Tag: superintendent

The Lakota Education Association Shows Their Radical Political Agenda: Teacher unions are the biggest danger to kids

It used to be controversial, to tell the truth about labor unions. All of them are the works of Karl Marx. Participating in a labor union is an acceptance of the basic premise of communism. Even four years ago, saying such a thing in public would have received snickers from an unsuspecting public; since the mid-1850s, labor unions have been around. They don’t predate our constitutions in America or the basic philosophy of the country’s founding, which is best summed up by the rival philosophy of Adam Smith and his excellent book The Wealth of Nations. The alarm bells of the communist movement by socialist sympathizers emerged with immigration into America during the late 1880s aggressively. Those rivals brought with them the assumption that European socialism, represented by the labor movement, the federal “Department of Labor,” was intent on carrying on the work of the poor loser, Karl Marx, who was a fool in his lifetime, and a weapon of global governments in his death. Everywhere that there is a labor union, we are dealing with some form of communism. In the 1920s, alarm bells sounded in books like The Richest Man in Babylon. Then in the 1940s and 1950s with, Ayn Rand’s uniquely American books addressed the matter. The idea of wealth creation and social organization were under attack by these recent communist assumptions, and over many decades they wore the mask of patriotism, confusing their members into believing that by espousing communist ideas, that they were somehow being patriotic. 

And the destructive effects of the labor movement were never more obvious in the teaching profession, as the radical progressive John Dewey imagined the role of public education. No matter how much money is spent with confiscated tax money from property values, all socialist schemes that predate all our lifetimes, public education will fail because it has been built on the progressive fantasies of John Dewey and his supporters in government and the communist labor union ideas of the various teacher unions. But things are different now; we’ve grown up in a lot of ways from the kind of world we were before President Trump was in office. Many things that were said about labor unions, and even the communist scares of the McCarthy hearings, turned out to be more true than anybody wanted to admit. Now, as we look at the trash heap of our political landscape, people are now admitting to the obvious. Labor unions don’t represent American values, and they have no place in the education of our children. Too many people listened to the labor union diatribes that have embedded themselves into many of our government institutions, and the collision of ideas was always bound to happen. It’s no longer about good wages for teachers, and smaller classrooms, as they have disguised their movement for years from public judgement; what it was always about, which I have warned people over three decades, is blue-haired losers who want to teach kids about sex in kindergarten, and convince them to embark on perverse sexual lifestyles at the earliest age possible. The results of the labor movement’s political escapades have devastated families, and the evidence has mounted up into a modern admission where people are finally willing to say the quiet stuff out loud. No labor union in a public school is good. They aren’t good for the kids. They aren’t good for the community. And they are anti-America at their very foundations and never should have been included in anything “public.” When people cry out that public schools should never be about “politics,” they simply have ignored that teacher unions are 100% about politics, and if they are not dealt with “politically,” then they will continue to erode away the basic hopes of anything good happening with tax money helping children learn the basics of an education. 

And that is the context of the battle raging in Lakota schools these days, where the Lakota Education Association, without a thought in their head, published to their members an antagonizing memo, shown here, trying to get their members to show up at a school board meeting and harass the first year school board member Darbi Boddy. Darbi, for her part, has made public admissions that she feels about the labor union, similar to my position, where she sees them as an impediment to the education of children, which is well founded. And the union responded by saying regarding a recent meeting, “You were under attack at this January 9th meeting by Ms. Boddy. She stated that she did not want to work with the LEA. We need to continue to show our union is strong, and it is not her choice that we have a voice!” Their activism resulted in a loud meeting with the threat of violence looming over everything obvious, meant to intimidate any supporters of Darbi Boddy who might dare to speak. And when many did, the union members didn’t have anything to offer but implied violence as a result. There is no logical debate that they can have because the foundation of their movement is communism straight out of The Communist Manifesto. So, they have violence and intimidation to support their claims of existence. But Darbi represents the voters of the community, who are in charge of everything, and that right predates anything Karl Marx ever wrote. So she is right to have an opinion on the matter, where the union has a mentality of changing it or getting rid of her. With that mindset, obviously, things were going to get pushy at the meetings. Finally, we are uncovering the real problem in these public schools because Darbi has had the guts to expose it by finally representing the public in public. And the LEA labor union hates it.

