(VIDEO OF ALAN HAROLD) FOLLOW UP - DID ZEIGLER HAVE OR NOT HAVE COMPUTER/TELEPHONE ACCESS DURING HIS 30 MINUTES IN THE STARK TREASURER'S OFFICE ON 06/28/2011?

 

Earlier today the SCPR did a blog to the effect that putative Treasurer Gary D. Zeigler (not officially treasurer because he is requited to get a bond by Ohio law) paid a visit to the Stark County treasury yesterday and took up his place in the treasurer's office within the treasury office complex located on the second floor of the Stark County Office Building.

Moreover, The Report shared a story with readers as told to yours truly by a highly reliable source (which The Report now believes was embellished by the source, as even the best of human beings are wont to do here and there) in which Zeigler was said to be without a computer and a telephone while at the office.  

Today, The Report, Nancy Molnar of the Akron Beacon Journal and Kelli Young of The Repository held an impromptu news conference with Auditor Harold after the Stark County commissioners' weekly Wednesday meeting.  Harold had come into the commissioners meeting early on during the session.

A focus of the news conference was a list that Harold is compiling about all the changes that have been made in the Stark treasury and Stark auditor's office since Gary Zeigler was removed as treasurer by commissioners on August 23rd and Kim Perez's relinquishing of office in March of this year (having been defeated by Harold in last November's general election).

Near the end of the conference, Molnar asked (obviously referring to the SCPR blog on the matter) Harold whether or not it was true that Zeigler was without a computer and telephone during his brief visit to the Stark treasury on Tuesday.

Answer:  Not true, Zeigler had both a computer and telephone.

Yours truly was astounded to hear him say that.  

For what appeared in the first blog was as the tale (Zeigler:  no computer, no telephone) was told to The Report by an impeccable source (in terms of being in a position to know).

The computer.

As it turns out (see Harold's explanation in the video press conference below), in the effective sense, Zeigler was without a computer because when it gets turned on all one gets is a log-on screen that requires a password to gain access to office/county files and presumably the county network.  Well, Zeigler's was terminated on his removal back in August, 2010.

So yes,  Zeigler could turn the computer on, but that was it.  

Harold goes on to say that had Zeigler contacted him for a new password he (Harold) would not have issued it because he is unbonded and therefore not treasurer and not entitled participate in county business as a public official/employee.

The telephone.  

Although the telephone was operative on Tuesday, according to Harold today, (contrary to what The Report was clearly told by the source on Tuesday evening) sometime Wednesday morning Harold had his Informational Technology folks take the office phone of the treasurer out of the loop (in other words:  deadened it).  Harold seems to suggest in the video that this was part of a countywide review of needed phones and that unused phones are taken out of the loop.

Taking Harold at his word, the SCPR finds it more than coincidental that what The Report was told on Tuesday evening about earlier in the day Tuesday about Zeigler's phone status became reality on Wednesday morning.

So if Zeigler were to visit his office tomorrow, he would not have access to a "live" telephone in the office he called home as treasurer over the past ten years or so.  Nor will Harold reconnect the telephone unless and until he is presented with a bond from Gary Zeigler.

The SCPR stands by the account given (in terms of its substance as delivered by the source) in the first blog on whether or not Zeigler had access to a computer and telephone during Tuesday's visit to the Stark treasury.

As stated above, it is clear to The Report that the Tuesday source account was an embellishment.  Such is the life of anyone who deals with public figures.

Whenever the SCPR learns of misstatements, embellishments, et cetera  from sources, The Report will be quick to set the record straight.

Here is Auditory Alan Harold in his own words:

OELSLAGER VOTES WITH DEMOCRATS IN OHIO SENATE AGAINST HB 153 - OHIO'S TWO YEAR BUDGET BILL

The Ohio Senate voted out HB 153 yesterday and in a near party line vote approved the measure 22 to 11.

"Near" is the operative vote.  Stark County state Sen. Scott Oelslager was not among the 23 Republicans who voted for the bill.

Undoubtedly, for Oelslager, the slashing of local government funds and financial assumptions that SB 5 (the collective bargaining bill) will become law was too much for him to play the loyal Republican role.

The SCPR commends Oelslager for demonstrating the courage to stand up against his party to send a message of support for Stark's villages, cities and townships and their opposition (for the most part) to the nearly 50% cuts in local government funding that HB 153 provides for over the next two fiscal years.

Republicans Christina Hagan and Kirk Schuring on the House side of the Ohio General Assembly:  how will they vote?

