Board suspends director, clerk

Despite the suspensions, a criminal investigation by the sheriff’s office will continue.

By David Skolnick

YOUNGSTOWN — The Mahoning County Board of Elections temporarily suspended its director and a clerk for failing to follow an internal policy to send ballot language to those with tax issues on the upcoming ballot.

Elections board officials said they hoped their Monday decision on the suspensions would end an investigation by the county sheriff’s office to determine whether criminal activity occurred related to the county sales tax issue.

But the investigation will continue, said Sheriff Randall Wellington.

The investigation began last week at the request of county commissioners. Commissioners and county Prosecutor Paul J. Gains are angry that the elections board failed to send them ballot language of a half- percent sales tax for review.

It turns out no political entity with an issue on the Nov. 3 ballot received a copy of its tax request language from the elections board, said Director Thomas McCabe.

The board sends the language for review as a matter of courtesy, and isn’t required to do so under state law, McCabe said.

For failing to send the language, the elections board decided Monday to suspend Danielle O’Neill, the clerk responsible for preparing the ballot language and mailing them to political entities, for five days without pay.

For failing to catch the mistake, McCabe received a three-day unpaid suspension by the board.

The suspensions will take effect shortly after the board certifies the Nov. 3 election results. That certification usually comes in late November.

McCabe receives about $63,000 annually in salary and O’Neill is paid about $36,000 in base salary annually.

McCabe said he should have better supervised O’Neill.

“I’ve taken responsibility,” McCabe said. “This was an oversight issue. I am the director. I have no problem” with the unpaid suspension, he said.

O’Neill and her attorney, John Juhasz, declined to comment after Monday’s hearing.

During the private session with the board that lasted more than 45 minutes Monday to discuss the suspensions, O’Neill said she was “just overwhelmed with the amount of work for this election,” and forgot to send the letters, said Mark Munroe, the board’s vice chairman.

Mistakes were made, but nothing criminal was done, elections board members said.

“A criminal investigation would be silly and a waste of time and money for taxpayers,” said Michael Morley, a board member.

“The call for a criminal investigation is absolutely ridiculous,” Munroe said. “The suggestion of a grand conspiracy to sabotage the sale tax issue is ridiculous.”

Whether it’s silly, ridiculous and/or a waste of time and money to investigation “will be determined” after it’s done, Wellington said.

The sheriff’s office sent a letter Friday to the elections board asking for documents related to procedures in writing ballot issue language, McCabe said.

Gains and Commissioners Anthony Traficanti and David Ludt are angered that the language for the half-percent sales tax states it would provide “additional general revenues.”

The tax is for a continuous period. It’s been on the ballot before as a five-year renewal.

The tax raises about $14 million annually for the county’s general fund.

The ballot language misleads voters, and changes would have been made if had been sent to county officials for review, Gains, Traficanti and Ludt say.

“The commissioners and prosecutor are not clairvoyant and can’t address a problem we didn’t know exists,” Gains said.

Munroe said the language was based on a resolution written by the prosecutor’s office and approved by county commissioners.

Also, the Ohio secretary of state’s office says the elections board wrote proper ballot language for the sales tax issue.

Munroe praised O’Neill for writing correct ballot language. She was suspended, he said, because “internal policies weren’t followed,” he said.

If this was an isolated incident, Munroe said, there likely wouldn’t have been a suspension.

O’Neill gave incorrect information earlier this year to independent candidates who wanted to run for Youngstown mayor and council president about the number of signatures they needed to qualify as candidates, Munroe said.

Both were not permitted to run as independent candidates.

skolnick@vindy.com