Labor unions are the primary danger to Lakota’s kids and all public schools. Their progressive mentality is corrosive to all efforts the human race might attempt to utilize, and years of their conduct are easily seen with history to support a destructive opinion of their foundations in philosophy. Follow the teachings of the labor union members, and you’ll get destroyed families—dangerous sexual lifestyles. You’ll raise corporate stooges who put money above family creation and will end up lost and destroyed as mature adults. You’ll end up with the kind of government we see today, ineffective, too expensive, and unaccountable. To be fair, I can’t think of one possible good thing that ever came out of a labor union, and the kind of society they are teaching to kids are promises of personal destruction. So their assumption that they have a right to exist is only a parasitic promise to steal wealth from hard-working property owners and use that money to destroy the community by destroying the kids in the process. I wouldn’t want any kids to be taught by the losers who attended that January 23rd school board meeting. I am glad that Darbi Boddy is a school board member who is willing to stand up to those hostile forces. And for the sake of the children attending Lakota schools, I would like to see at least two more school board members like Darbi Boddy, perhaps more aggressive than she is, there to govern that mess. The more who do, the more desperate the union members will become, showing the world what they are really made of. If left alone, they will continue to hide their liberal radicalism behind a façade of politeness. But when pressured, as they have been with Darbi Boddy, they show their true nature, which is wonderful for voters to see, and people will be able to see for themselves what the truth of the issue always has been. 

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

The Public Education Scam: It’s all about protecting an image to sell tax increases no matter how bad the behavior of the employees is

I wouldn’t say that Thom Fladung of Hennes Communications is the example of evil in the world, but it would be quite sufficient to define him and his partners as bricks in a vast wall of evil meant to destroy the First Amendment and ruin the foundations of American government. Whenever you see a message on some news report, such as, “we are not in a recession” or “the sex allegations are unproven,” you are likely seeing the work of some version of Thom Fladung working the media behind a veil of manipulation that would make William Shakespeare blush. In a clear case of child pornography possibilities, such as the Matt Miller case at Lakota schools, where the school superintendent was interviewed by police admitting to pillow talk about drugging, molesting, and videotaping the abuse for sexual gratification, and the kids weren’t random, but kids who went to the school he manages, the lack of concern for the children involved has been stunning. Rather than disciplining the superintendent or finding a new one, once this information got out in 2020 the school board called up Thom Fladung, a managing partner at Hennes. They advertise for just such crisis management. For them, a crisis is meant to be repaired to maintain reputations. And the reports are that Lakota schools were willing to spend over $300 per hour to make the Matt Miller story go away. They weren’t concerned about the behavior; the school board determined that what Matt Miller did in his private life had no impact on his job, even though in Matt’s ex-wife’s police interview, she indicated that there were naked pictures of kids on both of their phones which the superintendent had sent her and that during the divorce, there was a lot of effort to hide his online dating profiles with Ashley Madison, which were on his school computer. Logic would say that hearing such a thing, there would be an investigation to learn the truth, which would be vital if the school’s priorities were the students’ safety. Instead, they called Thom to come in and provide “reputation, crises management.”

This is how they contain stories and keep things from the public. Most people don’t understand the law or their rights and are easily intimidated. But not Venessa Wells. With the amount of information that has come out about this client, discovery would be a good thing, and would put everything in a public record where people could then learn much more. When I saw this, I took it as a bullying tactic, and I don’t like bullies. Especially after what we learned after the police report. The response to this notice resulted in legal action going the other way, and the lawsuits against the school that have been occurring. This employee of Lakota schools is their responsibility, and bad conduct will not be tolerated. They should have dealt with him in 2020 when they first learned of this vile behavior.

Apparently, Matt Miller is listed as one of the top superintendents in the country and is scheduled to speak at the ASU+GSV Summit at the Manchester Grand Hyatt from April 17th  through April 19th in San Diago, 2023. To protect that reputation, built over a long period of time, Lakota was willing in 2020, when they first learned about the problem, to pay to make it go away. The work of Thom kept local media from getting into the story and concealed the details from the public in general as if the public never had a right to know what kind of people they were hiring at Lakota with taxpayer money. The goal was concealment and protection of a reputation that was meant on paper to prop up the superintendent in progressive circles and get awards like a dog for doing what his master told him to do. According to the ASU bio, it says of Miller that he was one of only two superintendents in the country to lead the League’s Real-World Challenge Collaborative, the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative. Yes, that “Zuckerberg,” the progressive owner of Facebook, and his Zuckerbucks program to illegally steal elections with mail-in ballots tampered with during the 2020 election. Those are the kind of people who think that Matt Miller has been doing a good job. Miller has since gotten into a lot of trouble by essentially being the Dr. Fauci of Lakota schools and strictly enforcing the mask mandates for Covid, which made many parents angry. And when Miller dug in and became more combative, people started digging into his personal life and found this messy divorce which Thom has been paid to cover up. And now it’s out in the open, and everyone through public records who wants that information can have it.

