Springfield Ohio 2026 Citizens Government Academy

Just when you think you've seen this City do it all....

The November 2025 newsletter from Karen Graves opened with this:

Learn, Explore, Engage: Springfield’s 2026 Citizens Government Academy

By City Manager Bryan Heck

Have you ever wondered how decisions are made in our City? Or what goes on behind the scenes to keep our community running smoothly? I personally believe that our best Citizens are our most informed Citizens, so I want to invite you to join us for the 2026 Citizens Government Academy.

This ten-week program is designed to give residents a first-hand look at how Springfield operates under the Commission–Manager form of government. We’ll explore everything from policy-making and budgeting to public safety, infrastructure and community development. You’ll get to meet department heads, take tours of City facilities, and participate in lively discussions about the challenges and opportunities facing our city. The academy will take place every other Tuesday from 5:30-8:30 PM and kicks off on Tuesday, January 20, 2026.

More Info

• The likes of Bryan Heck, Katie Eviston, and Jill Allen are going to teach people about how a successful local government is run.

• There are 25 spaces that people have to apply and be approved for.

• You must agree to a Liability Waiver.

• You must agree to a Media Release.

• You must provide insane levels of personal information, including your driver's license number and work information.

• In Week 9, if you're respectful, you might get to ask questions about what was covered in "class".

• You must agree to a Code of Conduct statement.
  Code of Conduct Agreement(Required)
  
  I agree to the Code of Conduct.
  
  As a participant in the City of Springfield Citizens Government Academy, I agree to the following:
  • I will conduct myself in a professional and respectful manner at all times.
  • I will adhere to all safety rules and directions given by academy staff.
  • I understand that attendance is expected at a minimum of 8 sessions, unless excused in advance.
  • I will not bring weapons of any kind to academy sessions.
  • I understand that failure to adhere to these rules may result in my dismissal from the program.

Karen Graves "hopes you’ll join us—come learn, ask questions, provide your insights and see Springfield in a whole new way!"

Links

• November 2025 Springfield Ohio Newsletter (online nowhere to be found - a $300K Communications team that can't communicate)

• November 2025 Springfield Ohio Newsletter (PDF)

• "Registration" Form (online)

• "Registration" Form (PDF)

My email to Heck and Graves in Response to this Farce (I was pretty livid.)

*I do realize he nor Graves will ever see it. How many assistants do they have? They call them different things and I'd have to request an org chart for the entire city. And I have public record requests that still (will never - FOIA violations much?) haven't been answered.

So, let me get this straight...

In preparation for the Early 2026 public spotlight you know is coming and for which citizens are more than read, you've invented an "Academy" to which 25 (twenty-five!) "respectful people" can APPLY to talk to Bryan Heck? Citizens APPLY to speak to their "public servants"? And the likes of Bryan Heck, Katie Eviston, and Jill Allen are going to teach people about successful local government? That's rich.

In whose depraved mind did this make sense? There are so many things wrong with this that I can't imagine what it must take to have none of them occur to a $300K+ Communications team and a $200K+ City Manager.

I'm going to speak my mind in this email, because I can. How dare anyone demand that the citizens be respectful to you all, when you've ALL (anyone working for the City is complicit at this point) been nothing but the opposite to us for years. You can't lie to people or about people to the city, state, country, and world for the last two years alone and expect (in your case, DEMAND) trust and respect in return. You can't hide, manipulate, and refuse to even collect information (that's bad for Heck's business), and interfere with elections and "mismanage funds" so badly that it requires US to spend over $4 million dollars a year on a finance and legal department for a town of 58,000 and demand trust and respect in return. You can't flush hundreds of millions of federal, state, county, and city funds down an "Everything Haitian" toilet and on astronomical increases in your own salaries and expenses, and infrastructure and all things fire (why?) for which there is still no evidence and demand trust and respect in return. You ALL have stolen our childrens' educations in the process which makes you ALL monsters. And you DEMAND trust and respect from us? It's the very definition of psychotic.

First:

Who came up with the "Academy" name? I'm assuming the same people who named and separated the PowerPoint presentations from the first 15 minutes of every Commission meeting into "Work Sessions"? They're neither work nor sessions. Is it Heck or Graves who wanted to follow this "Leadership Clark County" "nonprofit" (by the way, there is a nonprofit for every 58 people in this city alone - nothing to see here) nonsense? I really feel like it has to be someone in high school. Is someone having their teenagers implement communications strategies over the dinner table or maybe it's being outsourced to the schools (if this is the case, we're even more doomed than I thought)?

