by Bob Fitrakis, Feb 2, 1999

The Other Paper screams out that Bill Moss has 'gone off the deep end.' Simultaneously, newly inaugurated Columbus School Board President and former progressive Mary Jo Kilroy is widely quoted in the mainstream media for insisting the democratically-elected School Board is "not a debating society." Kilroy seems to fancy the corporate model perfected by past School Board President Bob Teater. He brought the short corporate agenda, no discussion, back room dealing model to the Columbus School Board, perfect for steering out of the public sight a $30 million unbid obsolete computer contract.

The propaganda campaign against Moss is the direct result of his refusal to be silenced by Kilroy's gavel. Moss told The Other Paper that his highly public split with former Free Press co-publisher and editor Mary Jo Kilroy is because Kilroy has changed, not him. Moss is correct and I've been an eyewitness to Kilroy's transformation.

In 1991, a dejected Kilroy was about to drop out of her first race for School Board. I, with the help of Tom Erney and others who had worked in Erney's 1990 Congressional campaign, talked her into staying in. We were her campaign.

In 1992, she more than returned the favor with her support in my Congressional campaign against John Kasich, her support for Jerry Brown's campaign and her agreeing to co-publish the Free Press. She also formed a courageous voting block with Bill Moss and the late Sharlene Morgan against developers and the pro-tax abatement crowd.

Early on, Kilroy made a bad decision by refusing to go public with the abuse of school credit cards by top school administrators, including Larry Mixon. The cover-up was the idea of titan toady Bob Teater. Kilroy decided to become a "team player" instead of a whistle-blower, her first mistake. Kilroy fell prey to the fallacy that such moral compromises are just "politics," but that's precisely why the vast majority of the public considers politicians to be on par with career con men. Still, up until the last year of her first term, Kilroy consistently fought the good fight.

In the fall of 1994, I made a decision as Editor of Free Press to place a cartoon by John Bailey on the cover entitled "The Governor's New Monopoly." The cartoon remains a dead accurate portrayal of the environmental destruction, corruption and political campaign money laundering practices that Voinovich is now being investigated for. Soon after the cover appeared, Kilroy met with the Dispatch editorial board, ostensibly to talk about school choice.

After the meeting, a panicked Kilroy -- who now categorically denies it -- demanded we shut down the Free Press because the Dispatch editors indicated that "they would have to be rough on her" in her next election. Coinciding with her 1995 reelection campaign, Kilroy pulled all her support from the Free Press after the January 1995 issue and now won't speak to us.

In 1996, she ran for State Senate, but ran to the Right of her opponent Eugene Watts on educational issues. Now she's School Board President, dedicated to stifling debate. Moss and the Free Press are now her enemies, but she's held in high esteem in the pages of the Dispatch and CM Media publications. Kilroy's political aspirations have destroyed her original principles.