The DDN reports that the Superintendent of Kettering Schools, Robert Mengerink, has accepted a new position as leader of the largest educational center in the state and is moving to Cuyahoga County.

Wow. I keep wondering if I should file a complaint with the Ohio Elections Commission about false claims made in the ad campaign for Kettering’s recently approved 6.9 mill renewal school levy. To file such a complaint, I would cite Dr. Mengerink, specifically, as the source of false statements during the ad campaign. He seems to have gotten carried away with his zeal to pass this important levy. And now, he is leaving the district.

These false statements, in my judgment, were part of an antidemocracy campaign whose deliberate strategy was to suppress voter turnout for the 6.9 mill renewal levy vote.

I’ve had a long phone conversation with Betty Springer, the Executive Secretary, of the Ohio Elections Commission about the process of filing such a complaint. It sounds like it there are some technical requirements that a complaint must follow in order to be considered, but it seems clear to me that Dr. Mengerink’s statements fit the criteria of the code. Writing the whole thing up in the correct form, however, would be a challenge.

The language in the code that I am looking at is: “Post, publish, circulate, distribute, or otherwise disseminate, a false statement, either knowing the same to be false or acting with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not, that is designed to promote the adoption or defeat of any ballot proposition or issue.”