City Council Tensions Enter the Courts in Surprise Legal Filing
Latest Procedural Disagreement Highlights Existing and Developing Rifts
The daughter of a Hilliard City Council member has filed a civil complaint against the City of Hilliard and five other members of City Council alleging the city violated the Ohio Sunshine Law that requires elected public officials to meet and discuss policy in public.
Molly Carrier, who is to begin law school this fall at Capital University, filed the civil complaint May 19 in Franklin County Common Pleas Court.
David Ball, the director of community relations for the City of Hilliard, said the city would not comment on the action but City Councilman Pete Marsh said June 8 the motion under question was introduced and discussed at an open meeting and did not violate the Ohio Sunshine Law.
The case is assigned to Franklin County Common Pleas Court Judge Mark Serrott.
Molly Carrier is the plaintiff in the complaint and said she will represent herself in the action.
While The civil case allows only a fine of $500 if the court finds in favor of the plaintiff fines could be levied for each individual violation if multiple instances are found, according to Carrier.
The complaint names the City of Hilliard and five individual members of Hilliard City Council: Andy Teater, Tina Cottone, Peggy Hale, Cynthia Vermillion, and Marsh.
Service of notice was completed June 1, according to the case file.
Also according to the case file, a discovery conference between the parties, where information to be entered into evidence is disclosed, is scheduled for Sept. 15 with a tentative trial date beginning June 3, 2024.
The complaint cites the Hilliard City Charter that requires “all meetings of City Council shall be open to the public” except for those held in executive session and only after five members vote to conduct an executive session for specific reasons allowed in Ohio Revised Code.
The Open Meetings Act in Ohio Revised Code “shall be liberally construed to require public officials to take official action and to conduct all deliberations upon official business only in open meetings,” according to the complaint.
As such, the complaint argues that emails among the five members in advance of a May 8 meeting where action that was taken based on those emails, violated the Open Meetings Act.
The complaint argues that the Ohio Supreme Court holds in White v. King (2016) that the “Sunshine Law applies regardless of whether the discussion is face-to-face or via some electronic medium.”
The complaint argues that the five members of council individually named “appear to have met in advance of public meetings.”
Molly Carrier included exhibits of emails among the five council members that included discussions of a “statement of support” for Hilliard City Manager Michelle Crandall.
A May 6 email from Marsh to Teater and Hale makes suggestions to change several words in a statement of support that Marsh wrote had been previously written by Cottone and Vermillion.
A May 8 email from Marsh to Teater, Hale, Cottone and Vermillion, as well as the council clerk, said the statement “looks great” and indicated he would forward it to Carrier and Tarazi.
City Council met later the same day and voted on the “statement of support” for Crandall, which passed 5-2 with Carrier and Tarazi dissenting.
At the May 8 meeting, Councilmember Carrier said he received the language for the statement of support earlier the same day from Marsh and questioned whether other council members had seen it previously.
“Sure, several people saw it,” Teater replied, “about the same time frame you did, maybe before but not that much time.”
Teater said discussion on the language began Friday, three days before the May 8 meeting.
When asked by Carrier, law director Phil Hartmann said he had not previously seen the language.
Further, Hartmann said because it is not an ordinance or a resolution, it does not require the law department’s review.
But Hartmann said it is subject to the Open Meetings Act.
Teater replied that the matter was now before City Council at an open meeting for discussion and possible amendments.
But Carrier asked to know who had seen the language “over the weekend” and prior to the Monday, May 8 meeting.
“Does that make a difference as to how you’re going to vote?” Vermillion said.
“I don’t think that is relevant, what I am looking at is the Open Meetings Act,” Carrier replied.
At the May 8 meeting, Cottone said she wrote the language and Vermillion said she has edited it.
“My concern is that it was done behind closed doors… (Discussion of a statement of support) has to be in this format, it can’t be behind closed doors,” Carrier said.
“And that is where we are at right now,” Teater said.
“We are very far from that because this was drafted and edited before it got here,” Carrier said.
“It is not a complicated concept. It does not require pre-reading. It is simply, do I, Tina Cottone, support our city manager and staff? Yes, I do,” Cottone said.
Carrier said he is not questioning the subject matter as much as the path to get to it.
“I disagree with the process by which it was drafted because clearly it was drafted behind closed doors,” as well as edited, which rises to “deliberating,” Carrier said.
The motivation of the statement was “not to do anything in secret” but rather because “council was frustrated by the last couple of meetings” and “we felt a desire to support our administration and our staff,” Teater responded.
In February, Crandall fired Finance Director David Delande.
In April, Carrier and Tarazi asked for council inquiry into the reasoning Crandall used in reaching the decision but the motion failed 4-3 with only Hale providing additional support for it.
“It is a shame that an attempt to do something to recognize the incredible work (of city staff) has been twisted this way but in no way does it take away from (their) great work,” Marsh said June 8.
(See our reporting on the issue here and here)
Full Video of the May 8th Council Meeting quoted from may be viewed below. Relevant portion begins at 35:37
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