Columbus City Council President Shannon Hardin, photo by ZGDavidson
Columbus City Council recently realized that there might be a problem with juvenile violence, curfew, truancy, early intervention, and paternal responsibility among the Columbus City Schools.
What’s their solution?
Call a public hearing!
April 2 at 2pm in the Council Chambers of City Hall.
This is an example in Columbus where leaders think that by holding one public hearing they will magically have the motivation to help people. It doesn’t work.
Useless talk in the air-conditioned halls of City Hall followed by at least one (and maybe more) posts to social media telling everyone that they care.
Unfortunately for the students this is “window dressing” by career politicians and nothing more. This isn’t about finding solutions; it’s about pretending to find solutions.
And who is leading this crusade to end juvenile violence?
Your next mayor of Columbus. The President of City Council – Shannon Hardin.
What about holding the public hearing at a place where the parking is free and it’s easy to attend?
Nope.
City Council loves their underground parking and locked offices to keep people away from asking questions.
Want to participate in local government? You pay for parking downtown.
If they wanted you to be involved they would have chosen a better location.
Wouldn’t a school have made more sense? You know, the place where teachers and students work and learn? They don’t want you to be involved in your city.
What about choosing a time when it’s easy to attend?
Nope.
2pm on a weekday works best for the part-time members of City Council; not you. If you have a job (paying taxes for their salary) there’s a good chance that you’ll be working at 2pm during the week.
This is a strategy to eliminate the opportunity to even consider outside opinions; other than their own. They don’t care what students, teachers or parents think.
It’s a lot like how they schedule the Committee on Employee Compensation meetings at 8:30am on weekdays. Therefore, nobody will attend or pay attention.
Hardin’s Career Comes First!
The 2pm public hearing might make more sense when you take into account that Hardin is also holding a birthday fundraiser for himself on the very same day beginning at 5pm. He is a career-politician and begging for money is a full-time job so that he can become the next mayor of Columbus.
But Wait, there’s More!
You would expect such an important issue would bring out every member of your gerrymandered and part-time City Council? Not a chance.
Hardin was only able to convince two other members of Council to attend. Why? Because both Remy and Ross owe their political lives to Hardin.
Hardin directed tens of thousands of dollars from Council members to get Ross elected in a city with gerrymandered at-large voting. Without him she would still be sitting in her office at the Coleman Center. Remy owes Hardin even more.
Instead of holding Remy accountable for abusing a city employee Shannon made him take a “leadership class” and had the city pay the victim $84,791 of your tax dollars to settle the lawsuit. None of those dollars have yet to be paid back by Remy. Without Shannon Hardin, Remy would be back to his other life as a luxury home realtor.
Hardin, Remy and Ross are NOT stupid.
All three have been supporting record-breaking tax abatements for wealthy developers and real estate investors. They belong to the Franklin County Democratic Party which keeps choosing candidates for the Columbus Board of Education. It’s all a rigged system to consolidate power and corruption known as “The Columbus Way.”
As a former teacher and resident of Columbus I’d like to attend this public hearing, but I know they don’t care about what I think. If they did then they would have scheduled it at a time and place where it would have been the easier to attend.
Let Me Save Them the Effort.
They could save themselves the effort of this meeting by ending all new tax abatements and rolling back the existing abatements by 50 percent. That would increase funding to Columbus City Schools by tens of millions of dollars.
Imagine the effect that would have on the schools?
If they were truly serious about the quality of our public schools they would end the Franklin County Democratic Party candidate endorsements for every election.
Let the best candidates earn their vote instead of allowing Chair Michael Sexton play chess with people who are using their election to school board as a stepping stone to a higher political office.
My Advice? Make Hardin a Columbus City Schools Substitute Teacher.
I would pay cash money to see Hardin work a few days as a substitute teacher with Columbus City Schools. The students might teach him something and working 7am to 3pm (plus grading papers after work) could be a dose of what a real job is like.
Then again, why stick your head into a school when you’re responsible for the tax abatements that eliminate tens of millions of dollars from their budget.
Would you want him teaching your child?
