Hilliard City Council has called a special meeting for 2:30 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 30, at the Hilliard Municipal Building, 3800 Municipal Way, for the purpose of naming a president and vice president and appointing a seventh member.
It was unclear Jan. 29 whether a mediation session ordered by Judge Mark Serrott at 1 p.m. Jan. 30 still would be held, and no one would speak on the record whether an agreement had been reached to resolve the legal action three council members have taken in an effort to prevent President Nathan Painter from appointing a new member.
Ohio's open-meetings laws mandate that any closed-door executive sessions must be accompanied by a public meeting when a quorum of council members is present.
The lawsuit seeking a temporary restraining order to challenge law director Tracy Bradford’s legal opinion that Painter remains president and to block him from acting in that capacity was filed the morning of Jan. 25 in the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas by the Hilliard-based Lardiere McNair law firm on behalf of council members Tom Baker, Les Carrier and Andy Teater.
That afternoon, Serrott issued a stay and scheduled the mediation.
The council's six members have failed at three consecutive meetings to name officers for 2018, deadlocking 3-3 in every vote. They also deadlocked along the same lines – Baker, Carrier and Teater against Al Iosue, Kelly McGivern and Painter – when trying to name a replacement for Joe Erb, who resigned in December.
Now more than 45 days have passed since Erb left, leaving the decision on his successor in the council president's hands, per the city charter, Bradford has ruled.
“In light of lengthy discussions and input from all members of council over the last two weeks but in particularly the last four days, I am comfortable and confident that in calling a meeting (Jan. 30), we will resolve certain issues,” Painter said after clerk Lynne Fasone emailed the "special-meeting notice" at 7:14 p.m.
Section 121.22(F) of the Ohio Revised Code states: "Every public body, by rule, shall establish a reasonable method whereby any person may determine the time and place of all regularly scheduled meetings and the time, place, and purpose of all special meetings. A public body shall not hold a special meeting unless it gives at least twenty-four hours' advance notice to the news media that have requested notification, except in the event of an emergency requiring immediate official action. In the event of an emergency, the member or members calling the meeting shall notify the news media that have requested notification immediately of the time, place, and purpose of the meeting."
The notice did not designate it as an emergency meeting and Bradford told ThisWeek it was a special meeting that was "called under the emergency provision in order to deal with the items on the agenda, which are also matters of the pending litigation. We will be communicating with the court tomorrow morning regarding the special meeting and our hopes of resolving all matters."
She also contended that council members could waive the 24-hour notice at the meeting.
"There isn’t any legislation on the agenda that requires any advance notice or a public hearing,” Bradford said. “We need to have the meeting tomorrow afternoon because of travel commitments by a couple of the council members, starting tomorrow evening. We need all council members for the meeting so it was necessary to have the meeting as soon as possible.”
For more on the lawsuit, read previous coverage and check ThisWeekNEWS.com/Hilliard for updates.
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