Member’s husband draws meeting ban
Gerald Bretzik allegedly told board president ‘I will see you on the streets,’ showed middle finger to officers
The Northampton Area School Board has banned a Moore Township man, who is married to a board member, from attending school board meetings after he was charged with threatening the board president at a meeting last month.
At a meeting Monday, the board voted 7-1, with one member abstaining, to send a letter to Gerald Bretzik, prohibiting him from attending meetings for the rest of 2022.
“The exclusion from Board meetings has become necessary due to a pattern of behavior that has grown progressively disruptive culminating in a direct threat to at least one Board member at a meeting of April 11, 2022,” the agenda item from Monday’s meeting reads.
Board members Michael Baird, Chuck Frantz, David Gogel, Ross Makary, Robert Mentzell, Vice President John Becker and President James Chuss voted to send the letter to Bretzik. Board member Kim Bretzik, wife of Gerald Bretzik, abstained from the vote, while Doug Vaughn voted against it.
“This is obviously a little awkward for me because it involves a member of my family,” Kim Bretzik said at the meeting, according to the Lehigh Valley Press. “I feel I should recuse myself from the vote.”
Superintendent Joseph Kovalchik confirmed the board voted to send the letter, but he declined to comment further.
Northampton school board members either declined to comment or did not return messages. Attempts to reach Gerald Bretzik were unsuccessful.
The board voted to send the letter after Bretzik, 53, was charged with harassment and disorderly conduct April 22 from an incident allegedly stemming from Northampton’s April 11 school board meeting. At that meeting, he said to Chuss, “I will see you on
the streets” and repeatedly yelled expletives, according to court documents. He had to be escorted out of the meeting by officers, who he cursed at and gave the middle finger to.
It’s unclear what caused the incident at the April 11 meeting, but hostile scenes at school board meetings have been playing out in the Lehigh Valley and throughout the United States as school boards grapple with issues such as masking, critical race theory and book bans. School boards are used to facing upset parents and the public over issues such as tax hikes, new school boundaries and teacher cuts. But in the last couple of years, school boards are being hit with more aggressive behavior.
Stuart Knade, chief legal officer with the Pennsylvania School Boards Association, said the Northampton school board isn’t the first to ban a person from meetings. If someone has been disorderly at a meeting, typically, board members will prohibit that person for a certain amount of time, such as a year, and then will review their decision after that, he said.
Knade said PSBA has been advising and training school boards on how to handle disruptive behavior at meetings.
“There have been much more unruly crowds at school board meetings,” Knade said. “That has become more frequent in the last year or so.”
Tensions at school board meetings led the National School Boards Association to issue a plea to President Joe Biden for help in September. Other school boards throughout the country have curbed public comment after disruptive behavior has occurred, including in Virginia and Florida.
Bretzik has a preliminary hearing scheduled this month. According to court documents:
Bretzik attended a Northampton Area School Board meeting April 11 and said that his wife was accosted at a previous meeting. Bretzik appeared “in a agitated state and in a extremely loud voice” addressed Chuss, who then told him to settle down. Bretzik walked away from the podium but continued to yell.
He said to Chuss, “I’ll see you on the public street then.”
Chuss asked if it was a threat and Bretzik said, “It’s not a threat, sir. It’s a promise.”
He also said to Chuss: “You’re an elected official. I can follow you around with a microphone, embarrassing you, your family, your wife.”
Bretzik yelled a stream of expletives directed toward Chuss and as he was exiting the room, he again said, “I will see you on the streets.”
Bretzik was escorted out of the meeting and continually said “F—- you” in a “loud aggressive manner and repeatedly showed officers the finger in an obscene gesture,” court documents state. He left the high school, but returned to the door and showed officers the middle finger.
Court documents state that on at least two previous occasions, Bretzik had to be escorted from board meetings because of “his display of aggression, verbal interruptions, and use of obscene language.” At one meeting, he “verbally harassed” residents who were leaving.