Shelby County Dive Team – More Social Media False Claims Debunked –

Shelby Co. (ECWd)-

The current Shelby County Board has been taking steps to fix things that have been broken and in some cases ignored for years. In that process, the concerned citizens come to the meetings and want answers. However, it appears someone is circulating information without any fact-checking and it’s creating more division than I think we have ever seen in local government, and we have seen a lot.

A person with family ties to County Board member Teresa Boehm took to social media and while we fully respect everyone’s right to post what they want, when the information is false it does nothing but cause more problems and the circulation of more false information. This is the same person who selectively posts 3 emails rather than all 21 that were sent to the family member on the board, of which one of those emails from the insurance company clearly said arguably the dive team is not covered.

“Our county board knew they didn’t have the proper insurance coverage back in 2020 when it was brought up at a meeting and tabled, nothing further was done.”

Having attended every meeting since 2020 and even earlier along with recording them, I started reviewing the videos and was unable to locate anywhere this matter was tabled by the board as claimed, or even discussed.  I then submitted a simple FOIA request for the following:

“Copy of any county board minutes from 2020 that reflect the County Board tabled any matter related to the Dive Team not having insurance.”

The response from the county clerk:

“This office has no documents responsive to your request.  I found no Shelby County Board agendas or minutes for 2020 dealing with any issues related to the Dive Team.”

So if there are no records that there were any issues related to the Dive Team in 2020, why would a person with family ties to a board member make a claim that the board tabled the matter when the truth is there has not been a single dive team related matter before the board?  I understand some have claimed not finding a record does not mean the record does not exist and I agree.  However, we have videos, agendas, and minutes.  None of those documents that do exist indicate this matter being before the board.  On that point, while origination documents for the dive team have not been located, minutes are available and if the proper steps were taken and those records were lost, the action taken to establish the dive team would be recorded in the minutes.

Another statement that is questionable at best:

“Shelby County Dive Team are volunteers not part of the county which the board has stated several times.”

If this statement is true, why would the dive team submit resignations to the county board?  Why did they follow a stand-down directive if they were not part of the county? Why do they have a budget and receive county funding?

We have not found any record indicating the board has stated the dive team is not part of the county.  In fact, they all believed they were because of the line item budget for them.  When this board discovered the origination documents had never been done properly, they took steps to correct the matter.  To imply the “board” has stated this several times has not been found in a single video of the county board meetings that we have reviewed.  No, we have not reviewed every single video we have of county board meetings as that would take more time than we have to spend on this matter but reviewing agendas and recalling the last several years of meetings, we have not identified such a statement or one even close.  We welcome any proof the county board has stated the dive team is not part of the county.

“Mr Sonny Ross himself knew about the insurance long ago, but sat and waited until now to put the dive team on stand down just hours after the call between Austin and the ISP.”

I spoke with Mr. Ross and asked when he knew there was no insurance coverage. He informed me while the matter was being researched for the proper answer to the insurance question, he did not know for sure until the day the stand-down directive was given. If anyone has any proof that Ross knew about no insurance long ago, whatever long ago is, please share it with the world. Additionally, the stand-down order did not come “just hours” after the call between Austin and the ISP.  We covered that fact in this article.

As we have said for years when people say things, everyone needs to start asking two key questions:

Says Who and With What Proof?