Secret ballots or straw polls aren't permissible, she said

COLUMBUS CITY COUNCIL
Interview process challenged

Republican asking whether City Council flouts Sunshine Law

Tuesday, April 10, 2007 11:46 PM
By Mark Ferenchik and Robert Vitale

The Columbus Dispatch For years, the Democrats on the Columbus City Council have gone behind closed doors to interview replacements for members who leave in the middle of a term.

So bring on an election-year issue.

Republican mayoral candidate William M. Todd said enough is enough, after reading that Democrats plan to meet in council President Michael C. Mentel's private office to interview seven finalists to replace Patsy Thomas.

Todd plans to ask Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann Wednesday to determine whether the council is violating Ohio's Open Meetings Act, known as the Sunshine Law, which is designed to keep meetings and records open to the public.

Todd likened the way Democrats name people to the council to that of Yale's secretive Skull and Bones society.

He called the process troubling, especially after Dann asked three members of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio to resign last week because he said they were illegally nominated in secret. The three resigned, but Gov. Ted Strickland reappointed them on Monday.

"Clearly, this whole process has been designed to avoid the application of the open-meetings law," Todd said of the council's interview process.

Mentel, however, said Democrats are following both the law and the council's own precedent. The application deadline was well-publicized, he said, and lists of applicants and finalists were made public as well.

Council members interviewed the seven finalists yesterday in Mentel's office at R.D. Zande & Associates, an engineering firm where he is general counsel.

But Mentel said they didn't discuss candidates' merits. State law allows government officials to interview job candidates in private as long as they don't deliberate or vote in private.

Mentel said he will gather information from the other council members before Monday, when their new colleague is scheduled to be selected and sworn into office. Consensus emerges in the discussions, he said, but no votes are taken.

Dann spokeswoman Jennifer Brindisi said that under the Sunshine Law, the council can interview candidates privately but must deliberate and vote in public session. Secret ballots or straw polls aren't permissible, she said.

City Attorney Richard C. Pfeiffer Jr. said council members must be careful. "Round-robin" discussions, in which officials meet or speak over the phone in small groups, violate Ohio law, he said.

"This is a public official they're choosing," said Pfeiffer, who declined to offer his take on the council's process because members haven't asked him for a legal opinion.

Mentel said that council members are guided by an opinion issued five or six years ago by then-City Attorney Janet Jackson. Aides were trying to locate a copy yesterday afternoon.

In January, new council members Andrew Ginther and Priscilla Tyson were announced 11 days before the City Council formally voted on them. Five of the six current council members, including Mentel, first gained their office through appointment. Thomas, who resigned Friday to become a Franklin County Municipal Court judge, also was appointed.

"We've done it this way, I'd venture to say, for decades," Mentel said. "Mr. Todd is remiss on his history."

Todd said he might ask Dann to look into the appointments of Ginther and Tyson as well.

Why is Todd so concerned about how the council runs its shop when he's running for mayor?

"It really is a good reflection of what happens with one-party rule," said Todd, a lawyer and Republican insider.

Todd's criticism of council Democrats comes at a time when local Republicans are still trying to fill two slots for their own slate of candidates this year.

They want to make hay with one-party control at City Hall, just as Ohio and national Democrats did last year with Republican rule at the state and federal levels.

"What's good for the goose is good for the gander," said Doug Preisse, chairman of the Franklin County Republican executive committee. "We heard a lot of whining in recent years about one-party control."

Republicans aren't the only people unhappy with the process.

Michael Martin, one of 11 applicants who didn't get an interview, thinks all should have been given five minutes before the council, in public session, to spell out their vision for the city.

He's a registered Democrat.

"I don't know what goes on behind closed doors," he said. "Neither does anybody else."

One of the seven finalists, Jeff Porter, called the process fair.

"I think they're being as open about it as practically possible," said Porter, a lawyer and former assistant city attorney.

mferenchik@dispatch.com; rvitale@dispatch.com