Newton Falls city manager responds to mayor's allegations
The Newton Falls city manager is responding to allegations from Mayor Ken Kline that she falsified texts and documents.
As 21 News reported Friday, the village's school board voted unanimously to reinstate a school resource officer after an email purported to be from city manager Pam Priddy showed her intending to remove the SRO earlier this month.
Mayor Ken Kline said Friday that Priddy should resign, accusing her of falsifying text messages between them and claiming she didn't order the removal of the SRO.
Early Saturday, Priddy's lawyer released the following statement:
"We can confirm that Ms. Priddy did send this email at approximately 11:00 a.m. on March 16, 2023. However, you should be aware that this was but one email in a chain of emails exchanged between Ms. Priddy and the Superintendent on that date regarding the SRO and was preceded by emails from the day prior regarding the SRO. It should be noted that the attached email, as well as the complete chain of emails referenced, were all made available at the school board meeting for others to review. Anyone who received the documents at the school board meeting would be fully aware of the fact that Ms. Priddy already disclosed this information – she was in no way hiding it.
Below, in quotes, please see the press statement we discussed last night:
"In the past twenty four hours, Newton Falls City Manager Pamela Priddy has been the victim of a vicious smear campaign initiated by the mayor's own outrageous and fundamentally false claims that Ms. Priddy "removed" a school resource officer from the Newton Schools, and then "falsified documents" and disseminated such documents at a meeting. As the messages made available at the school board meeting demonstrate, Ms. Priddy did not "remove" the SRO. She was fully ready to have the SRO appear on March 17, 2023 for duty, but had been advised that the school had made arrangements that very day for a member of the Trumbull County Sheriff's Department to be present at the school on March 17, 2023 to provide security.
No documents were falsified. The individuals claiming such falsification occurred have not, and cannot, provide any evidence to support those allegations. We are confident that once the public has the full story, instead of the select portions her detractors have maliciously disseminated, they will see that the allegations against Ms. Priddy, a truly dedicated public servant, are false and she was unjustly accused of wrongdoing to become the scapegoat for others poor decisions."
The newly reinstated SRO will be in schools starting Monday.
