HUDSON, Ohio — Days after an investigation deemed his calls for his city's school board members to resign as "reckless," Hudson Mayor Craig Shubert is once again calling for the city's school board to be held accountable for "pornographic content" due to writing prompts in a textbook, according to The Akron Beacon Journal.
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In a statement to the paper, Shubert said: “The prosecutor’s office has spent tens of thousands of dollars in taxpayer funds gunning for me, to intimidate me and the Hudson parents who spoke at the September 13 school board meeting, but has ignored the real crime of who is responsible for ‘pandering sexually oriented matter involving a minor.'"
Shubert's comments come days after an investigation by the Summit County Prosecutor's Office criticized his initial calls for all five of Hudson's School Board members to resign in September. Shubert had called for the resignations due to writing prompts in a book that was assigned in Hudson’s Senior College Credit Plus Writing class.
The book, "624 Things to Write About" included prompts focused on sex and drinking, which Shubert likened to "child pornography." In her investigation, however, Summit County Prosecutor Sherri Bevan Walsh didn't agree.
“As a prosecutor and a mother, I am always concerned about claims of individuals being involved in child pornography," Walsh said of Shubert's comments. "However, in this case, these allegations were false and caused numerous public servants to be victimized.
“While my office’s report into this matter may seem harsh, the reckless conduct by Hudson’s Mayor resulted in threats, fear, and hate-filled words from around the country. The people behind those threats were uneducated about the matter and accepted the word of Mayor Shubert because of his elected position, not because of any fact. What makes this worse is that after the Mayor was advised he was wrong, he participated in a video with an Ohio Senate candidate, which was shared on social media and promoted these false theories. That video makes it look like this was all a staged, despicable political stunt intended to affect the outcome of an upcoming election and that is shameful."