Answer:  Do not look for them to pull an Oelslager!

ZEIGLER VISITS TREASURER'S OFFICE. REPORTEDLY PULLS SHADES CLOSED - LIKE IN THE OLD DAYS. GETS TELEPHONE AND COMPUTER SHUT DOWN. REPUBLICANS CONSIDERING A ORC 3.07 & 3.08 ACTION AGAINST HIM. HMM?

It appears that there are people in county government who "really" do not want to see reinstated Stark County Treasurer Gary D. Zeigler return to office.  But return he will, if county commissioners can get a bond issued to cover him as required by Ohio law.

The Report is told Zeigler "visited" his office yesterday for about thirty minutes.

While Zeigler was in office prior to being illegally removed by Commissioners Bosley, Ferguson and Meeks on August 23, 2010 according to the Ohio Supreme Court because they did not accord him "due process of law" in an ORC 321.38 removal process, he was known (according to a SCPR source) to hunker down in his office with window blinds closed.

His illegally elected replacement Alex Zumbar, on the other hand, is said to have always kept the blinds open for all to see him at all times.

Among the first things Zeigler did in his visit yesterday  - according to The Report's source - is to enter the vacant treasurer's  office with his attorney and did what?  You've got it:  closed the window blinds.

The SCPR is told that Zeigler's trip to the Stark treasury is being termed a visit because no bond has been secured yet and for him to be officially back as treasurer:   a bond is a mandatory condition.

Apparently on the theory that only official county employees are entitled to use county equipment,   it seems that within minutes of taking up occupancy in the vacant office the office phone and computer were shut down by county Information technology personnel.

'Wow!  No phone, no computer!!  Undoubtedly, Zeigler had to feel unwelcome!!!

The feeling is running so strong (at least among Alex Zumbar supporters) against Zeigler that (according to a Republican public official) the Stark County Republican Party is considering filing an ORC 3.07/3.08 action to remove him from office once again.

"Considering" is the appropriate word. 

The SCPR's read of the Republican official? It is unlikely that a ORC 3.07/3.08 action will be undertaken.

The reasons?

• About 20,000 valid voter signatures (15% of those voting in Stark County in the 2010 Kasich/Strickland race) would have to be collected and made part of a complaint filed in the Stark County Court of Common Pleas.
• Even if the signatures were to be collected and the complaint filed and ultimately  the case won (i.e. Zeigler is once again removed), very little would be gained in terms of removing Zeigler prior to the end of this current term (September, 2013).  Estimates indicate about six months.  With the appellate process (which one would think Zeigler would invoke), it could be that the matter would be strung out in the legal processes so that nothing - time wise - is gained.

Anti-Zeiglerites should not get their hopes up that Zeigler is not going to re-assume office.  The Report believes that commissioners will be able to get Zeigler's bond.  After all, they were able to get his bond renewed post-discovery of the Frustaci theft of county funds.

And why should they.  He was completely exonerated of any involvement whatsoever in the theft of the funds by county and federal prosecutors.

Really the only question now is whether or not Zeigler will seek re-election to another term as county treasurer.

The Report expects that he will.  That's how dug in this guy is.

Apparently, it will take the voters either in the Democratic primary in March/May 2012 or in the general election in November to get Zeigler out of office.

So Stark Countians have to wait 14 months before they can move on from Stark County Treasurer Gary D. Zeigler to remove him should he choose to run.

And Zeigler should not fantasize that the Stark County voting public will somehow change their perception that he did not properly manage the treasury so as to minimize the opportunity for the likes of Vince Frustaci to make off with Stark County taxpayer money.

HOW HARD DID STATE REP. CHRISTINA HAGAN TRY TO HAVE FELLOW LEGISLATORS SHARE IN OHIO'S TOUGH TIMES?

 

Days after she voted to force onto the backs of Ohio's public employees (Senate Bill 5) that they share disproportionately to solving the state's financial woes, Republican Party appointee (the 50th) Christina Hagan held a town hall meeting in Louisville.

A citizen stepped forward and asked her to support HB 41 (offered by fellow Republican Terry Boose - Lorain) which provided for 5% cuts in state legislator pay.  Since legislators cannot - by the Ohio Constitution - affect their own pay in the biennium term they are serving in, such a cut would not go into effect until the 130th Ohio General Assembly which will take office on January 1, 2013.

