Atlantic City's school board meeting Tuesday night was all about endings.
Members voted to start the process to remove former Vice President Farook Hossain from the board and to discontinue the ongoing search for a new superintendent.
The move to petition to have Hossain officially ousted comes six weeks after the board solicitor first made allegations that he no longer was a city resident and therefore not a bona fide member.
But rather than start removal proceedings at the Jan. 11 reorganization meeting, solicitor Tracy Riley instead ordered the board secretary not to record Hossain's vote.
In those weeks, Riley has failed to answer texts, phone messages and emails from BreakingAC asking why she had not informed the board of the option to petition the commissioner of education to remove Hossain.
Instead, Tuesday night's vote came after Hossain's attorney filed his own complaints with the commissioner, questioning how his client has been treated.
“There’s no due process for Mr. Hossain,” attorney William Koy Sr. told BreakingAC.
Koy, a retired superintendent and former school board solicitor, said he’s never seen a case where a solicitor tried to bar a sitting board member from voting.
“That’s unique at best,” he said.
Koy could not be immediately reached for comment after the vote Tuesday.
The board also gave Riley the go-ahead to civilly sue Hossain an his wife, Mossammat Akther.
The reason for the suit was not given.
But not much was explained publicly Tuesday.
Instead, the details were apparently shared only with board members inside a two-hour executive session.
That left several questions after the meeting, including the literal $25,000 one — the amount spent on the search to replace retiring Superintendent Barry Caldwell.
Riley indicated last week that because Hossain was part of the hiring committee, the process had been tainted.
The head of that committee, John Devlin, said last week that they had whittled the field down to three candidates, including two in-house.
But when asked for information about the original pool of candidates during Tuesday's public comment, Devlin said he felt making any comment would muddy the then-ongoing process.
What happens now that the search has been discontinued is a mystery.
When asked what's next, Board President Shay Steele replied, "No comment."
The vote had to invoke the "Doctrine of Necessity," which allows board members who normally would have conflicts to vote because otherwise there would not be a quorum.
But because the five board members with relatives who work in the district still have conflicts, the resolution will be forwarded to the School Ethics Commission for review.
The special meeting included an executive session that came a week after the regular meeting ended with not enough people for the closed session.
After Riley said Hossain should be excluded from executive session, several board members also logged off, and a quorum could not be reached.
The agenda for that session was on the list for this one, including a tort claim filed by High School Principal La'Quetta Small and her husband, Mayor Marty Small. Their intent to file a lawsuit is in reference renewed interest in how La'Quetta Small handled an issue with her cousin Ka'yan Frazier.
Frazier was a substitute teacher in the school district when Small reported him for violating district policy by having a student sleep at his home and for texting another student.
Frazier has since pleaded guilty in a child pornography case in which he took photos and videos of children being sexually assaulted.
An independent investigation into how Frazier's employment was handled is ongoing.
Riley originally tried to take control of the investigation. When told to stop, she put out a memorandum with her findings in which she questioned the company that provides substitutes to the district. That company, ESS, is also a named topic for tonight's closed session.
During public comment, activist Steve Young called the treatment of the Frazier issue a cover-up and asked for the board to address it. No one did.
"We're not going away," he promised them.
