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Different vote gives Trumbull commissioner candidate David Cook new life
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
The candidacy of Democrat David Cook for Trumbull County commissioner got new life Monday as one of the two Republican members of the county elections board changed her vote on whether Cook’s “bad penmanship” should remove him from the ballot.
Meanwhile, the board affirmed its earlier decision that removed Joe O’Grady as a candidate in the Democratic primary for sheriff.
After a hearing, Republican board member Cathi Creed, along with fellow Republican Ron Knight, voted to allow Cook on the March 15 ballot, while Democrats Mark Alberini and Ken Kubala upheld an earlier decision to remove him. The split means Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted, a Republican, will break the tie.
Cook said he felt Kubala should have abstained from voting, which would have put Cook back on the ballot. Cook, a Democrat who hopes to run against incumbent county Commissioner Dan Polivka, said Kubala’s friendship with Polivka should have made him ineligible to vote on the matter. Polivka also is county Democratic Party chairman.
Asked afterward about Cook’s comments, Kubala said: “Being friends with public officials doesn’t mean a conflict of interest.”
Polivka promoted Kubala as interim county commissioner in August 2014, shortly after Democrat Paul Heltzel died. But members of the county Democratic Party Central Committee voted to elect Mauro Cantalamessa instead.
The elections board Dec. 28 ruled Cook ineligible to run in the primary because one page of his petitions had a confusing number on it, representing the number of signatures on that page of his petitions.
It was supposed to be a 21, but some board members felt it looked more like a 20. Alberini said that giving the wrong number was a clear-cut disqualifier under Ohio law.
Cook told the board Monday he has carpal-tunnel syndrome in his writing hand and arthritis in that wrist. “I think I just got in a hurry that day and my hand shook,” he said. He called it poor penmanship. “I thought I made a proper “1,” and that’s all it comes down to,” he said.
Cook, of Warren, has run several times in the past for county commissioner and once for state representative. He has never held elective office.
O’Grady’s attorney, John Large, told the elections board he believes O’Grady and another first-time candidate for sheriff, Democrat Paul Monroe, were both confused by their deadline to submit proof that they had the minimum qualifications to be sheriff.
Both men received a booklet from the elections board that elections officials acknowledge was “not as clear” as other guidance available.
O’Grady was removed from the ballot because he turned in the proof Dec. 17, one day after the deadline. Monroe turned in his proof 22 minutes before the 4 p.m. deadline Dec. 16, Large said. Monroe, whose candidacy was approved by the elections board, has acknowledged that he gathered many of the documents the same day he submitted them.
Elections board employee Joanne Hulvalchick testified that she received a call from Monroe the morning of Dec. 16 asking for clarification of the deadline because someone had called him about it. Hulvalchick called Monroe back and said she did not know the deadline. She also called O’Grady’s treasurer, his sister Cathy O’Grady, and advised her that the deadline might be approaching.
Cathy O’Grady said she received a voicemail from Hulvalchick at 2 p.m. Dec. 16, when she got off work, and notified her brother. He didn’t have enough time to get all of the documents together that day and finished it the next day.
“Both of these men are responsible men, and they would not have waited to the last minute to do this” if they had gotten good information from the elections board, Large said of O’Grady and Monroe.
Before the board voted 4-0 to reject O’Grady’s appeal, board member Mark Alberini said board members “always lean toward putting candidates on the ballot ... but we are bound by the law and we have to make our decisions based on that.”
Alberini said a primary factor is that it is “a candidate’s responsibility ... to know the deadlines” and cited other guidance available that clearly stated the deadline.