‘No one can tell me what beauty is.’ MCSD board hears sexual harassment claim against Myers.

Students from St. Marys Road Magnet Academy led the Pledge of Allegiance at the beginning of the Muscogee County School Board meeting Monday night, then gave a presentation about respect.

After she thanked them, board chairwoman Kia Chambers referred to the controversy that was about to be discussed when she said everyone gathered in the standing-room-only boardroom could use a little respect.

Following last month’s allegations, Maggie Reese, the former Greater Columbus Chamber of Commerce executive who accused District 8 representative Frank Myers of sexual harassment and bullying, asked why the board hasn’t censured Myers.

Reese, who was the chamber’s community development and growth director before becoming director of buzz at Yalla Public Relationsin January, announced July 19 on her Facebook page that she is “actively pursuing time on the next school board meeting agenda to discuss this face to face with Frank. Ultimately, I believe he should step down from his seat early and allow the empty seat to be a reflection of the zero tolerance for sexual harassment and bullying in the Muscogee County School District.”

The sexual harassment and bullying accusations come from what Myers posted July 18 about Reese after she had defended chamber executive Amy Bryan in a Facebook post. Bryan lost in the July 24 runoff election against retired U.S. Army Col. John House for the vacant citywide seat on Columbus Council.

Myers took from Reese’s Facebook page a photo of her in a bikini. He cropped the photo to show only her backside and posted it with a comment that says, “You need to lose 30.” He apologized the next day on Facebook as well as in a phone interview with the Ledger-Enquirer but said he won’t resign.

Since then, a petition calling for the board to censure Myers and for him to resign has attracted more than 3,390 signatures at Change.org.

Monday night, however, during the 6 minutes she spoke to the board, Reese didn’t ask for Myers to resign — and didn’t mention his name. Her request for censure was expressed in questions:

Why doesn’t the board feel that Myers broke its code of ethics? Why hasn’t the board called for such a vote?

Referring to the board considering, at last week’s work session, policy changes concerning board members’ Internet use, Reese said, “I’m disappointed none of you brought up his behavior.”

Reese acknowledged she posted, “We just struck gold,” in response to Myers. She explained Monday night that she was referring to Myers’ “reputation” and “always toeing the line but not quite crossing it.”

Sparking cheers in the crowd, Reese declared, “No one — I repeat, no one — can tell me what beauty is, what my weight should be.”

Although she forgave him, Reese said, “just because I’m strong” doesn’t mean Myers’ words and actions couldn’t be harmful, citing a local suicide linked to bullying.

But she emphasized the positive that has come from this controversy: raising $2,160 for the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Chattahoochee Valley by selling “Thirty to Love” T-shirts, which some supporters wore in Monday night’s crowd.

“I am grateful this has happened to me,” she said, “not someone battling suicidal thoughts.”

More than half the crowd gave her a standing ovation as she left the podium. Then other residents addressed the board about this issue:

▪ Nathan Smith chastised the board for “attempting to punish a board member” while doing “nothing” to improve the school district’s “pathetic ranking,” 130th out of 182 districts in Georgia, according to schooldigger.com.

▪ Michelle Dovishaw said, “It is appalling how everybody is trying to tar and feather him for making a comment on a public photo.” Labeling what he did sexual harassment is “preposterous,” she said, “and takes away from the legitimate reports.”

▪ Carol Jameson said what Myers posted was “rude” and “mean and “boy, it was dumb,” but she sarcastically noted, “None of us ever would say or do something we shouldn’t.” And she said Reese “played this scheme very well,” tricking some board members who “ran into this muck with open arms.”

Myers apologized to Reese and “anyone else who might have been offended” by his July 18 post.

He noted they had met at a Young Professionals event a few years ago, “and you thanked me for the work that I was trying to do,” Myers said. “Well, none of that has changed in the last few years. I’ve ruffled some feathers. I’ve clearly made a lot of enemies. But my heart has always been in the right place. My mouth may have gotten me in trouble a time or two, and that is a boneheaded move that I made that night on July 18.”

Myers then mentioned a frequent Facebook commenter about local news. Myers said he hopes Reese didn’t understand that bringing that person “into the equation” would “trigger me” because that person has “said some things about my then-minor daughter.”

