You might be wondering why someone who has spent years advancing his political club’s agenda while working against Jessamine County Schools is now seeking a seat on the Jessamine County School Board. Well join the club.
Here’s a quick rundown of everything he’s accomplished since he started trying to advance his own political ambitions six years ago.
- 2021: Brandon started laying the groundwork for a run at a school board seat by spreading lies about administrators and staff at East Jessamine High School.
(FYI, this never happened) - 2022: After spending the previous two years stirring up false outrage in the community, Brandon decided to run for a school board seat.
Because his campaign was more about politics than actually helping the school system, he would routinely troll Facebook searching for any issue he could magnify and try to pin on school board leadership to make people think he had all the answers. On the occasions when he was able to convince a parent to come share their concerns at a school board meeting, he would call all the news stations in Lexington to alert them to an issue in Jessamine County Schools so they would send a news crew to listen to him speak.
He also spread numerous lies about the district and repeatedly attacked the district’s teachers, including this response to questionnaire from a community member where he insinuated teachers were trying to exclude parents from the learning process:
(FYI, this never happened)
Despite his best efforts attacking the school district he hoped to lead, he lost convincingly to the incumbent.
But instead of just accepting his loss, he appointed himself the “Jessamine County Schools Watchdog” and continued attacking the district (when not sharing all the same content the district’s FB page does). - 2023: He promoted a like-minded candidate in a different district for a seat on the school board. That candidate lost despite his opponent barely campaigning.
- 2024: He attempted to help his political club take over the school board by recruiting three poorly qualified candidates – one of whom didn’t even know how to spell “Jessamine” (see below) – to challenge three Republican incumbents on the school board.
All three challengers were beaten easily despite the incumbents barely campaigning. - 2024: He proudly supported Amendment 2, which sought to strip funds from public schools. The measure was soundly defeated 60-40% Jessamine County and was also rejected statewide.
- 2025: He led an effort to deceive voters in Jessamine County into thinking the school board had raised their taxes (the board had not) so the district would lose out on nearly $400,000 in funding.
The best part about this is that two of the three people who led this effort – Jesse Green and Brandon Wides – don’t even own property in the county and don’t pay the taxes they were complaining about. And the third person who was part of this, Kim Garrison, owns several rental properties in the county. More on this below.
Not surprisingly, this effort also failed.
So now he’s running for school board again…because why not?!
What is Brandon’s Platform?
The short answer is: whatever his political club says it should be. Because he doesn’t have a lot of original ideas and mostly exists to attack the school district, you get things like the screenshot below where he proposes doing something the current school board was already doing, then – after learning his proposal was already in action – editing his original post to say he would fast-track it.
After one of the current school board members called him out on his edits, he acknowledged he “learned some new information.”
He then proceeded to share 20 posts from Facebook accounts associated with Jessamine County Schools to push this exchange further down his page so others wouldn’t see it.
Brandon is also very active on Twitter/X (more on some, um, unusual behavior below). Here he is trying to engage in a conversation with a random woman from Texas and sharing his true feelings about teachers and the work they do.
Tell us what you really think of teachers.
Amendment 2
Amendment 2 was a school choice measure on the November 2024 ballot. It was fairly controversial because it would have authorized the legislature to fund K-12 students outside of traditional public schools — including charter schools, tax-credit scholarships, vouchers, or education savings accounts that families could use at private schools. It was soundly defeated across the state, 65-35% and in Jessamine County, 60-40%.
But Brandon is a HUGE proponent of this piece of legislation because his political club is so closely aligned with those that were pushing it. See for yourself:
Attempted Takeover of School Board
Not content with his campaign loss in 2022, failed promotion of Amendment 2 and failed promotion of his chosen candidate in 2023, Brandon set his sights higher in 2024: A full takeover of the school board by his political club.
School boards have staggered elections every two years to provide some continuity. This means two or three seats are up for re-election every two years. Brandon has been so desperate to have a voice in the county that he put out a call for candidates to run for school board seats to unseat three Republican incumbents. Those three Republican incumbents just so happened to be lifelong residents of the county and long-serving school board members with a high working knowledge of the school system. They were invested in not only serving their community, but in ensuring the success of the school district.
But that didn’t matter to Brandon, he just wanted his political club to have control of the school board so he tapped three people whose only qualification is that they show up to his political club’s meetings to run for those seats. One of the people he recruited thought she was running for a seat on the “Jassamine” County School Board. You can’t make this up.