And, of course, the reaction of Lakota to all this information, which is clearly terrible for the superintendent, was to cover it up. They tried to find a way to prevent massive amounts of evidence from coming out in public requests, text messages, dating profiles, emails, and all kinds of very serious allegations. But the information got out through the local sheriff’s department as it should have, leaving Lakota obviously uncovered about their methods. They had been caught covering up the actions of Matt Miller in 2020, and now they were paying more legal clean-up people to continue to cover it up. The media all had the information, of course, but by the rules established by people like Thom, who has experience as the managing editor of the Cleveland Plains Dealer and the Detroit Free Press, nobody was going to run with the story for fear of legal action. And in that way, crisis management professionals keep valuable information away from the public when they need it most. When bad things happen, and government schools or other institutions can hire someone like Thom Fladung to keep the information from the public, how can justice of any kind be utilized?   And it worked at Lakota with a story that should have been national news. A big-time school superintendent was caught in sexual conduct involving children, at the very least, thinking about sex with specific children, and there was proof from the police. It wasn’t hearsay and irrelevant or gossip talk. It came from Matt Miller’s own mouth during a police interview that is clearly indicated in the police report. 

The terrifying thing about this case is that everyone was caught red-handed. We know what Thom did and when; we know what the school board did and who knew what and when. We know what Matt Miller, the superintendent of Lakota schools, did because of a messy divorce that shows a very different person from the one who is supposed to be a featured speaker at ASU+GSV Summit, where they give you rewards for masking kids and following the progressive rules that Mark Zuckerberg is pushing on society. When those kinds of people like what you are doing, it only supports those who say government schools like Lakota are incubators of liberal politics meant to reprogram our children away from their parents and into a progressive nightmare that is unraveling all over the country currently. But to hide that evidence, Lakota would rather pay Thom Fladung to perform “reputation management” than to deal with the bad conduct that harmed the reputation in the first place. It’s a phony system built on lies and manipulation. And the media is obviously controlled by public relations and legal manipulators who keep things concealed behind the scenes in the hopes that the managing public who pays for everything will never find out. And when they do, they just grab the ball and hope to run out the clock by denying everything until people get tired of asking. The government plays a little game to protect its own; the police play along by not charging the target, which keeps it from being a story. Lawyers use threats of legal action to keep everyone on the fence.

Meanwhile, Mark Zuckerberg and his progressive friends give out rewards to people like Matt Miller for their work toward liberal politics on a mass scale; and the local government school uses that reputation to help sell more tax increases to the public. But lucky for the people of Lakota, there was a lot of citizen journalism that people like Thom Fladung didn’t control who did report the story, and people know what they need to now despite the efforts to cover it up. And now we see all these characters for what they are, what they did, and when. And we are far better off as taxpayers because of the bold actions of many people who just want their kids safe in public schools.

