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Six-minute meeting provided time for a squabble
Friday, October 30, 2009
By Ann Wishart
Trustees’ six-minute special meeting Tuesday may have been the shortest on record. But it provided plenty of time for a squabble between two board members.
All three trustees voted to pay GJL Material and Supply $6,020.94 for the crack sealing done in September.
But when Trustee Chairman Dave Brockway asked if anyone volunteered to attend the Northeast Ohio Public Energy Council meeting Nov. 10 in Independence, Trustee Mary Briggs spoke up.
“Will I get paid mileage?” she asked.
Brockway said she would be reimbursed for her mileage, if it was pre-appoved.
“It was pre-approved last year,” Briggs said.
“Didn’t you get reimbursed?” he asked.
“No, you wouldn’t sign the check,” answered Briggs.
Brockway moved to have Briggs represent the township at the NOPEC meeting and to pay her mileage from her home to the meeting and back.
Neither Briggs nor Trustee Ed Ward seconded the motion, however, and it died. Briggs said she wouldn’t second the motion because she contends Brockway is not a trustee because his bond may not be legal.
Briggs then made a motion to represent the township at the meeting, which also died for lack of a second.
“I’m not a trustee. That’s what she said, so I can’t second it,” Brockway said.
“We don’t have a representative, then,” he added. “We don’t have a proxy.”
All three then voted in favor of adjourning the meeting.
In the parking lot after the meeting, Ward said if Briggs is re-elected he would resign from the board. Other township employees may feel the same way, he added.
“I can’t speak for anyone else, but several people have indicated they are no longer interested in working here if Mary gets re-elected,” Ward said.
After Ward drove away, Briggs explained her position while standing in the parking lot.
According to the Ohio Revised Code, Briggs said, once a candidate is elected and takes an oath of office, he or she must post a bond payable to the state of Ohio. The bond must be approved by a county judge or a municipal court judge who has jurisdiction in the township, she added.
A statute provides that, if the official fails to post the bond or have it duly approved, he or she has not accepted the position and the position is automatically declared vacant, Briggs said.
She added Brockway’s bond was never duly approved and that he was sworn in by Geauga County Common Pleas Court Judge David L. Fuhry.
