Betras vows to fix Mahoning Dems rules violations

YOUNGSTOWN

The Mahoning County Democratic Party will comply with state and national Democratic mandates to have its chairperson and his/her successor be of opposite genders and eliminate secret ballots, its chairman said.

“It will be fixed; I promise you,” Chairman David Betras said Tuesday. “We will be in full compliance. We’ll take care of this in the coming weeks.”

The party will change its constitution to have open votes and will create the position of secretary/executive vice chairperson to be the immediate successor to the chairperson, he said. The person in that position will be the opposite gender of the chairperson.

The Vindicator reported Tuesday that the county party knowingly violated state and national parties’ mandates that its chairperson and vice chairperson be of opposite genders.

In a May 5 letter to county chairmen and chairwomen, Bill DeMora, Ohio Democratic Party secretary, stated that with county reorganizational meetings the opposite-genders rule had to be enacted.

If not, the state party would remove “any vice chair who is of the same gender as the chair,” DeMora wrote. “There will be no exceptions to the rule.”

Mahoning Democrats re-elected Betras as chairman and elected Ron Massullo as executive vice chairman Saturday.

Read the complete story in Wednesday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.