Here is the video of the citizen addressing the issue at Hagan's town hall meeting:

Interesting enough Hagan and her town hall props/supports (state Reps. Amstutz and Hall) did not seem to know anything about HB 41.  But she did promise to get up to speed.  Moreover, she seemed to promise she would for her term donate 5% of her income to a charity.  

Readers can be sure that if she does so, there will be a press release extolling her for doing so.

While HB 41 has not even had a hearing, it did make it into the budget bill (which, of course, violates the Ohio Constitution's requirement that legislation deal with only one topic).

As the Toledo Blade headline above says, the pay cut was stripped from the budget bill and not because conferees worried about the constitutionality of the provision being in the bill.

While Republicans (including Stark Countians Hagan and Schuring) are quite willing to exact a pound of flesh from the rest of us, the excision of the pay cut from the budget bill proves they are unwilling to share in the sacrifice they impose on the rest of Ohio.

Hmm?

ARE ALL REPUBLICAN OFFICEHOLDERS TURNING INTO "TEA PARTIERS?" PROBABLY NOT, BUT IT LOOKS LIKE STATE SEN. OELSLAGER AND STATE REPS HAGAN & SCHURING MAY BE?

 

It is hard to distinguish between The Tea Party and the Republican Party these days.

The man who is likely to become the Republican nominee for president (Mitt Romney) to run against President Barack Obama started out as a moderate Republican as governor of Massachusetts.

As governor he supported abortion rights and took up the cause of providing universal health care for citizens of the Bay state.  Neither of these are on the radar for Tea Partiers.

Realizing that is near impossible to get the Republican nomination for anything, Romney has been working overtime to at least be palatable to Tea Partiers.  While he certainly is the the darling of Tea Partiers and Republican social conservatives, he is doing well enough to be in a virtual tie in the latest poll in Iowa which is the first in the nation primary.  He leads 23% to 22% over Michele Bachmann.

It seems that it is his health care legacy which causes him the most problem.  Tea Partiers detest what they call Obamacare more than anything else the president has done in office.

It appears to the SCPR that Ohio General Assembly Republicans (including Stark County's Scott Oelslager, Kirk Schuring and Christian Hagan) has latched onto the Tea Partiers' intense hatred of Obamacare as a way to counter the groundswell of public support that the repeal effort of Senate Bill 5 being pushed by the Ohio Democratic Party.

Senate Bill 5 (SB 5) is Republican Governor Kasich's effort to virtually eliminate meaningful collective bargaining rights for Ohio's public employees (policement, firemen, teachers and others.

At the moment appears to be heading for a political bloodbath.

Out-of-the-blue on June 15th the Republican caucuses of the House and Senate concocted a joint resolution (which requires a 60% majority) to add to the Ohio Constitution (if voters approve the measure) a provision to allow Ohioans to opt out of certain aspects of Obamacare.

The Republican idea is to get enough Tea Partiers to the polls on November 8th to deny the pro-repeal-SB5 a victory.

The Report does not believe that the Republican political tactic would have worked.  It appears that the pro-repeal folks will have about one million signatures by the time they quite collecting signatures and turn them in to the Ohio secretary of state for validation.  Only 385,245 are required.

The Republican - "let's have a constitutional amendment crowd" - fell short by 1 vote of getting the required 60% majority.

The Republicans tried hard to get that one needed Democrat to help them because the constitutional amendment route was a sure way to get the measure on the November ballot.

But they have not given up.  They have the Tea Partiers out working to collect signatures to get the anti-Obamacare measure on the ballot, to wit:

The Tea Partiers say they have 389,000 which is more than the 385,245 needed.  However, as is always the case, there are always many signers who are not registered voters or get disqualified for other reasons.  So 389,000 will not get the job done.  Tea Party officials say they will end up with about 500,000 by the final date for collecting signature (July 6th).  The question is:  will 500,000 be enough?  Perhaps not.  That is why the Republicans pushed hard to get the measure on the ballot as a constitutional amendment.

The Report thinks that Oelslager and Schuring would deny that they are Tea Partiers.  Hagan, probably not.  

For Oelslager and Schuring the congruence between their vote on SJR 1 and the Tea Partiers taking up the cause makes them at the very least willing to consort with the Tea Partiers to help Governor Kasich reach his goal of defeating the SB 5 repeal effort.

Oelslager's vote is inconsistent with his vote against passage of SB 5.  Hmm?  Makes one wonder how authentic how committed he is to seeing SB 5 repealed?

