BRACK: Don’t fall for this school board con

Charleston County School Board at an October meeting.

By Andy Brack, editor and publisher  |  The effort by a secret, out-of-state group to denigrate West Ashley school board candidate Priscilla Jeffery has backfired with this voter.

Before receiving a nasty, hateful, unconscionable piece of direct mail on Saturday, I wasn’t sure which two candidates I would pick of three seeking two West Ashley seats on the board – Jeffery, former school administrator Gary Leonard or incumbent Michael Miller.

But after that scurrilous, name-calling mailer, Jeffery is definitely getting my vote, even though I don’t know her from Adam.

Anyone without the courage to put their real names on an attack that has spent thousands and thousands of dollars trying to influence this local election is just plain wrong.  Miller and Leonard, whose pictures are shown together in ads touting their candidacy, have disavowed the smear.  In the only news story about the whole mess, Miller implored the group to stop using his name and image.  Leonard also wants the group, which ran another misleading, full-page advertisement in a local paper today – to stop its effort.

Who knows who is behind this mess?  The flyer and advertising lists the backer of the ad as a group called “Charleston Parents for Great Public Schools LLC.”  Normally, you’d think this was a local group.  But it’s not registered in South Carolina.  It’s an “organization” registered to a Washington, D.C., address that’s the same as a bigtime law firm’s through a company that registers companies.  The physical address on the flyer and in ads is a post office box on Savannah Highway.

Get the idea?  Whoever is behind this negative, campaign finagling doesn’t want you to know who they really are, but they want to con you into voting how they want you to vote.

Don’t fall for the con.  It is time to END the politics of personal destruction from groups like this rich-boy, nameless, secret cabal that is trying to influence this Charleston election.

One way I’m fighting back is by voting for Priscilla Jeffery.  You should too.

Next on tap:  Maybe it’s time to start talking about how we elect members to the generally-dysfunctional school board.  In an era of single-member districts for the legislature and county council, maybe it’s time to look at this for school board, too.

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