07/05/2026
Dear Friends, we’re pleased that Lakewood voters strongly demonstrated their commitment to public education by approving the school tax levy increase by a wide margin. Thank you! This outcome reflects our community’s continued support for investing in our schools and ensuring resources for our children.
We also want to congratulate Kelly Moyer on her successful election to represent Precinct 2C on the Democratic Central Committee. Kelly earned 73% of the vote on Tuesday, a decisive result that highlights the confidence voters have in her leadership. Throughout her campaign, Kelly emphasized transparency, accountability, and open decision-making… principles that resonate deeply with voters in our community. Her dedication to engaging residents and amplifying constituent voices will be an asset to both the Committee and Lakewood as a whole.
In addition, we recognize Marie Fechik-Kirk for running a strong and thoughtful campaign in Precinct 2E. Receiving 46% of the vote against a sitting member of City Council is a notable achievement. Her campaign also drove the highest voter turnout of any Democratic Committee race in Lakewood, underscoring meaningful community engagement and support for her message.
The strong support for candidates prioritizing transparency makes recent actions by the Board of Education all the more troubling. It was extremely concerning that Monday's Board of Education meeting was used as a tool to criticize and shame individual citizens for submitting lawful public records requests, including calling people out by name. The Superintendent and Board President clearly planned this staged action, as a way to target those who have been critical of their questionable leadership. Compounding this issue, the district has consistently not fulfilled many records requested, and instead prefers to utilize a law firm as a way to avoid transparency to deny many of those requests.
You can watch this portion of the school board meeting through the link in the first comment.
Public records requests are a lawful and essential part of civic participation under the Ohio Public Records Act, ensuring that residents can access information about how decisions are made and how public resources are used. No resident should be discouraged or singled out for exercising this right, as doing so risks undermining transparency, accountability, and public trust.
When district leadership publicly characterizes or calls out individuals for making such requests, it raises serious concerns about respect for the law, for transparency, and for community engagement. Additionally, this raises concerns under the First Amendment as a form of retaliatory conduct against protected petitioning activity.
Why is our Board of Education, superintendent, and treasurer spending their time and resources calling out individuals for making lawful public records requests rather than working towards greater transparency and accountability to our community? We call upon the Board of Education to carefully review their conduct, as well as the superintendent's and treasurer's, and consider whether it reflects the standards of professionalism and commitment to transparency that our community deserves and expects.
We urge the Board of Education to work to rebuild trust with the community - not just hire more lawyers to ensure they are complying with the law - but to build a better relationship with the community.
We at Preserve Lakewood Schools ask that you make your voice heard and stay active in promoting the critical need for openness and transparency from our school district leaders. We will continue to advocate for change from the ground up.
Sincerely,
Preserve Lakewood Schools