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

Rinos for Lakota: Time to call the public education scam for what it is

For the record, given the level of taxation we have now, locally, statewide, and nationally, you can’t be a conservative and be for higher taxes. Yet, at Lakota schools, behind all the reckless gossip of the superintendent’s life that has spilled over into his professional capacity, the real story under the surface of the debate is that Lakota has wasted all its money that has been generously given by the community and that levy whores are already pushing for tax increases to be placed on a ballot, because they know it will take several attempts to pass, to wear down the voters, and the big government spenders behind the Lakota school system want their money. And they are remarkably willing to overlook any problem so they can get it, which is grossly apparent not just by the labor union elements but the disguised face of the Democrat party, a Facebook group called Rinos For Lakota (Conservatives). They are obviously not conservative, they are pro-big government schools, and they want the hired superintendent, no matter his personal flaws, to sell a levy to the public and push up the income extorted from the community even higher than it is now. The school board recklessly gave out raises to the teacher’s union recently, and now they have to pay for it and are running out of money. So essentially, the next levy fight has already started, even if it’s not formally on the ballot, and Lakota has been keeping Matt Miller around, hoping that he has some miracle rabbit tucked away to pull out so that the public would vote for it. The anger toward whistleblowers reporting real news on Matt Miller is the giveaway to the real motivations and the example of why vast evil is permitted in public schools. Because groups like the Rino’s For Lakota Schools want the free babysitting, the hope that the school will be better parents for their kids than they are and that the school’s reputation will keep pushing up their real estate values artificially, perpetually, they don’t really care about the kids of the school, or what happens to them. They are like all liberals, they want what they want, and they’ll run over anybody to get it. 

There are plenty of lawyers involved. They’d all like some easy money out of a school that allows administrators to create unsafe environments for children. Be careful what you wish for.

Most of the assumptions that government school advocates utter, like the Rino’s for Lakota, are essentially old union talking points, like all public schools are the centerpiece of a community. If they go down, so will the community. Well, that’s false, and it’s time to call their bluff on that assumption. People move to a community for lots of reasons.   Schools might be one of them, but those tend to be low information, young neurotic parent types who eventually grow up anyway, often during election cycles. The unions have seized on this ignorance to exploit it for their own use, which is why we have our beliefs about public schools. But in truth, a good community full of good people is why a school district is successful. It’s not because of what a school does that makes a community good. The school system is simply riding on the backs of success that comes with the parents. Parents who move to a district because of the perception of a good school are already putting the extra effort into their children that is conducive to good behavior, so naturally, one thing causes the effects of the next thing. But it’s never the schools themselves that make something good. The belief that a school superintendent can make a good school is simply ridiculous. So is the notion that the teachers of Lakota are better than the teachers of Mason, or Monroe, or anyplace else. Lakota might be able to recruit good teachers for their first decade of service that might be better than other districts because of the nice roads, the great shopping, the wonderful restaurants, and other great things. But they are all unionized employees, and by the time they reach their shelf life after a decade or so of service, they start to become complicit slugs that aren’t worth the money we spend on them. 

But when that belief system is jeopardized, you can see by some of these Facebook musings from the Rino’s of Lakota that they have bought the ruse hook, line, and sinker. They swallowed the union bait and have built their lives around the scam. And they hope for the protection of legalizations to maintain their vast illusion. When people come along who challenge their premise, they get angry because they fear that everything they have built their lives around is false. And they want to attack anybody who shakes their confidence in that system they want to believe so intensely because they are too lazy to let the facts guide their decisions. It’s interesting to consider that just in April of 2022, the school board, led by many of these Rinos for Lakota, wanted to get rid of Darbi Boddy because if she stayed on the board, Matt Miller might leave for another district. Now, because they have seen Matt Miller’s police report, most everyone would gladly keep Darbi and say bye-bye to Matt.   Yet, the Rinos for Lakota aren’t mad at Matt; they are upset that anybody exposed Matt for who he really was. We went from complete illusion in April to an overdose of reality by September. And if the world were run by people like the Kool-Aid drinkers of Rino’s for Lakota, we would never know what kind of activity these public-school administrators were up to because the school itself, with the help of the board, would simply cover it up. 

My suggestion would be to call the public education bluff and terminate the superintendent on grounds based on his behavior. There are plenty of opportunities in his contract to release him based on his personal behavior that has impacted his public role as a hired administrator. But the main concern for Lakota, the teacher’s union, and groups like these Rino’s for Lakota is for the passage of another levy. They know they need the money, and they are hoping they can sit on this story and push it under the rug, then parade Matt around to high school football games like he’s Elvis and appeal to the young moms who are voters and might vote for a tax increase because they find him appealing. They aren’t selling facts but purely imaginary hopes and dreams with no bases in reality. They hope to control the narrative with rules and procedures that protect them from whistleblower judgment, and when that fails to protect their intentions, they get upset and scream to the gods of legalism for more power to shut down the voices that would tell them the truth. Because they don’t want to hear it. But regardless of their wishes, many people spend money on Lakota schools, and they are in the vast minority. Vanessa Wells only lost in her election because she made an ethical decision not to carry the Republican nomination. If she had kept it, she would have easily beaten anybody on the current school board. And that is a lesson for the next time around. But, if she had been elected to the board, she would not have had the freedom to act as a conduit of valuable information as she is now. And we likely wouldn’t know what we do. And Lakota is far better off knowing the condition of its employees than in not. Because if it really wants to get better, as a district, it will correct the bad things so people can believe in it beyond just mindless lip service from people too lazy to consider the truth.  

