After Delay, School Board Appoints Retired Business Person to Fill Vacancy

The Transylvania County School Board on Monday appointed Bryan O'Neill to fill an opening left by the resignation of former Board member Ron Kiviniemi in May

BREVARD — The Transylvania County School Board took more than two months — and, on Monday, less than five minutes — to fill the vacancy left by departed Board member Ron Kiviniemi.

With little discussion and a 3-1 vote, the Board appointed retired business person and community volunteer Bryan O’Neill to fill the post.

Board Vice Chair Kimsey Jackson, who nominated O’Neill, said he did so because “he’s got a very good business background” and “expressed an interest” in the job.

He’s also a Democrat, a required qualification in the state law that covers the selection process. Kiviniemi, who announced his resignation in May, was the Board’s lone Democrat, and the law states appointees must be affiliated with the same party as the people they replace.

Kiviniemi left a year before the end of his third term partly because of health concerns and a desire to move closer to family in Kentucky. But he also said he had been discouraged by disagreements with other Board members during closed-door sessions held in the spring to choose a new superintendent, Lisa Fletcher.

The selection of Kiviniemi’s replacement was also shaping up to be contentious.

Though the law said the choice must be made “immediately,” the Board failed to reach an agreement at a meeting last month, with members Chris Wiener and Tanya Dalton backing retired North Carolina Highway Patrol Master Trooper William Hemphill, while Jackson and Chair Tawny McCoy voted for former School Board member Marty Griffin.

Wiener started the short discussion Monday by again nominating Hemphill, previously an unsuccessful candidate for Transylvania County Sheriff. After this motion failed to pass, Jackson nominated O’Neill.

The Board members backing this choice included Dalton, who said after the meeting she was eager to see the matter resolved.

“We needed this to be settled,” she said.

After taking a seat on the Board and being asked by McCoy to introduce himself, O’Neill, 75, said he had been a resident of Connestee Falls for six years and serves on the board of the subdivision’s property owners association.

“I have been a CEO or president of companies for the last 20 years, I believe it is,” he added. “I wanted to be on the board of education because I believe it is extremely important for students of Transylvania County to receive a very high quality education in very good facilities.”

In a brief interview after the meeting, he said, the companies he led included a distributor of batteries and, before the onset of the Great Recession, his own home-improvement company.

That experience in construction and business will inform his work to progress on school renovations approved by voters in 2018.

“I’m hoping to get the bond thing resolved and get that finally moving,” he said.

His interest in the schools stems partly from his wife, Rachel, who for 31 years in their previous home of Broward County, Fla., taught special education, “which is very near and dear to my heart,” he said.

He has also served as board member and chair of the Connestee Falls Student Scholarship Program, which in recent years has raised more than $100,000 annually. This work included conducting interviews of high school students.

“Through the scholarship (program) I became familiar with the school system and ever since then I’ve been very interested in it,” he said.

He was one of five candidates recommended by the Transylvania County Democratic Party, and Chair Sam Edney wrote in an email on Tuesday that he supported the Board’s choice.

“Bryan will be a great board member, as would any of our candidates,” he wrote. “All were qualified as we've stated. More importantly, all were fans of education in general, and public schools in particular.”

Correction: A previous version misstated the employer of William Hemphill. He is a retired master trooper for the North Carolina Highway Patrol, not the corresponding agency in Florida.

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