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Mill Creek board sets special meeting after hiring criticism
YOUNGSTOWN
The Mill Creek MetroParks board of commissioners will have a special meeting tonight to address concerns that it failed to follow state law in its selection of a new executive director.
The meeting, announced in a release Wednesday afternoon, will be at 6 p.m. at the park district’s administrative office at 7574 Columbiana-Canfield Road. The purpose of the meeting is “to consider the appointment, employment, and compensation of a new executive director,” according to the release.
The meeting comes after media outlets and the public raised questions about the process by which the board decided to hire Aaron Young to replace Dennis Miller.
Though the board unanimously voted at a public meeting Monday night to hire Young, the actual decision to choose Young was not made in public and therefore is not in accordance with Ohio Sunshine Laws, said attorney David Marburger on Tuesday. Marburger is the attorney representing The Vindicator and its news partner, 21 WFMJ-TV.
“The law requires a public body like the park district to make 100 percent of its decisions for the first time in public at a pre-arranged meeting,” he said Tuesday. “They’re not allowed to decide it before and then have a ceremonial vote. That’s just theater.”
Board president Lou Schiavoni disputes the claim that the decision was made prior to Monday’s meeting.
“The meeting of the minds came about on Monday. ... There was never a decision made until our public meeting Monday,” he said in a phone interview Tuesday.
“The bottom line is, we’ve been called into question, and if we did something wrong we want to correct it,” Schiavoni said Wednesday about the decision to schedule a special meeting.
Schiavoni reiterated on Wednesday that he does not believe the board did anything wrong, but said the board would look into the issue because of the concerns raised by members of the public and media.
A park district spokesperson issued a press release announcing Young as the board’s choice about an hour before Monday’s meeting, and “Vote to hire Aaron Young as Executive Director” was included as an item on the meeting agenda, which was released before the meeting began.
The board did not engage in any discussion before the motion to vote to hire Young was made.
Mahoning County Probate Judge Robert Rusu Jr., the appointing authority for the park board, said in a phone interview Wednesday that he does not have an opinion at this time about the legality of the selection process.
Rusu sat in on part of the final round of interviews that was conducted Saturday morning in an executive-session meeting. Three candidates participated in that round of interviews.
“I really don’t have a take, because I wasn’t there,” he said. “I’m just the appointing authority. ... I don’t run the board.”
Rusu said he wants to take some time to get to know the board before forming an opinion, since he just took office a few months ago.
He said he did not yet know whether the issue with the board’s handling of hiring a new executive director would impact his decision on whether to reappoint commissioners Jay Macejko and John Ragan, whose terms expire at year’s end.
“It just happened. It’s something I will consider. But I don’t know how big of a role it will play [in the decision],” he said.