Chambers interrupted Myers and asked him not to engage in a “back-and-forth.”

“There’s not going to be a back-and-forth if you control the crowd because it’s my time to talk,” Myers said.

“For four days I thought I had injured you and I felt really bad about it,” Myers told Reese. “Then somebody pointed out you were saying things like ‘we struck gold,’ had T-shirts printed, had a party in a beer joint and, to me, not acting like somebody who was done wrong.”

Myers has been the board’s most outspoken critic of superintendent David Lewis and his administration. He failed to win a second four-year term when former board chairman Philip Schley beat him with 65 percent of the vote in the May 24 election. Schley will replace Myers on Jan. 1.

“I’m not the monster I’ve been made out to be,” Myers said. He apologized to his wife and daughter for “having the audacity” to think he could change the school system with his ally, District 2 representative John Thomas, who chose not to run for re-election and will be replaced by retired teachers Mike Edmondson.

District 4 representative Naomi Buckner asked whether the administration will take Reese’s offer of using the “Thirty to Love” T-shirts as a spark for a positive program in the school district. Lewis said, “I know where to find Maggie and her family, and we certainly can make that happen.”

Asked last month what part of the board’s code she thinks Myers violated, Reese told the Ledger-Enquirer, “Take no private action that will compromise the board or school system administration.”

The code, however, doesn’t specifically address internet behavior. So during last week’s work session, the board’s first gathering since the Myers/Reese controversy erupted, Chambers, the nine-member board’s lone countywide representative, said she asked District 5 representative and policy committee member Laurie McRae to propose appropriate additions. They are:

▪ Communicate with the public in a respectful, professional manner whether it be in person, by electronic means or by social media.

▪ When making posts or comments on social media sites, consider carefully how such communication would reflect on the individual making the post, the Board, and the District as a whole and refrain from language that may violate a provision of the Code of Ethics.

Monday afternoon, before the board meeting, McRae made the following additions to her proposal:

▪ Communicate with the public with language that is professional and not disrespectful, whether it be in person, by electronic means or by social media, in regards to school district issues.

▪ When making posts or comments on social media sites, consider carefully how such communication would reflect on the individual making the post, the Board, and the District as a whole and refrain from language that may be offensive.

The board voted 8-0 Monday night, with District 3 representative Vanessa Jackson abstaining, to put the revised proposal on next month’s agenda.

Chambers also said during last week’s work session that the school district’s internet acceptable use policy for employees doesn’t apply to board members because they aren’t employees. So she asked board attorney Greg Ellington of the law firm Hall Booth Smith to submit a proposal, which says in part:

▪ Board members communicating by electronic means with the public shall communicate in a respectful, professional manner. Members of the Board will conform to the same standards of judgment, propriety, and ethics when communicating by social media.

Ellington emphasized during last week’s work session that, because each board member is elected by county voters, the board can’t remove a board member. As outlined in the board’s policy, at least two-thirds of the board (six of the nine members) must support a motion to conduct a sanction hearing, and the accused board member must be notified at least 30 days in advance of the hearing, which may include witnesses.

At least two-thirds of the board must vote yes in order for a sanction to be assessed and to “determine an appropriate sanction,” the policy says, but the types of sanctions aren’t specified. Sanctions can include a fine or reprimand, Ellington said. In a 2013 case in Cherokee County, the sanctioned board member was fined half of her $7,200 salary after she filed a complaint with the school district’s accreditation agency.

The sanctioned board member then has 30 days to appeal the decision to the Georgia Board of Education.

But the Muscogee board doesn’t have a mechanism to immediately censure a fellow member. In a 2017 case in Savannah, the Chatham County Board of Education’s eight other members signed a letter rebuking their fellow representative for Facebook post undermining the superintendent’s authority.

Ellington explained that the Chatham board is empowered to bypass the sanction hearing process because of legislation requested by its local delegation and passed by the Georgia General Assembly. Such a censure requires a unanimous vote from the board members, other than the accused, he added.

Mark Rice, 706-576-6272, @MarkRiceLE.

This story was originally published August 20, 2018 at 9:26 PM.