Of course, there has to be legal action against the Lakota school system and directly against their public employee Matt Miller, the controversial superintendent. A reasonably sized class action lawsuit is around 20 people, and there are more than enough people involved already to participate in one against these parties after the desist letters issued by the superintendent’s attorney Elizabeth Tuck were sent out to at least 6 to 7 different people issuing threats of financial destruction for essentially being concerned about the actions of the superintendent. The issue was always about children, character, and legality, which was quite clear from the public speakers at Lakota during their meeting on November 7^th. Under any circumstances, concerns about abused children are the first priority. When it was learned that this public employee, Matt Miller, participated in sexual fantasies about kids who attend the school he manages, people were upset about it. This was, of course, the talk of the evening at the various election night ceremonies that I was involved in, and these letters from Elizabeth were the topic of much anger. There would have to be an answer now that the action was taken. It centered around the language of the threat letter itself, where it emphasized that Matt Miller had spent 30 years building community goodwill and his professional reputation and that the people are receiving one of these threat letters initiated, published, and disseminated false, destructive, and defamatory statements about him as part of a malicious conspiracy to damage that goodwill and reputation and either effect his termination or extort him into resigning. Well, that’s what started this whole process because Matt Miller was guilty of doing all those things to Darbi Boddy, the newly elected school board member, so if that were the standard, well, then he would be vulnerable to that action as well. Reviewing that part of the letter reminded me of a discussion I had with school board members a few years prior regarding Matt Miller.

At the time, I could have cared less about Matt Miller or why the board was worried that he would sue the board for millions of dollars for a contractual breech over his actions that were revealed during his messy divorce. To be somewhat fair to the school board, who didn’t know much about legal matters and consulted their attornies on the risk of enforcing some judgment about their public employee that might be protected in his contract for lack of some “morality” clause. So instead, they turned to cover up as much of his behavior from the public as they could. That’s also the same dumb advice they received recently when they tried to shut down public comments at school board meetings. And the same boneheaded tactic behind these letters of intimidation that were issued by the Tuck Firm representing Matt Miller in an attempt to repair a reputation that he damaged by his own actions. The effort behind it all has been to contain bad behavior, not correcting it.   And when you start adding up all the fees for PR firms, lawyers, and the other elements of what public employees cost a community when they go bad, the cost is extraordinarily high. Likely, Lakota schools had paid out as much money as Matt Miller could have sued the district for anyway, so where is the advantage? I’ve read his contract, and it could be argued that what he has cost the community should be compensated by him back to the taxpayers because of his behavior and could certainly be argued by a competent presentation of the facts to any court. 

What we see at many levels is mismanagement of the Lakota school system by public employees, and the school board, who simply hired too many firms to bridge their lack of knowledge on these kinds of disputes, and to hide all that mismanagement from the public.  To compensate for that expensive level of incompetence, they have turned to harassment to shut down critics who expect much better from their school district. For my part, I have no tolerance for someone who engages in sexual fantasies with children at any level, and they shouldn’t be running a school because of that condition. If it’s not against the law, it should be, and maybe there needs to be a legal case to make it a law for the future. Perhaps it’s not against the law because nobody ever thought anybody would do such a thing. Regardless of what people think about the law or the definition of evidence, there is a police report where Matt Miller admitted to doing this very real act, which is part of the public record. So this interpretation of evidence that Elizabeth Tuck has proposed in her intimidation letter is full of opportunities to clear up any loose ends that might be debated in the future. Especially when kids are involved, any recipient of knowledge that may be illegal or harmful to others must see something and say something, which is what occurred. The behavior was conducted and is the responsibility of Lakota’s public employee, and that employee is liable for damages that they have incurred upon the public with their actions. And the school district is liable for the damages imposed on the public for their lack of management of their employee, who clearly feel entitled to a job at taxpayer expense no matter what personal conduct they have decided to participate in. The person who committed many bad deeds does not get to attack the people who find his behavior reprehensible, and everyone just quietly hides. It has become known that there are many threats imposed on the Central Office over this issue, so this is an extensive campaign of intimidation that cannot be tolerated in our community. 

There’s a lot to consider in taking action to recover losses caused by Matt Miller to the community. The school that mismanaged that employee and allowed that person to commit all these acts against an elected school board member, loss of reputation, defamation, destruction of Darbi Boddy’s brand, and the reputation of others, logic has to be put into the language of legality, which many people glaze over when the subject is brought up. But the same effort that we raised money to elect school board candidates to now articulate the case from very competent legal minds is not unreasonable. I already have several contributors who are eager to start that process at a high level. When it is considered how much the Lakota superintendent has cost by his lifestyle actions in reputation management as opposed to direct contract enforcement, there is a very justified approach to resolving this manner properly, where the public is in charge and not the activism of employees who initiated the guilt on every level, especially in the defamation of character that was invested into the destruction of Darbi Boddy which started all this in April of 2022. Matt Miller would have been good to just stick with the fruit basket he gave to the new school board members in January. But when he made a move to get rid of Darbi Boddy, well, then her supporters were going to fight back. That was politics, and all is fair in it. But when fantasies with kids became known, well, that changed everything. And at that point, there is an obligation to the preservation of children. And if Matt Miller turned out to be innocent, and the police cleared him, everyone could have gone about their day. But he admitted to it in a police report, which is real evidence even if his legal counsel doesn’t want to acknowledge that it exists. That evidence is available with the Butler County Sheriff’s department, and it’s on Protect Lakota Kids.com.  And it will undoubtedly be part of any court cases that are being conducted going forward, along with a lot more information that perfectly justifies a public uproar. But the one who puts himself in all this mess doesn’t get to lash out at those who find his behavior reprehensible. There is a cost to what he has done to the community, and now, because of this culture of harassment that has come from his direction, we must correct that behavior because the school board didn’t do their job and manage him properly, as they should have years ago. Instead, they spent a small fortune trying to cover it up, much more than a legal dispute over his contract would have cost initially.  Further, I would propose that the gains acquired from this class action legal resolution, after the attorney fees are paid, would go to a war chest for future school board candidates, to give Darbi Boddy help in the future.  That would be a way to take this very negative situation and make it into something the community can be proud of.  There are more than enough occurrences of a lack of public transparency and a desire to keep the public in the dark to allow competent legal representation to acquire positive gains.  I will be the first one to put my name on it. 

The school board and its out-of-control employees should have never tried to defame, destroy, and remove Darbi Boddy from her elected position. That is what started all this, and now they have shown where a lot of lost money has been going, and it hasn’t been for the kids. It’s for bad management and entitled employees who behaved in self destructive ways which forced the school district to clean up the public perception, at great cost to the taxpayers.

Rich Hoffman