Trustee pleads guilty, resigns office

The officeholder said she did not purposely break the law.
By WILLIAM K. ALCORN
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Springfield Township Trustee Shirley Heck resigned her public office and pleaded guilty in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court to unlawful interest in a public contract.
At her hearing Friday morning, Heck was sentenced to a six-month suspended sentence, given 90-day nonreporting probation and fined $100 by Judge Maureen Sweeney. Maximum sentence for the offense is six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.
Heck waived her rights to have the charge go to a grand jury and to receive a jury trial. She pleaded guilty to a bill of information that contains the conditions of her sentence.
Heck's resignation was effective immediately, her attorney, Gerald J. Ingram, said. Also, according to the court, Heck, who was up for re-election in the Nov. 8 general election, is prohibited from running for trustee again.
The charge, a first-degree misdemeanor, sprang from Heck's voting to hire her brother, Walter McKinney, as township recycling coordinator.
Her comments
After she was sentenced, Heck, 63, nearing the end of her first four-year term as trustee, said she never willfully broke the law, but has "no regrets" about her resignation.
"I gave 110 percent for three years and 10 months as a trustee and garnered some $485,000 in grants for the township," she said.
"She made a naive mistake ... did not purposely break the law ... and did not benefit personally," her attorney said.
The entire prosecution revolved around her voting to hire her brother, Ingram said.
There was no allegation that he (McKinney) did not do his job or even that he got preferential treatment in getting the job, which Ingram said "pays all of $8 an hour."
"It is a shame that the residents of Springfield Township have lost such a dedicated, hard-working trustee over something this trivial," Ingram said.
James G. Holleran and Robert Metzka, the two remaining trustees, have 30 days to select Heck's replacement, said county Prosecutor Paul J. Gains, the township's legal counsel, and Thomas McCabe, the county's elections board director.
"It's up to the trustees to do what they want, but it behooves them to wait three weeks until the election and appoint the winner," Gains said. "It's their call."
If the trustees don't appoint a replacement in 30 days, county Probate Court Judge Timothy Maloney makes the appointment, McCabe said.
Rumors about possible charges against Heck have been circulating in the township for some time. The rumors could have sprung from the county prosecutor's office investigations into several township matters, including allegations that Heck and Holleran allowed some township employees to use township cell phones for personal use.