Brandon helped them as much as he could, coordinating their posts on social media, etc. Like all the other issues Brandon’s pushed in the county, all three challengers lost despite the incumbents barely campaigning.
The Tax Rate Issue (Introducing the Garrisons)
Brandon followed his 0-4 effort in 2024 by taking up a new cause against the school district: the tax rate.
The school board sets a tax rate that applies to the value of property set by the PVA. Despite the school board leaving the tax rate unchanged from the prior year, Brandon stoked the flames by convincing people “the school board was raising their taxes”, deliberately misconstruing the difference between raising individual tax payments and raising overall tax revenue from new properties and increased property values.
Brandon and two others – Jesse Green and Kim Garrison – from his political club filed a petition to recall the school board’s tax rate vote. In support of their efforts, they tried their best to divide the community by spreading lies about the action taken by the board (“the board raised your taxes!”) while also trying to convince the community that the school system was failing (it’s actually improved significantly), that board wastes money (it does not) and isn’t transparent (the board shares detailed financial reports at every meeting).
After realizing their initial round of lies weren’t working, Brandon’s group pivoted to a new lie and posted a graphic on Facebook imploring people to “STOP THE PVA TAX INCREASE!” despite their effort having nothing to do with the PVA’s office.
Now, you might wondering what the motivations were behind all of this chaos. Let’s break it down.
For Brandon: Brandon belongs to a political club in the county and is obligated to do their bidding. Michael and Kim Garrison run the political club and thus tell Brandon what to do. Brandon wants a seat on the school board so badly that he will seize upon any issue big or small where he can try to paint the school board in a negative light. He doesn’t own property or pay taxes, so he doesn’t really care about the money side of this issue, he just wants the school board to look bad so he can have a platform to run on.
For the Garrisons: Michael and Kim Garrison have grown kids who attended private school in Fayette County. They couldn’t care less about Jessamine County Schools. But they do own several pieces of rental property in the county so the tax issue is near and dear to their heart. They wouldn’t care if all the schools in Jessamine County closed if it saved them a few bucks in property taxes each year. And because they control the political club and tell Brandon what to do, this issue is the perfect alignment of interests with Brandon.
For Jesse Green: Jesse is a young attorney trying to make his name in political circles. He apparently still lives at home with his parents in Wilmore, belongs to the political club and takes his cues from the Garrisons.
The best part of all of the chaos caused by Brandon (besides the irony in him not paying any property taxes, of course): it was all over 0.6 cents – just over half a penny – per $100. Had his efforts been successful, someone living in a $1,000,000 house would have saved just $60 in taxes. To most people, this amount is relatively insignificant, but because the Garrisons care way more about saving a few dollars on their rentals than seeing their county school system thrive, furthering their own self interests was worth all the misinformation and distrust they created in the community.
Fortunately, members of the community saw through those lies and their effort failed.
This raises the question: Why would Brandon, who has spent six years advancing a political club’s agenda while actively working against his own school district, expect voters to give him a seat on that school board? 
Questionable Behavior on Twitter/X
When Brandon’s not attacking Jessamine County Schools, he’s very active on Twitter/X – in sort of an, um, unusual way. In particular, he really seems to enjoy trying to engage with young women:
Brandon eventually learned that the public could see his odd social media behavior and made his profile private.
He’s Apparently Not Very Self-Aware
The second he lost in 2022 he announced plans to run again in four years. Then he took losses on his chosen candidate in Wilmore, Amendment 2, his chosen candidates in 2024 and the tax rate fiasco he caused. Perhaps being rejected at every turn by voters in Jessamine County hasn’t fully set in with him, which makes him giving this advice to failed candidate Amy McGrath even funnier.
So here he is again, running another campaign based on lies and fearmongering. But this time he has a sidekick in Michael Garrison helping him. Michael and Brandon have spent years attacking the school district for their own personal gain, complaining about every little thing to undermine the community’s confidence in the school system. Most people outside their political club have grown accustomed to just tuning them out so this time around they created an anonymous Facebook page to air grievances and, of course, continue spreading lies and misinformation. But people quickly realized who was behind their page, so stay tuned for their next trick.
We’ll continue to highlight the lies and misinformation they spread leading up to Election Day.