Fascinating: Update on CPS litigation on campaigning with public dollars

In case you had not noticed, COAST is very much enjoying its pursuit of the litigation against Cincinnati Public Schools and Superintendent Mary Ronan for their systematic misuse (read: theft) of public resources to subsidize the campaign for the 2012 campaign generally (for leftist candidates and causes) and the 2012 school levy renewal campaign specifically.



For, despite a 2002 lawsuit over such behavior, and a resulting agreement with COAST in which CPS promised never to do it again, and despite a high-profile 2010 suit in which the excesses of Hughes High School Principal and political activist Virginia Rhodes was exposed, in the 2012 campaign, CPS accelerated the abuse to new heights.

And they left a trail of electronic breadcrumbs for COAST to follow right back to the wrongdoers.  And those thousands of e-mails well document their misdeeds.

So, here are the latest developments in that 2012 law suit:

• Friday a week ago, CPS produced 6,000 pages of internal e-mails showing the depth of its involvement in the levy campaign through the official e-mail system of CPS, including principals and union representatives in several schools campaigning on school time and with school resources.  
• COAST is daily producing snippets of those e-mails on this blog.  Later this week,w e will post all 6,000 pages on COAST's www.scribd.com account for the public to peruse.
• On Monday of this past week, Judge Steve Martin ordered CASE and its campaign manager, CFT and Tom Frank (a CPS-paid teacher "on loan to the campaign") to turn over what is expected to be many thousand more e-mails to and from personal e-mail accounts of principals, building representatives and others campaigning for matters on the November 6 ballot.
• COAST has issued more than 150 subpoenas in all for records from CPS insiders that will show their involvement on government time in the campaign activities.
• Next month, COAST starts dozens of depositions of CPS personnel, asking them one-on-one about their blatant misuse of tax dollars even after having been warned about the constraints of Ohio law and COAST's 2002 agreement.

It is COAST's objective in this litigation to again publicly expose the abuse of tax dollars for campaign purposes, and to get a permanent injunction against CPS, providing continuing Court supervision of the Board of Education on this critical issue going forward.

It appears CPS bureaucrats and elected school board members are incapable of self-regulating on this important matter of public trust.