In any event the Republicans who make up the Ohio General Assembly are a far cry from those progressive types that started the Republican Party way back in 1854!

(VIDEOS) WHAT WAS THE CORRECT PROCEDURE FOR STARK COUNTY TO HAVE REMOVED ZEIGLER FROM OFFICE? HOW ABOUT ORC SECTIONS 3.08 & 3.07?

Stark Countians clearly remember that on April 1, 2009 it was revealed that Treasurer Zeigler discovered that his Chief Deputy Vince Frustaci had stolen $2.46 million (federal judge John Adams has said he believes that Frustaci actually took $2.96 million) from the county treasury.  Of course, Zeigler fired Frustaci immediately.  And Frustaci pled guilty and is serving 10 years in federal prison.

While Zeigler himself was exonerated by county and federal prosecutors of an criminal culpability, the State of Ohio Auditor's office found that Zeigler was deficient on a number of bases in having procedures in place to prevent an employee from making off with county money.

Stark County commissioners moved to remove Zeigler from office on the authority of Ohio Revised Code Sections (ORC) 321.07 and 321.08 which gave commissioners "permission" to remove on the fact that money came up missing while Zeigler was treasurer.

Here are a couple of videos to refresh SCPR readers on the actual proceedings wherein the commissioners prepared to and actually removed Zeigler.



As it turns out, the then Stark County Commissioners Todd Bosley, Pete Ferguson (he remains a commissioner) and Steve Meeks were legally wrong (so says the Ohio Supreme Court)  in removing Stark County Treasurer Gary D. Zeigler from office pursuant to the Chapter 300 statutory provisions.

Of course, the commissioners were relying on Stark County Prosecutor John Ferrero's legal advice in proceeding under ORC 321.37 and 321.28.

The high court was saying in effect via the language "is unconstitutional on its face," that Prosecutor Ferrero miscalculated in allowing the commissioners to proceed under 321.37 and 38.

The SCPR would go one step further and say that the Ohio General Assembly messed up in not fixing this obviously unconstitutional law years ago.

Notice the dates that the Legislature last dealt with these code sections:

1985 and 1953.  Hmm?

The Ohio Revised Code is sorely in need of revision.  Not only on constitutionally "on the face of it" problematical provisions like 321.37/38, but also across the board to update/remove out-of-date provisions like Stark County Court of Common Pleas Court Judge Taryn Heath (head of the Citizen Review Taskforce on unfunded mandates) brought forward (22 of them - just scratching the surface) back in March at a work session of the Stark County commissioners.

So why don't state Reps Kirk Schuring, Christina Hagan, Stephen Slesnick and state Sen Scott Oelslager get moving on setting up a continuing legislative taskforce to comb through the ORC and cure the defects and the out-of-dateness?

Yesterday, the SCPR talked with former Commissioner Bosley about the reasons the commissioners proceeded under ORC 321.37/38.  Interesting.  He laid much of the blame at the feet of local attorney and civic activist Craig T. Conley.

Bosley said that Conley was on the telephone with him for seeming hours without end pushing, pressing and cajoling him and his fellows to move forward on 321.37/38 and even asked for commissioners to appoint him the lead attorney on the matter.

The Report does not buy the Bosley argument. 

Yes, Conley did push.  But as The Report remembers.  It appeared that Ferrero was never going to get moving. 

Neither Bosley nor Ferguson recalls Ferrero bringing up the availability of using ORC Sections 3.07 and 3.08, to wit:

A major problem with the ORC 3.08/07 approach is that do so would require the collecting 20,912 valid Stark County voter signatures.  Not impossible, by any stretch.  But nonetheless "real work!"

Proceeding that way certainly would have cured the ORC 321.38 (an administrative process that the Supreme Court says does not qualify to be quasi judicial/administrative) "due process of law" problem.

And, had the people of Stark County prevailed before either a judge or jury, the county would not be facing "back wages, front wages and wrongful termination" damages that Zeigler's attorneys say they are looking at going after.  (Supreme Court rules that Zeigler should get his job back, Kelli Young and Shane Hoover, The Repository, 06/23/2001).

One can only imagine the Stark County public's reaction should Zeigler collect hundreds of thousands of dollars if not in the seven figures ($1,000,000 or more)!!!

SLIDESHOW: HOOVER RETIREES MEET AT MAYFIELD SR CTR TO ORGANIZE FIGHT AGAINST WHIRLPOOL REDUCTION IN MEDICAL/PRESCRIPTION BENEFITS