Second:

The newsletter says you have to APPLY to this sham, but the website form is titled "Registration". So which is it?

Because a "Communications" person published this, it brings to mind: Could we have just one competent person working in the City government? Just one?? Is it in the water? The school system? It seems to be a job requirement. I imagine Logan Cobbs struggles to find her mailbox every day. We're paying Cobbs a $200K salary and a $150K for a Deputy Director reporting to her, and another $200K to outsource part of her job all because Heck keeps hiring her back for jobs she just don't have the capacity to do. She couldn't even handle being an Assistant TO the City Manager. How hard could that be? A few jobs later and she still can't answer anything in meetings. I'm "working on it" after she reads from Google/AI search results. And yet, Heck keeps throwing the mic to her like she has something to contribute to this city. Tom Franzen can't even put a sentence together and yet we pay him $200K+ to play at the airport and say a sentence or maybe two every 5 or so years. Nobody's even heard of the man and yet he's been around for 16 years. How does that even happen?

But I digress from Graves and her incapacity in all things communications.

Graves was hired as a Diversity Manager and pushed through the Leadership Certificate scam to almost double her salary in a year. Then she got to hire a new role of Digital Media Specialist in October 2024 - to help her figure out how to do her job, which will never happen - for another $80K ONE MONTH AFTER (not before but after) you shut down ALL communications with the city. So we're paying $300K+ on just Communications people, and she keeps proving that she can't communicate the very basics. Not to mention that the city "policy" (not legally binding, as I'm sure you know) is to not communicate.

(Whatever false attempts you make now do not change what you've done just in the last two years. I don't think you realize that people collect data. Also city "policy" not to, but we do.)

Third:

If this contrived Academy is application-based, I just want to clarify: You've invented an "Academy" to which Citizens (with a capital C to show some sort of extra fake slap-in-the-face respect for citizens you have zero respect for - you've said as much many, many times) HAVE TO APPLY!?!?!?!? And there are 25 spaces? I know you're hoping people can't see what a farce this is or maybe you don't even see it?

This "Academy" is obviously directed to 25 Project 2051 Usual Suspects. That's apparent in the registration form/application. You don't want citizens actually attending. You hate that you have to have a meeting where we're "allowed" every 2 weeks. Evident by so many things, but especially Heck and Tackett giggling and passing notes to each other when they're not on their phones in every Commission meeting. We're just the ones who pay for your every move and your every meal and your constant bad business deals and your every $100K+ trip to Paris, etc., etc., etc.

The city allows no questions or interaction online or on any social media platform. You know what would happen. People would post evidence and truth and that's not "allowed". And ask questions you can't answer. You bury a contact form on the website that Regina Jeffers may or may not respond to. You've now created another buried "form" to request public records, to which Regina Jeffers and Lawyer Jill also decide what they'll respond to. Against all federal, state, and local laws, rules, and regulations, oaths and decency. You started saying in 2023 that you know and a new site is coming. Pathological liars don't need to lie well.

The Rest:

Bryan Heck is just disgusting, and it's too close to the weekend for me to be this riled up. Respectful people can apply to talk to him. A citizen must apply to speak to him. And then someone in the city APPROVES the application. If they agree, of course, to being filmed and meeting a physical requirement, which, I assume, involves some sort of court jester dancing for a man who thinks he's king. And Heck is going to teach people about how a city government should work?? You just can't make this stuff up.

So, Karen Graves might want to issue some sort of clarification, if you can put your heads together and figure out where you went wrong. But I'm not hopeful that you can figure out THAT you went wrong.

I'll just add that it sure seems like Heck and the associates are getting a little more than nervous about the upcoming new year. A national spotlight for which the citizens are more than prepared this go-around. And with actual documentation and evidence! He suddenly wants to make nice with this absurdity that he thinks helps make it look like the City is all open-door communicative and attentive to citizens' expectations. 25 of them anyway. And if approved. To anyone with connected brain cells, it blatantly says the opposite: Your stance on communication and "transparency" is clear and hasn't changed. You're just scared.

So, good job, really. Keep your madness coming, because it's all very valuable information, and I (and others) appreciate it.

Not that you would, but don't waste MY money answering any questions in this email or reply. They were just rhetorical. Already have the answers.