Gains: Nothing wrong with executive sessions

YOUNGSTOWN — The Mahoning County commissioners conducted two executive sessions last week concerning lead detected in Oakhill Renaissance Place tap water, during which the discussion included health information that is in the public domain.

But county Prosecutor Paul J. Gains, who is the commissioners’ legal adviser, said he saw nothing improper in conducting the closed-door meetings.

Gains also said the introduction of health information that’s already in the public domain into the closed-door sessions was proper because it was inextricably linked to the legal advice and labor-relations issues for which the executive sessions were called.

“If you want to talk about legal advice, then I would go into executive session,” Linette Stratford, chief of the civil division of the county prosecutor’s office, advised the commissioners Feb. 29.

“We should get some legal advice because, of course, the rumor mill is running rampant,” at Oakhill, said Carol Rimedio-Righetti, chairwoman of the county commissioners, just before the three commissioners unanimously voted to go into the closed-door session.

Although the commissioners are permitted by the Ohio Sunshine Law to go into executive session to hear legal advice, nothing in state law authorizes an executive session for rumor-control purposes.

Rimedio-Righetti could not be reached for comment Monday.

Ohio’s Open Meetings Act states its provisions “shall be liberally construed to require public officials to take official action and to conduct all deliberations upon official business only in open meetings unless the subject matter is specifically excepted by law.”

Two calls came to the newsroom tipping The Vindicator to the sessions Thursday.

Both callers said they believed the meetings should be public so that all county workers received the same information.

For the complete story, read Tuesday's Vindicator and Vindy.com