STARK COUNTY BD OF ELECTIONS TO DETERMINE WHO IS QUALIFIED TO BE APPOINTED BY STARK DEMS CENTRAL COMMITTEE AS McDONALD SUCCESSOR. COULD THE SHERIFF SELECTION END UP IN THE COURTS AS A CONTESTED LEGAL MATTER? ZEIGLER: "DEJA VU & ALL OVER AGAIN?"

NOTE:  The SCPR is focusing on the naming of a new Stark County sheriff.  With each new blog, The Report will include links to other blogs written since Friday, January 4th.
 

 SUBTOPICS

GEORGE MAIER SENDS OUT LETTER TO DEMS

CENTRAL COMMITTEE SEEKING SUPPORT

(SEE COPY OF LETTER IN THIS BLOG)
  

FORCHIONE DOES NOT DECIDE, MERELY COLLECTS/TRANSMITS
INFORMATION TO THE STARK BOARD OF ELECTIONS

LINKS

• January 11, 2013 blog
• January 10, 2013 blog,
• January 8, 2013 blog,
• January 5, 2013 blog,
• January 4, 2013 blog,

********** MOST RECENT BLOG **********

The Stark County Political Report has learned that so far two candidates for the appointment of the Stark County Democratic Party Central Committee (SCDPCC) have been interviewed (and submitted statutorily required information and finger prints) by Stark County Court of Common Pleas Administrative Judge Frank Forchione.

The two interviewed are Lt. Louis A. Darrow (currently serving in the sheriff's department and current Sheriff Tim Swanson's choice) and Massillon Safety Director George T. Maier who formerly served in the Ohio State Highway Patrol.

Such is a pre-condition (among a number of qualification factors) for anyone to be considered by the SCDPCC as its appointee to replace Sheriff-elect Mike McDonald (who was victorious over Republican Larry Dordea in November) to take the oath of office as sheriff and to serve through 2014.

But the interview and the satisfaction of statutory requirements attested (sworn to) by the candidate for appointment does not put Judge Forchione in a position to determine whether or not Darrow and Maier or any other applicant (Dordea has told the SCPR that his application to the Stark Dems is in the mail) are qualified to be appointed by the Stark Dems.

Judge Forchione tells the SCPR that the qualification decision is to made by the Stark County Board of Elections (Stark BOE).

Ohio Revised Code Section 311.01(F)(2), in part, reads:

Each board of elections shall certify whether or not a candidate for the office of sheriff who has filed a declaration of candidacy, a statement of candidacy, ... meets the qualifications specified in divisions (B) and (C) of this section.

The qualifications of 311.01(F)(2) (listed by the SCPR as being items 1 through 8 below particularized to Stark County) are the easy part.

However, items 9 and 10 may prove problematical at least one of the candidates.  The list includes that the candidate for appointment:

1. be a U.S. citizen, *
2. be a resident of Stark County for one year,
3. be a qualified voter, *
4. have a high school degree or its equivalent, *
5. have a conviction record of a felony or first degree misdemeanor, *
6. be finger printed under the direction Judge Forchione who is to have the finger prints compared to local, state and federal databases and  (a process that takes about 7 to 10 days according to Forchione) who turns submits the results to the Stark BOE,
7. submit a list * of:
1. residences going back 6 years,
2. places of employment going back 6 years,
8. have evidence * of a basic peace officer certificate of training [by an approved issuing authority as specified in the statute],
9. have been employed within the past four years as:
1. a state highway patrolman,
2. a full-time police officer, OR
10. have been employed for the past three years as a full-time law enforcement officer

Sheriff Swanson speculated last Friday that George Maier may have difficulty qualifying.  He did not say which of the 10 criteria might be troublesome for Maier.

Could it be that items 9 and 10 are what Swanson was referring to?

On Wednesday Maier sent out a letter to Stark County Democratic Party precinct committeepersons.

Here is a copy of the letter:

In November, 2014, the selected McDonald replacement will have to stand for re-election and win in order to serve beyond 2014 for a full term in office.

The interesting thing to the SCPR is that the Stark County BOE determines who is qualified.

The BOE is membered by two Republicans and two Democrats by design a la the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union for a good number of decades during the 1900s.

And Maier's brother Johnnie, Jr. (a former head of the Stark County Democratic Party and currently the Massillon clerk of courts) was a board member up until he ran for re-election as clerk in 2011.

Ohio law does not permit a person running for political office to serve on the BOE.

So what happens is that the Dems switch out holders of one of the two Democratic positions (which the SCPR calls "the clerk of courts seat") with:

• either Phil Giavasis (Canton clerk of courts - the current holder of the office), 
• Shane Jackson (Johnnie's chief deputy in Massillon), 
• Randy Gonzalez (an Giavasis employee in the clerk's office, and current chairman of the Stark Democratic Party, and fiscal officer in Jackson Township) and, of course, 
• Johnnie himself.

Johnnie stirred up a controversy a number of years ago when he asked long time board member Billy Sherer to step aside (which had become to be known as "the union's seat on the BOE," so that he could appoint an attorney (Sam Ferruccio) (LINK - July 1, 2008 SCPR report on this Maier maneuver) which according to Maier was the wish of the-then Democratic secretary of state Jennifer Brunner who in turn threw Maier under the bus in denying that she requested any such thing.

If there is a tie vote (not uncommon, Republicans William Cline and Curt Braden in a stand off with Dems Giavasis and Ferruccio), it is broken by Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted.

What Ohioans and Stark Countians ought to be asking themselves is what qualifications do board of elections members have to assess whether or not a person is qualified to be sheriff?

And this is not even an antiquated law like the one was under which the Stark County commissioners (Bosely, Meeks and Ferguson) unconstitutionally removed Gary Zeigler as Stark County treasurer.

It was enacted on December 9, 2003?

What dopes the legislators in 2003 were, no?

Yours truly can see that there might well be a disagreement by a party-in-interest (i.e. one the applicants for the appointment) with the determination of the questionably prepared BOE members and we could see a  an appeal of an BOE determination filed pursuant to Ohio Revised Code 2506.01.

Or, maybe an appeal gets filed because there is a tie as a consequence of a standoff between Stark Rs and Ds and Husted votes with the Republicans and the Dems take the matter into the courts?

And guess where the initial appeal is heard?

You've got it:  the Stark County Court of Common Pleas.

But you have to believe that Judge Forchione will not abide being on the other end of the full circle that he was at the beginning of,  if such a scenario unfolds.

Alternatively, such a case would fall to one of the other judges, or, will they also (a la the Zeigler litigation) defer and we will have yet another Ohio Supreme Court out-of-county judge appointed to deal with the matter.

Are we about to go down that road again?

Could Stark be heading to the Ohio Supreme Court again?

Will Tim Swanson still be sheriff one or two years from now?