Live by the charter, die by the charter.
The city law director and the pedants at the Board of Elections may have a problem big enough to drive a car through in their reasoning to exclude Mr. William Pace from the primary ballot, May 7, 2013- and it’s because of their insistence on continuing to use the petition written and designed by people in the stone age.
The petitions have this very specific language:
“We name as the nominating committee the five registered electors of The City of Dayton whose names and addresses appear below who shall have authority as provided by the Charter to The City of Dayton, to nominate a candidate to replace the person named herein in the event that such person dies or withdraws his candidacy”
Since Harsman said that Pace didn’t accept his candidacy by signing the petition- but, the petitions were still valid meaning the nominating committee can still name a candidate.
Harsman and the vity have to accept the committee’s nomination, because the signatures of over 500 registered voters gave them the right to.
I suggest they nominate Mr. Pace- or if that’s unacceptable- they nominate someone else.
That argument was presented briefly by Attorney Clinton Ralph Wilcoxson II at the city commission meeting tonight. Of course, there was no feedback from the Mayor or Nan Whaley or Matt Joseph. After the meeting though, they were chuckling about their continued success at keeping people off the ballot.
Since Mr. Harsman obviously knew that the petitions were unsigned when he contacted Mr. Danish, on May 11 for an opinion, days before the deadline for the signing of the “acceptance of candidacy” that was by midnight of May 13th- and that Harsman held the meeting of the BOE, at 4 p.m., after the offices were officially closed, without publishing a public agenda of the business to be conducted 24 hours in advance.
From the Ohio Sunshine Laws, pg 90 [1]:
Public bodies must provide at least 24 hours advance notification of special meetings to all media outlets that have requested such notification, except in the event of an emergency requiring immediate official action (see “Emergency Meetings,” below).
When a public body holds a special meeting to discuss particular issues, the statement of the meeting’s purpose must specifically indicate those issues, and the public body may only discuss those specified issues at that meeting.
When a special meeting is simply a rescheduled “regular” meeting occurring at a different time, the statement of the meeting’s purpose may be for “general purposes.”
Discussing matters at a special meeting that were not disclosed in its notice of purpose, either in open session or executive session, is a violation of the Open Meetings Act.
I specifically asked for the minutes in advance of the meeting at 9:30 a.m. on March 13th, in a recorded phone call [2] that was posted on this site. See this post: http://esrati.com/william-pace-should-be-on-the-ballot-the-BOE-should-be-investigated/9620/ [3]
When Harsman denied my request, I contacted the Mayor and the City Commission office, asking them to force Harsman to release the proposed agenda, since the meeting was going to be held at 4 p.m. instead of the normal 11 a.m., and that Harsman was merely a subcontractor of the city which, by charter, is supposed to run its own nonpartisan elections.
At 2:25pm I received an email from Kery T. Gray, Executive Assistant to the City Commission:
“Thank you for calling regarding your concerns with the Board of Elections. As promised, I shared information with the Mayor and with Mr. Harsman. If I get additional information that I am allowed to share, I will do so.”
No further information came.
I am unable to determine what time that Mr. Danish responded to Harsman with his opinion about the signatures : Board of Elections Opinion-Improper Notarization-1 [4] but the fact that Harsman had been hoping to knock Pace off for lacking signatures was known since he made a request on the 11th. This should and could have been on a public agenda 24 hours before the meeting, so that citizens could have observed the meeting and weighed in. Open Meetings are the law in Ohio- and as I said in the call, regardless of the “triple checks” that Harsman said his staff was undertaking, this issue had nothing to do with triple checks of signatures- it was purely a ploy to hide behind closed doors and not notify the candidate in time for the submission of the single signature.
As soon as Harsman identified that the signature was missing, he should have contacted the nominating committee at that time- and asked whom they nominate- and then got that candidate to sign before the deadline- instead of holding his illegal, after-hours meeting- without an agenda provided 24 hours in advance- to push his personal agenda of excluding Mr. Pace from the ballot.
Unfortunately, the Sunshine Laws don’t have serious penalties or teeth behind them, but, as clearly stated on the petition, “Whoever commits election falsification is guilty of a felony of the fifth degree”- to which I say Mr. Harsman committed a felony by knowingly asking questions of the city attorney on the 11th of May, and refusing to respond to public requests for information in a timely manner that could have changed the course of this election.
And may it also be noted. that the Board of Elections routinely pays its staff and particularly, its directors overtime. By all standards of previous meetings, the signatures off all petitions should have been checked before the normal Tuesday meeting at 11 a.m. and presented then, which would have given the candidate a full day and a half to file his signature.
This really warrants an investigation by the Secretary of State and United States Attorney General, but first, you can start the clock on how long it takes the Dayton Daily news to steal this story.
Fascinating! Excellent write up Dave.
