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S. Range Atty.: White to resign, restart board appointment process
By ROBERT CONNELLY
NORTH LIMA
The South Range Board of Education will go back through the school board appointment process today.
The school district’s lawyer, John Britton, said Monday that recently appointed board member Amy White is resigning and that her resignation, and discussion of the process to fill that vacancy, will take place at a special board meeting at 7 tonight at the board’s office, 11300 S. Columbiana-Canfield Road.
“They are going to redo their application process and follow their policy more closely,” Britton said.
The Vindicator’s lawyer, David Marburger, said the South Range Local School District violated the state’s Sunshine Laws when it voted to appoint White to its board March 16.
“A public body may not take any formal action, such as voting or otherwise reaching a collective decision, in an executive session. Any formal action taken in an executive session is invalid,” Ohio Sunshine Laws state.
A metallic gold-and-black nameplate already had been made for her before the vote took place in public.
Atty. Marburger said that nameplate was “just the clearest evidence. ... The most-troubling part is what that represents. That represents that the decision was already made.”
Britton argued that a consensus developed in executive session among peers talking about candidates is not a violation of Sunshine Laws.
The South Range school board had met the week before appointing White in executive session to discuss the replacement of board member Bruce Zinz, whose resignation was Feb. 16. Britton stands by his argument that the school board did nothing wrong.
“The presence of a nameplate in and of itself does not indicate anything,” the attorney said. “This case is significantly different from the one that [The Vindicator] is paralleling it to with Mill Creek.”
In December, The Vindicator reported on how the Mill Creek MetroParks Board of Commissioners appointed Aaron Young as its new executive director and sent out a news release an hour before the public vote.
After media coverage, Mill Creek rescinded that appointment and, in an open meeting later, appointed Young.
“I think essentially attempting to determine that this was a violation of [the] Sunshine Law is more creating the news than reporting the news,” Britton said.