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

The Lakota School Board Has Always Been Political: So why do they want peace now?

Wait a minute, why was Julie Shaffer crying at the Lakota school board meeting on September 12th? After all, she has been one of the most vicious political activists on the school board over the years. She has come after me before, quite viciously. In 2012, after Lakota had suffered its third levy defeat and figured that the only way they would ever win a tax increase from the community was to get rid of me, they came after me in a very public way, not in a softball manner. So since they couldn’t beat me in debate, Julie worked with several school board members and the Cincinnati media to destroy me viciously, which has been well chronicled. For most people, what she and the Lakota school board did to me would have destroyed them, and they didn’t care what it did to my family, life, or reputation in the community. They just wanted me gone, and they took the kill shot, and so did the Cincinnati media, which was hooked in lockstep with them, just as they are today. I have recently watched them do the same thing to Darbi Boddy. After voters elected her, the Lakota school board decided they didn’t want her, so they conspired to get rid of her viciously, with fangs out, and ruthlessly, blowing on the fires of liberal activism throughout the community. They didn’t care one bit what it might do to Darbi, her family, or her reputation. They simply wanted to destroy her in any way possible. 

But then, at the school board meeting’s closing comments, it came time for Julie to provide her’s; fighting back the tears, she said, “that I wish that people could remember that this is more than political theater and that these are people’s lives and future and what they worked for their entire career, and there are more people involved and that these are more than people’s points on a score card.” Well, isn’t that an astonishing statement? Who would have figured that she would say such a thing, given her track record? But then that opens up a whole new can of worms. Suppose she has such a public double standard depending on the political situation. How much bad behavior has she been willing to explain away in the past, knowing what this information tells us about her? I already know the answer, but for you, dear reader, let’s just have a little fun with it. For many years, I have heard of many cover-up stories that the Lakota school board has whitewashed. My hope was that with the current school board candidates that maybe that would change. But as soon as Darbi was elected, the knives came out, and surprisingly, Lynda did not come to her defense like I expected that she would and should. I have not been a fan of public education for many years now. I think teaching kids a progressive, liberal education is a huge waste of money. But I have worked with school board members like Lynda over the years to try and save the system. I have come to the defense of many who found themselves without a voice where the media did not want to tell their stories of bad conduct inflicted upon them to improve the school. I didn’t let my feelings toward people like Julie Shaffer inspire a campaign of complete destruction of the public school system in my district. I’ve held back a lot to make the thing work because I knew there were people like Lynda there trying to make it better. 

But then I heard at that same meeting Lynda gave a strange interpretation of the police report, which is available from the Sheriff’s Department as a public record’s request. Anybody can see it and read it, yet Lynda had a strange interpretation of it. She said, “there are no credible allegations against Mr. Miller. The Sheriff’s Office completed its investigation and found there was ‘no probable cause to initiate criminal charges.'” Well, actually, what the police report says at the end of a description of really extraordinary allegations and a police investigation that seems unreal is that the prosecutor said, “at this time,” as in to mean there wasn’t enough evidence at that point to further criminal charges. It does not “clear” Matt Miller as the media and Lynda said it did. Rather, it eludes to much more, suggesting that there may be more to come. What is implied, knowing some of the inside information from the various witnesses, is that it is hoped that this police report will shut down the investigation unless the public demands more. If the public does, then the prosecutor’s behind would be covered to further the investigation. What is astonishing is that Lynda establishes herself as the judge as to whether or not witnesses are credible or not. So what does that say about the school board that she leads? If someone comes forward with information that the school board doesn’t like, does that mean that the school board doesn’t take it seriously? If the Board is anti-Darbi, anti-Tea Party, anti-Republican, does that mean they will disregard the information if it comes from those sources? I have known Lynda O’Conner for a fifth of my life and think of her as a smart woman. A well-intentioned woman. These statements by her seem strange, not her. But then again, maybe the only reason I’ve ever had a relationship with her was for her to keep her enemies close. Nothing would surprise me. Like I say, always judge people based on what they do, not what they say. 

