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Mahoning board of elections hires attorney to defend its decision on anti-fracking proposal
YOUNGSTOWN
The Mahoning County Board of Elections hired outside legal counsel to defend its decision to not put an anti-fracking charter amendment on Youngstown’s Nov. 3 ballot.
The reason for hiring Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease LLP is because the board’s Aug. 26 vote conflicted with the legal opinion of the county prosecutor, who serves as the board’s attorney.
“The opinion differed from what the board decided,” said Mark Munroe, board chairman and head of the county Republican Party. “Because of a conflict, we’re hiring outside legal counsel.”
The board met Tuesday and declined a request from The Vindicator to vote on making the opinion, in letter form, public.
“It’s subject to attorney-client privilege,” Munroe said.
County Prosecutor Paul J. Gains declined to make the letter public without a vote of the board of elections.
The city of Youngstown filed a complaint Aug. 28 with the Ohio Supreme Court contending the elections board acted “illegally” when it refused to put the citizen-initiative amendment on the ballot.
The complaint also named Secretary of State Jon Husted, though the city had to amend the complaint last week as it incorrectly spelled his first name in the court document.
In a court response Tuesday, an attorney with the Ohio Attorney General’s Office, representing Husted, wrote that the secretary of state “is not a property party to this lawsuit.” Attorneys for Husted and the board wrote in separate responses that Youngstown “failed to state a claim upon which it is entitled to relief from” them.
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court gave both sides until Sunday to file written briefs in what the court called “an expedited election matter.” The court also wrote that “no requests or stipulations for extension of time shall be accepted in this case.”
Also Tuesday, six city residents, who are members of Frack Free Mahoning Valley, which collected the needed signatures to get this on the Nov. 3 ballot, filed their own writ of mandamus with the Supreme Court against the board and Husted. The residents want the court to require the board, which it states lacked the authority to remove the issue, to certify the proposed charter amendment to the ballot.
The board of elections members voted 4-0 on Aug. 26 to keep the proposal, which has failed four previous times, off the ballot largely because of a Feb. 17 state Supreme Court decision.
That decision says the state constitution’s home-rule amendment doesn’t grant local governments the power to regulate oil and gas operations in their limits, and that Ohio law gives the state government – specifically the Department of Natural Resources – the exclusive authority to regulate oil and gas wells.
Mahoning County commissioners voted last week to allow the hiring of an attorney for up to $25,000.
“You rejected the charter amendment [that] you did not have the legal authority to do so, and hire an attorney starting at $25,000,” Susie Beiersdorfer, a member of Frack Free Mahoning Valley, said Tuesday to the board. “Talk about wasting money. We don’t have a fracking problem. We have a democracy problem.”
Board Vice Chairman David Betras, who is also the county Democratic Party chairman, said he disagrees with the Supreme Court decision “to take away local control, but it is the law of the land.”
Betras also told Beiersdorfer: “I take exception to the comment we’re not protecting democracy. Every time a group doesn’t agree with a law, they can’t get signatures and put it on the ballot. If someone opposes gay marriages in the city, they can’t have that put on the city ballot.”