Thames Valley District School Board trustee Jake Skinner was a noticeable no-show at Tuesday night’s public board meeting.
Skinner is one of the men behind Blackridge Strategy, which is embroiled in a political scandal surrounding two websites that attacked a pair of incumbent councillors.
On Tuesday, Blackridge responded to the issue of the websites after several days of silence. The PR firm defended the pair of websites as factual.
Acknowledging the websites is new for the firm as during the election period in 2018 co-owner Amir Farahi denied any involvement with the websites.
Last week, website registration documents, released under court order, showed the websites maureencassidy.ca and viriginaridley.ca were registered under Blackridge owner Amir Farahi’s name and paid for with a credit card in the same name.
In a 2018 interview with CT V News, Farahi said he was being framed, and denied any connection to the campaign websites.
Being absent from Tuesday night’s meeting, Skinner avoided being asked by media about his involvement with the websites and whether they constitute online bullying or violate the school board’s code of conduct.