The hypocrisy of it all is that, on the one hand, the school board is all about politics so long as they are destroying the people they don’t want around. But, they will rally to their own people even if those people are guilty as can be, which everyone should find alarming. This isn’t some conspiracy theory; we see this publicly at school board meetings. Compare the police report with what the Board said at the meeting, and everything becomes very clear. Matt Miller created his own problems. Yes, people have a problem with his behavior and are making their opposition known. But people like Julie Shaffer and her school board accomplices set the ground rules for bloodthirsty politics long ago. They take public money to function, and I wouldn’t say I like paying it for the garbage we get from each graduating class. Lynda knows how I felt, but we still worked together to assemble a nice school board that represented the public more than we had. I am surprised that she turned on Darbi as she did. I was also surprised to hear her say the things she did at the latest school board meeting. But then again, maybe not. You never really find out about people until you go through the pressure cooker with them. If Matt hadn’t done what he did to Darbi with the help of the Board led by Lynda and people like Julie to destroy her completely, then the witnesses against Matt Miller would have probably never had the strength to speak out for themselves and go public with the information that has the Lakota superintendent in so much trouble now. He did it to himself. People are only willing to take so much, and because of what those antagonists did at Lakota toward conservatives in the community, over a long period of time, they have asked for what is happening now. And if Lynda doesn’t think the person who was married to Matt, and her many friends wasn’t a credible witness even after the police did their interviews, maybe she is having trouble with definitions these days, just as she obviously has with the police report.

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

Where is the Sheriff Jones Press Conference: Just ask your friendly Neighborhood Lakota School Board Member

Matt Miller of Lakota schools has been very open about trying to get rid of political enemies as he did Todd Parnell over woke politics during bad conduct among the student population, then again with Darbi Boddy when she showed up unannounced to take pictures on the walls of CRT teachings reported there. In both cases the Lakota superintendent, Matt Miller took action to force resignations, which was an insult to the people who voted for those representatives. He acted in a way that showed disregard for what damage might occur to those personalities and what it might cost them professionally or personally. That might seem fair in love and war, but when he stumbles on things, he shouldn’t expect people to treat him lightly. After a messy divorce, some of the documents from that divorce have been revealed by his ex-wife, and many within the Lakota school district have now seen what those documents say. He might say she’s crazy, as a lot of men do about their ex-wives as they try to move on after a previous marriage, but from what she has said about him, it’s clear that we need as a community to check it out. At the very least, the superintendent owes the tax-paying public an explanation that explains away what she has been saying with written testimony. I’ve never been a big fan of Matt, and always thought his $200,000 salary was too much and thought a less expensive person could quickly replace him. That evidence reported by his ex-wife was turned over to the police because it went well beyond politics and community gossip but straight to matters that only law enforcement should be dealing with. There were text messages which came from his phone with entire conversations on them where really bad things were talked about. They were screenshots taken by his spouse. The Lakota school board now has possession of much of this material in addition to many more items that are now public record and are available upon request. Could they be fake, perhaps, that was for the police to correspond through an investigation, which they have been conducting? I reminded everyone involved, which was a growing list of angry people made that way by the way Matt Miller dealt with his political enemies, that everyone had the right to due process. He might be innocent, and all this evidence could be made up. But as things have matured, it looked less likely, so it was all turned over to the police and the Lakota school board, and now that school has started, people are frustrated that the investigation was taking too long. Because based on previous actions and the safety of kids considered as the priority, the lack of urgency by all involved has left many questions. Questions, after all, are perfectly logical, especially after what we learned about the Jason Gmoser child pornography case. I personally like Mike Gmoser, the Butler County prosecutor. But his relationship to that case which carried with it life imprisonment, indicates to the community that when we hear of cases that might be unbelievable otherwise, we have an obligation to investigate at a minimum.

