A MAGA school board coup is afoot in the Heights

If you voted for Donald Trump in 2020, chances are your core values do not align well with the 80% of CH-UH residents who voted for Joe Biden. The Trump/Biden choice was stark. So far as I can tell, Maureen Lynn, Mordechai Rennert, and Charles Drake, the GOP slate running for CH-UH school board, are three red peas in a Trump-loving MAGA pod. 

Let's meet the candidates:

Maureen Lynn is a proud Trump supporter. She’s hosted several GOP fundraisers. Driving down Stillman, you may have caught a cardboard Trump waving to you from her living room window. Or maybe your kids were confused to find a Trump 2020 campaign sticker on the Halloween candy handed out by the Lynn family. Hopefully you didn't see Lynn proudly leading that anti-mask protest inside the Lee Road library. She forced our librarians to call the police.

Mordechai Rennert is a relatively new resident of Cleveland Heights. Or is he? He makes it hard to tell, since as recently as two months ago, in court proceedings, he claimed his current city of residence is Rochester, N.Y. He either lied under oath in New York, or he lied when he pulled school board petitions. He's also being sued by his kids' former New York private school for $125,000 in unpaid tuition.

Finally, we have Charles Drake, a former CPA whose certification was revoked by the state board in 2012. He claims to support public education, yet he steps to the mic at city council meetings to rail against our "failing public schools." No supporter of public education I know uses the racist state report card as a trustworthy measure of school performance or quality. 

While “All Are Welcome” in Cleveland Heights, that doesn't mean that everyone is a good fit for every board. City council? Maybe. Recreation board? Possibly. Two of the three might even be a decent fit for the library board.

I fear that Lynn/Rennert/Drake represent an existential threat to the core principles most of this community holds dear. Please do not be fooled as they drape themselves in the flag of fiscal responsibility. They are running to set it all on fire. If Lynn is as transparent as she claims, she'll be honest about their intent. 

Dan Heintz, Jodi Sourini, Mario Clopton-Zymler and Malia Lewis love our schools. Please vote for three of those four.

[Editor's note: The author bio. (below) has been updated to include additional information.]