Bedford School Board Member Todd Bruning wants all his critics to know he’s not losing any sleep over complaints about his obnoxious social media accounts.
Mr. Bruning, who along with serving on the school board runs Todd’s Guns in Lambertville, is active on Facebook, in particular, where he prolifically shares crass and offensive posts that often draw the well-deserved ire of his constituents.
His defense? The First Amendment guarantees his right to offend women, Muslims, people of color and anyone who disagrees with him politically.
That Mr. Bruning has the right to be offensive is certainly true. But a public official who sought elected office to serve a community ought to give a little more thought to his behavior.
Saying that the district’s students should not be so “butt hurt” over his offensive social media posts is not the right reaction.
The Bedford Board of Education recently voted to censure and request his resignation. Mr. Bruning isn’t going to acquiesce to the call for him to resign and the rest of the board cannot force him from office. But it should not come to that. Mr. Bruning needs to grow up and begin acting like a decent, adult community leader and not a contrary adolescent.
Mr. Bruning seems to take a real delight in antagonizing his critics, much like an adolescent would. He also seems to devote a lot of time to it, especially for someone who runs a business and serves on the school board. It’s as if he doesn’t have plenty to do, particularly with his school board responsibilities.
Michigan schools are facing some serious challenges this year. The coronavirus crisis poses serious budget issues for Bedford and every other school district as the pandemic will drastically reduce the state’s School Aid Fund and sales and income tax revenue. School boards must submit their new budgets by July 1 and many are struggling to figure out not only how to manage a financial crisis, but also how to safely return students to schools in the fall.
And yet in Bedford, the board is taking time to attempt to manage the fallout from Mr. Bruning’s childish feud with the critics who rightly point out how obnoxiously inappropriate his social media habit is.
So far, Mr. Bruning has taken such criticism as bait, doubling down on his offensive posts. Instead, he should figure out how to rise above and turn his energies to the serious work he was elected to do.
First Published June 24, 2020, 4:00 a.m.
