Sebring issue to allow voters to fire the village manager won’t be on the ballot

August 17, 2016 at 8:08p.m.

YOUNGSTOWN

A citizen-initiative charter amendment in Sebring to fire the village manager without a severance package will not be on the Nov. 8 ballot because of a mistake with one of the petitions.

Corey Hughes, a former Sebring street department worker who led the effort, failed to write in “38,” the number of signatures he collected on one petition.

That’s considered a “fatal error” under state law and resulted in the rejection of that petition, according to Mahoning County Board of Elections Director Joyce Kale-Pesta.

Without that petition, only 86 signatures were determined by board employees to be valid. To get on the ballot, the proposal needed 97 valid signatures.

However, because of Sebring’s village charter, its clerk of council could have allowed the proposal to be approved, Kale-Pesta said.

But after getting a legal opinion from village Solicitor Theresa T. Tolson, Clerk Malea Sanor chose to not certify the petition.

“I’ve accepted the village solicitor’s opinion and it will not be on the ballot,” Sanor said.

In the opinion, Tolson wrote that the village could “challenge the decision of the board of elections of Mahoning County if the village believes the board engaged in fraud, corruption, abuse of discretion or clear disregard of statutes or pertinent law.”

Tolson concluded the opinion by writing the board did none of those and the village “has no basis for challenging the board of elections determination that the initiative petition does not contain the requisite number of valid signatures to be placed on the ballot.”

Hughes said, “It was a technical error on my part. I apologize to the people for my mistake. I messed up.”