Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed Torey Alston to the Broward School Board, leaving an important, but vacant position on the Broward County Commission.
Alston had been the governor’s hand-picked selection when the previous county commissioner gave it up to unsuccessfully run for Congress.
Now the seat is open again, after Alston moved on to fill the School Board seat, as part of a move by the governor to suspend four members at once. Their forced removal followed a statewide grand jury report, publicly released on Aug. 19, which found widespread mismanagement, as well as “fraud and deceit” by district administrators and School Board members.
But the county seat is only empty until November. Then it belongs to Hazelle Rogers, who won the election in this month’s primary.
Still, the short timeframe might not stop him. After all, three of the four School Board members appointed this month also end their terms in November, and they’ll be replaced by the winners of the runoff elections.
The only newcomer on the School Board who will stay longer is Alston. He will fill out the remaining two years of Patti Good’s term unless she successfully appeals her suspension to the state Senate.
So does DeSantis intend to fill the empty county seat before the November election? His office hasn’t yet said. “We don’t have any decisions to announce on that vacancy at this time,” a governor’s spokesperson said this week.
