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No appeal in case of fired worker
By jeanne starmack
campbell
A city water-plant worker who went to court to stop his firing did not appeal a magistrate’s decision that he didn’t have sufficient grounds for his case.
Donald Jackson, son of 4th Ward council member and mayoral candidate Lew Jackson, was terminated Friday from his position as a plant operator, said Mayor Bill VanSuch.
Jackson was hired almost a year ago to fill that position. The city did not have an eligibility list ready at the time to fill the civil-service position.
Jackson was told by then-mayor George Krinos that he would have to take a civil- service test for the position, which he took in March and failed.
The city’s civil service commission recommended in June that Mayor Bill VanSuch terminate Jackson because he failed the test, but Jackson filed for and won a temporary restraining order from the Mahoning County common pleas court. He asked for a permanent injunction against the city’s firing him based on the civil service test, which he argued was improperly administered.
But Magistrate Timothy Welsh issued a decision Aug. 26 that the test was properly administered and the court had no reason to intervene.
Judge R. Scott Krichbaum signed Welsh’s decision, and it was filed Monday after a deadline passed with no appeal.
The city had asked the Ohio Supreme Court to stop the common pleas court from intervening in the situation, arguing that Jackson is a temporary worker with a one-year probationary period under a union contract, and the city has a right to fire him during that probationary period.
City law director Mark Kolmacic said that since Judge Krichbaum signed the decision, the Supreme Court action would be moot.
VanSuch has said that if he did not terminate Jackson, he would leave the city open to legal action from candidates who did pass the March civil-service test.