And for good reason, after all, there is a six-count indictment against Butler County Auditor Roger Reynolds over just a real estate transaction that led Sheriff Jones and the Attorney General, David Yost, to give press conferences about, and that entire case was built on hearsay, where one party said something about another party that was in the public eye. Many people think that the case against Roger Reynolds is entirely political. Still, if that is the level of criteria we are using to measure legal cases, then there is a lot more hearsay involved in the Matt Miller divorce where his ex-wife is saying in writing much, much, much worse. I again would offer that Matt might be innocent, but when there is that much smoke, there is fire to stir it up. Why wasn’t Sheriff Jones standing in front of his emblem at his office and giving a press conference announcing all he and the police were doing to protect kids from the potential danger of the superintendent at Lakota, according to a reliable witness, his ex-wife? Do we just take his word for her credibility? As a community that pays his salary and counts on him to sell Lakota to the world as a safe and reliable place to send children, are we supposed to ignore what she is struggling to say because it’s inconvenient or that we might personally like the superintendent? It would be one thing if the accusations were just spoken, but these were written in text messages, confirmed by police interviews, and court documents from the divorce corresponded with the conversations. So, there is more than enough evidence to take caution on the matter and find out what’s going on. But after several weeks, and school starting with many upset who know about the matter looking for some acknowledgment of justice, the cold reality of a perceived cover-up was beginning to take hold.

The media wasn’t camped outside his home the way they were with Darbi Boddy when Matt Miller served her with trespassing papers on a school she is supposed to be managing as a board member. Matt took it so far that her story made the national news, and it was very embarrassing for her. Wasn’t that a purposeful defamation of her character? She was only a few months on the job after being newly elected, and obviously, Matt Miller was doing to her what he had done previously to Todd Parnell. He might have thought that a good idea, but he made a lot of political enemies by doing it, and shortly after that came a barrage of whispers about his sex life. You would expect a person who makes as much money as he does to show better discretion than all this. He should have never picked fights like this unless he was squeaky clean, and I mean eat off the glass clean. He might have a good explanation for the behavior of his ex-wife, and he should explain it, instead of digging in and avoiding the problem publicly. His lack of direct response to these issues has fed the fears in the people who have seen the text messages. And for those he has made political enemies out of, they are looking for anything to hang him on. And if he gave them the rope, that’s on him.

One of those six indictments against Roger Reynolds is a statement by Jenni Logan, who surprisingly left her job as Lakota’s treasurer on August 1st of, 2022, just a few weeks ago. Given the timing of this information and how it has been brewing for much of the previous school year, we must now look at who knew what and when and how involved they were in all this, if at all. But first, we must allow due process to do its work. The evidence must be validated, and explanations are mandated. For people to regain trust in Lakota as a school system, an investigation is necessary because this erosion of trust has brought us to this place and was created by Lakota management. Trust is earned; it isn’t just given away by title and by the way Matt Miller has actively worked to get rid of political rivals, as he did with Todd Parnell, and has tried to do with great fanfare Darbi Boddy, there was going to be a cost to it. The anger created by him has caused people to talk, and evidence was bound to come forth. But this isn’t just some community gossip. It’s a family member and a network of mad moms provoked by a long history of Matt Miller’s community interaction. At the very least, he has shown really bad judgment. At the worst, that’s for the police investigation to determine. Based on how the Sheriff’s department went after Roger Reynolds over much less evidence, we should expect the police to confirm or deny the results of their investigation. Doing the right thing is sometimes very hard, but we all have an obligation to justice. Otherwise, we will just get a lot more bad behavior in the future. 

I would have preferred to just see what comes from the police investigation, but after the events that occurred on Monday the 22nd of August 2022 some understandings must be met. I watched the school board meeting to see how this issue would be addressed, knowing the contents of the email that was sent to the school board earlier that morning. The same email ended up in all of the media by the afternoon sent by the person who wrote the board her concerns. Yet the reaction by the superintendent was a threat that would open up a whole can of worms with witness testimony and submitted evidence, police interviews–and mostly silence by Lakota generally, except for massive amounts of gossip. What started as a concerned parent reporting what was told to her that was very much a police matter; the public employees don’t get to go on the attack against their boss, the voters of Lakota. Explanations are the burden of the superintendent, it’s his life, his mess, and it’s up to him to explain all this to people for continued employment. The institution of Lakota is not more important than the individual people involved. And as to the superintendent’s reputation, he has to be able to manage all these things as part of his job. He owes us, the taxpayers, a lot of answers. But he doesn’t get to boss around members of the community for things he has himself opened the door to. He is not the victim, he is the responsible party, and the burden of explanation falls on him.

Rich Hoffman