SMITH TOWNSHIP Trustee guilty of destroying records

Blake pleaded no contest to the misdemeanor charge of dereliction of duty.
By DAVID SKOLNICK
VINDICATOR POLITICS WRITER
SEBRING -- A Smith Township trustee, found guilty of dereliction of duty for destroying township records, said he was done in by small-town politics.
The township clerk said Edward L. Blake, the trustee in question, purposely violated the law.
"When we dismissed our police chief about a year and a half ago, people were looking for some dirt on the trustees," Blake said, mentioning Township Clerk Mary K. Winters as one of the people after him.
Dirt was found, Blake said.
In February 2002, about the same time Police Chief John Slimak resigned, Blake was in charge of a cleanup at the township garage.
Blake admits he took township records -- including police reports, zoning documents and personnel files that were all at least 10 years old -- out of the garage's attic, and tossed them in the garbage.
"We threw away a few too many records we had in storage," he said. "I was the one cleaning the attic and instructing the cleanup. If you get down to the nitty-gritty, when you destroy old records, you need the approval of the state."
It's also a crime to destroy public records.
Blake, a six-year trustee and a retired U.S. Air Force civil engineer, didn't get state approval to throw out the records.
Pleads no contest
He pleaded no contest Tuesday in front of Judge Diane Vettori of Mahoning County Court in Sebring to the misdemeanor charge of dereliction of duty.
After finding Blake guilty, the judge gave the trustee a 30-day suspended Mahoning County Jail sentence, a $500 fine, and two years' probation, most of it nonreporting. Also, Blake is required to attend a state-sponsored class on how to handle public records, was ordered not to be involved in the destruction of other public records, and ordered to not serve on the township's public records committee for the next two years.
"Records are important; they are the institutional memory of a township," said David Lundgren, who was assigned by Mahoning County Prosecutor Paul J. Gains as the special prosecutor for Blake's case. "Trustees have an obligation to follow the law."
Blake said he accidentally threw out the old records.
"You can't get into someone's head and say why," Lundgren responded when told that Blake said it was an accident.
Winters said that she has no doubt Blake knew he shouldn't have thrown out the records, and that she is disappointed he will be permitted to continue serving as a trustee. Winters said her professional relationship with the trustees, including Valas Winters, her husband's uncle, has deteriorated so badly that she hates working with them.
Trustees support Blake
Valas Winters said he supports Blake, who Winters thinks just didn't know that what he was doing was wrong.
"Whatever he did was with the thought of helping the township," he said. "I don't think he knew the law on this."
Trustee Jerry Ritchie said the matter was blown out of proportion, and Blake didn't do anything intentionally wrong.
"To me, it was just an overzealous cleaner-upper," he said. "It hasn't affected the township in any way. We haven't staggered one bit."
skolnick@vindy.com