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South Range board member resigns, but injunction planned against district
By ROBERT CONNELLY
NORTH LIMA
An attorney will file an injunction against the South Range Board of Education sometime next week, while the board maintains it did nothing wrong.
Board member Amy White, whose appointment is in question, resigned Tuesday. The board unanimously accepted the resignation, with White abstaining.
“It would appear that my appointment to the board of education has become a source of unwelcome controversy,” White’s resignation letter states. “In order to prevent the unnecessary expenditure of district funds on litigation, which I’m convinced the district could win, it is my decision to resign from the board of education effective immediately.”
That letter was read Tuesday morning after a 30- minute executive session during a special 7 a.m. meeting of the South Range school board. White’s letter said that she would reapply for her vacancy. Bruce Zinz resigned from the board Feb. 16, creating the vacancy.
She was selected unanimously March 16. A gold and black metallic nameplate with her name on it was in the meeting room before the public vote.
White clarified why she was “convinced the district could win” in a phone interview Tuesday.
“Honestly, my feeling on that point is that I feel that they did not do anything wrong,” White said. “My interpretation is that a vote would have had to have taken place before an open session of the board and that did not happen to my knowledge.”
Ralph Wince, board president, explained the board will take applications for White’s vacancy through April 10 and then interview candidates the week of April 13. The next South Range Board of Education meeting will be April 20.
Britton was at Tuesday’s meeting, and he told The Vindicator on Monday that the board did nothing wrong.
“I can say with confidence that there was no violation of the Sunshine Law in the board’s original selection of Ms. White, which was done in open session by the unanimous vote by the board,” Wince said in a release.
“In fairness, Ms. White’s resignation will allow the board to follow its current policy of interviewing all interested candidates which we inadvertently [overlooked] in making the original selection. We are not afraid to say when we were wrong.”
The Vindicator’s attorney, Atty. Dave Marburger, said he believed her appointment violated Ohio’s Sunshine laws. Resident Richard Ferenchak, who attended Tuesday’s meeting, has hired former deputy law director of the Youngstown, Atty. Anthony Farris. Farris said Tuesday afternoon that he called South Range’s attorney, Atty. John Britton, to let him know there would be an injunction filing sometime next week against White’s initial appointment.
“If you are interacting with the other council people in the way that you are going to vote, you need to be in open session,” Farris explained. “Resigning does not cure the violation,” and it should have been rescinded, he further said.
Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine recently released the updated 2015 Ohio Sunshine Laws book, which states, “Any person may file a court action for an injunction to address an alleged or threatened violation of the Open Meetings Act. ... If granted by a court, an injunction compels the members of the public body to comply with the law by either refraining from the prohibited behavior or by lawfully conducting their meetings where they previously failed to do so.”
Atty. Britton has argued that a consensus can develop in executive session among peers talking about candidates, but that is no violation of the Sunshine Laws.
“Even without taking a vote or a poll, members of a public body may inadvertently take ‘formal action’ in an executive session when they indicate how they intend to vote about a matter pending before them,” the Sunshine Laws state. “Even a formal action taken in an open meeting may be invalid if it results from deliberations that improperly occurred outside of an open meeting ...”
Wince previously had told The Vindicator, recalling the March 12 executive session to interview candidates to replace Zinz, “We went into executive session immediately to interview the potential candidates, and no action was taken that night as far as appointing, but within there we determined who we were going to appoint,”
White, an alumnus of South Range schools, teaches in the United Local school district and had never before sought a board of education seat.
“My intent is to do what is best for the school district and the children of the school district ... I’m very eager to do that,” she said.
She will put in her application for the vacant board spot. There were five applicants last time, and a sixth applicant turned in a resume late.
While this has been going on, the district is just weeks away from an operating levy on the May 5 ballot.
That is a three-year, 4.9-mill operating levy would generate $931,838 over three years and cost the owner of a $100,000 home $171.50 a year.