Pendants? As in jewelry?
I’m a pedant, myself, and if that’s what you meant, I resent you calling any BOE member by my cherished title!
David,
After the commission meeting Matt made a snarky comment. I made it clear to Nan and Matt that I believed that William Pace deserved to be on the ballot. He qualified by getting the signatures and there was no way he could get a signature accepting candidacy to the BOE before midnight since the doors to the building were locked. The BOE had an obligation to notify him that they needed him to sign a form. Nan went into some minor rant about some other issues with his forms being notarized a particular way. I made it very clear that the BOE tried to disqualify me within minutes of filing for lining out duplicate signatures that would have been disqualified anyway and it would have been stupid to push the envelope with me. Nan seemed to know more about the issues with all the other candidates forms than you, I or the other candidates will ever know. I even said to her “You seem to know a lot more about my petitions than I do” which took her back just a little. People should ask her why she would know so much about how they attempted to stop others from getting on the ballot. After all, what influence should she have over the BOE? The BOE is supposed to work hard to get people on the ballot. Especially in a non partisan election. Instead, the party of “No” decides that it is in their best interest to get certain people off the ballot. This is so very wrong and needs to change. It is time to get candidates elected who are not of the two party system. It is time to send a message to the county that the paradigm has shifted and independent thinkers are the way to a progressive and successful future. Creativity is the new prosperity. It is time to vote only for independent candidates because it is time to run this city the way our forefathers envisioned it!
@truddick- sorry- corrected… long days this week.
@Mayor Leitzell- thanks for the extra info as always.
What do you expect from people of a political party that instead of having primaries, they have secret meetings to endorse candidates where the first question is “if we don’t endorse you, will you withdraw?”
This is why Darryl Fairchild dropped out- so he could score points with his beloved party of patronage.
“This really warrants an investigation by the Secretary of State…”
It’s ironic that you want Husted to help now.
All voters, even those who don’t support Mr. Pace, should be outraged by this behavior. If the BOE received several hundred signatures from voters expressing their desire for him to be on the ballot, and the BOE drug their feet and didn’t notify him of a minor clerical issue.. one that would disqualify him, that is unacceptable. I would think, as a common courtesy to the hundreds of petionioners, they would have picked up the phone and helped get this resolved. BOE should be facilitating open, honest, and professional elections.. this is a disservice to the voters and citizens of this community.
Whereas I don’t think Mr. Pace would stand much of a chance (again), this is an outrage. It’s a further outrage that 500 valid signatures are required. This is fueled by the democrat machine that has had a stranglehold on Dayton forever (and the past decade in Montgomery county).
When will leaders like Mayor Leitzell call for a house cleaning of the BOE? Our mayor knows about the provisional ballot cover up and certainly has heard about the voting machines Harsman stole. Last fall Harsman failed to notify many voters of their polling location with another director in the state calling for him to be fired. How long do we as citizens allow these people to harm the democratic process in our community and steal from us in the process?
Hairsman needs to go, how can this blatant corruption continue? Sounds like Whaley is involved in it as well! Do we need to elect a person like Nan involved in this farce! She most defiantly has inside information! Its Hairsman’s job to tell candidates what is wrong with petitions, where is the republican director in all this? Time after time people bring up problems with the BOE and NOTHING is done! Bring in the former employee’s who know what Hairsman has done over the years! Ask Anthony Tipps, Charlie Bowling, Bob Winters, Freida Brigner, they know all the dirty secrets of the Democratic Party. I understand the dem’s that work for the BOE are required to donate to to Democratic Headquarters for the Frolic For Funds this time of year. The amount required is the amount you receive in salary, a $100 for every $10,000 they make, very easy to verify this. Take the BOE employee payroll and compare it to the D’s campaign finance report and see how much they donate. Owens, Whaley and Harsman are ALL involved in strong-arming BOE employee’s for contribution! Elect Esrati Now! He will fight for your rights!
We should ask the REPUBLICAN mayor to ask the REPUBLICAN Sheriff why he dropped the provisional ballot investigation? Were over 600 voters not given full ballots? Why did the sheriff not find out???
Bone I still work for the county and have other names. Heizer, Thomasson, Lupia, Tully and Hibner all know about the stolen voting machines. City and County and State law enforcement is so corrupt they will not investigate the crimes at the BOE. [Redacted by editor – name calling isn’t allowed unless directed at me] “I am” just an incompetent blob dependent on Harsman to run everything.
“…you can start the clock on how long it takes the Dayton Daily news to steal this story”
Still waiting….. Maybe instead of bashing the DDN, you should work with them in order to get a story like this more exposure. They were actually “nice” to you in one of the more recent articles and also pointed out something you’ve railed on (and rightfully so) in regards to the # of signatures needed for city jobs in comparison to a seat in Congress (at the federal level).