STATEMENT OF MARK Y. SUSSMAN INTRODUCTORY COMMENT When I found out about the most recent lawsuit by Dr.

Kegerise and Attorney Kutulakis, my first reaction was to not say anything, to just leave it to the lawyers and the court. But then I read the press statements made by Mr. Kutulakis over the past couple of days. This latest complaint and those statements are, at best, misrepresentations. They misrepresent me. They misrepresent Jesse Rawls, Sr. They misrepresent the facts. John Dietrich, Jesse Rawls and I have been working for more than two years to do what is best for the School District. We have tried to work with other board members and the administration. We have kept in touch with those who elected us. We campaigned for candidates who we felt were running with the best interest of our district at heart. The response has been bullying tactics such as the threatening letters we started receiving from Mr. Kutulakis in February 2013. This latest lawsuit is just another attempt to continuing to bully the School Board and the whole District.

JESSES ALLEGED FAILURE TO NOTIFY RE: RENEW CONTRACT The complaint contains many distorted accusations presented in the form of facts and this is one example. Jesses last day as Board President in 2012 occurred two months before the required Notice regarding the superintendents contract. There was no reason to provide Notice months before it was required. In addition, the decision to provide that Notice was a decision for the full board to make, not just one member such as Jesse

FACTS ALLEGED REGARDING EXECUTIVE SESSIONS. It would be inappropriate for me to discuss matters of executive session. That said, a court hearing on these incidents will provide clarification on what actually happened.

JESSES VISIT TO SCHOOLS As stated in the Complaint, Jesse visited the school on February 5th. But the complaint fails to mention that the policy preventing such visits was not adopted until October 28th, a full eight months later. So they accuse an elected school board member of visiting schools in the district. Wouldnt it be nice if we saw more of our elected officials visiting the areas for which they were elected?

VOTING AGAINST DR. KEGERISES CONTRACT The board members who voted against the contract were not provided it ahead of time. I was given less than 37 minutes to review it and ask questions about the contract. I did not have enough time to even read through the whole contract let alone fully understand its implications. I would not recommend a business to sign a contract without fully reading it so why would I vote for a contract I didnt read? The question is not why three of us voted against the contract, the question is why did the others vote for it?

LAWSUIT TO VOID CONTRACT There were two reasons we filed that lawsuit. First, there are provisions in the contract which clearly are contrary to state law. Our lawsuit asked to strike those provisions so that we could correct them to follow state law. Second, part of the suit was to regain our first amendment rights of free speech. I was receiving intimidating letters from Mr. Kutulakis threatening me with a lawsuit simply because I had talked to parents and other district voters. These bullying tactics were inhibiting my ability to do the job I was elected to do. This treatment was unrelenting, leaving us with the only alternative of suing to regain our rights for which we were elected.

POSTINGS ON PENNLIVE These accusations are absurd. I did not make those postings and have nothing to do with those screen names.

TIMING OF FILING OUR LAWSUIT JUST BEFORE THE ELECTION I had been looking for an attorney to defend my rights. Then, in October, I was talking to Bret Keisling about other issues in the District when the conversation turned to Mr. Kutulakis attempts to prevent me from talking to parents in the district. That is when Mr. Keisling volunteered to defend my rights. I cannot thank him enough and there are others in the district who feel the same way.

PRESS CONFERENCE ON NOVEMBER 1 We became aware of a call for a board meeting that excluded Jesse, me and also John Dietrich, who was not a party in potential litigation. We went to the administration building to make sure that an illegal board meeting would not take place in violation of the Sunshine Act. Because of our presence, and that of the media, no illegal meeting took place.

BRET KEISLING YELLING AT DR. KEGERISE I heard Mr. Keisling complimenting Dr. Kegerise on the wonderful education his sons received at STSD. Next thing I heard was former Solicitor Paul Blunt screaming at Mr. Keisling. Mr. Keisling then reacted to Mr. Blunt. At no time during his conversation with Dr. Kegerise did I hear Mr. Keisling raise his voice or talk to her about litigation.

POLICE CALLED TO DISTRICT ON NOVEMBER 1ST Yes, the police were called on November 1. The police took no action at all when they realized that the dispute was about three board members just trying to attend a board meeting.

WHY IT TOOK US SO LONG TO FILE THE COMPLAINT We announced our intent to file the complaint on October 31. Mr Keisling, our attorney, then received requests from Mr. Kutulakis and Mr. Warshawky, then a candidate for school board, to delay the filing until after the upcoming election. It was decided to grant their requests and delay filing the lawsuit. After we made the announcement of our intent to file, a large number of people came forward with other relevant information. We simply wanted to make sure this information was included so our complaint completely and accurately reported the facts. Thus, the delay.

ADMENDED COMPLAINT DROPPING ACTION AGAINST BOARD It had become clear that continuing the law suit against the District was inhibiting us from participating in the governing of the District. Thus, at the suggestion of some of our fellow board members, we dropped the District from our suit.

DROPPING THE ACTION AGAINST DR. KEGERISE Interim Solicitor Jeffrey Engle suggested we drop the lawsuit as a good-faith effort to allow our district to focus on issues not related to litigation. In addition, we felt our purposes for filing were fulfilled. Mr. Kutulakis intimidating tactics were exposed for what they are. We thought the public exposure would have put a stop to it. Obviously we were wrong and Mr. Kutulakis continues to bully us and the District.

REAL ESTATE MEETING I had nothing to do with the planning or scheduling of that meeting. I only found out about it when real estate agent Cynthia Armour-Helm posted an invite to the meeting on Facebook. My understanding was that Ms. Armour-Helm did this as a public service to answer questions being raised within the community. She ran the meeting on her own and made her own decisions on starting and ending the meeting. I did attend the meeting and it was very informative. Since there was great public speculation about the effects of the STSD issues on property values, Im glad I took the time to learn the facts. I am also grateful to Ms. Armour-Helm and Exit Realty for the service they provided our community.

SHARKEY ISSUES I could not comment on that since that is a matter of pending litigation.

HIRING OF BUSINESS MANAGER Dr. Kegerises complaint is wrong. I was not and am not involved in any of the interviewing.

Finally, Im disappointed when I see public comments referring to STSD as a once-great school district. As a graduate of our High School, I can tell you STSD is still a great school district, and Susquehanna Township a wonderful community. As we move ahead, Im looking forward to working with the administration, fellow Board members, parents and the community to ensure that we put this unfortunate era behind us as quickly as possible.