. 5 election, and the first order of business was swearing in the newly elected members, Shirley Mosby and Sherelle Harris, and the two re-elected members, Heidi Keyes and Artie Kassimis. As the meeting got under way, a Common Council meeting was getting ready to start next door, with Rilling to preside. Under normal circumstances, the two bodies do not meet on the same night.

Rilling started off by addressing the board, then left the swearing-in duties to BOE Chairman Mike Lyons. Mosby objected and a flap ensued, resulting in Rilling coming back to the BOE meeting to do the swearing in. Then, in another move that caused hard feelings among some of the 8-3 Democratic majority, Lyons, a Republican, was re-elected chairman, Republican Kassimis was re-elected vice chairman and Democrat Heidi Keyes was re-elected secretary.

To read the full story, click here.