Public commenters allege past corruption and say litigation now involves district

During the meeting's second public comment period, Rock Ferrone and his wife Marsha addressed the board and described an extended dispute that they characterized as exposing public corruption and ensuing retaliation.

Rock Ferrone said he had been involved in a public-corruption matter involving the county pension fund and that, after he exposed it, "the county came after me and the county used the Fox Chapel School District along with the county, along with the solicitor, to basically persecute me." He said he has sued the solicitor and that the judge ordered the Ferrones to include the Fox Chapel lawyer in the litigation; he stated that the district is now a party in related litigation. "We are in litigation right now," he said.

Marsha Ferrone described threats and harassment she said her family experienced after the matter became public, including alleged threats to an attorney's family and personal safety concerns; she said the family home was placed for sheriff's sale and urged board members to seek the truth about how the district became entangled in their case. She told trustees, "I believe that Fox Chapel School District is being used as a bank and as a puppet, and you're being brought into a corruption case that you really shouldn't be brought into." (Transcript contains variant spellings of some names and entities; the article uses corrected institutional names where appropriate.)

The board did not provide a recorded response on the record in the transcript. The Ferrones offered contact information and asked trustees to investigate further.

What happens next: the allegations were raised in public comment; board or administration representatives did not reply on the record during the meeting. The claims concern ongoing litigation and were not adjudicated at the meeting.