for Columbus City Schools are calling the controversy leading up to a possible vote this month a distraction.
Hardwick signed up to make a public comment before the Board of Education on May 21st. That is the board meeting cited in a now controversial communications documentAmid the pages of questionable strategies, Simmons targeted public comment and wrote the list of speakers should be stacked to favor the district's agenda.
However, he said he called CCS customer service hours before the meeting to cancel and ask that someone else take his spot. That did not happen. The next speaker on the list was Vlad Kogan, who is also a proponent of school mergers and closures. "I think this is real trouble," said Marcy Fleisher with public relations firm Team Fleisher Communication. "If they're not in a crisis, they're walking towards one."