Sunshine Law ‘bounty hunter’ targets Valley governments, alleging open meeting violations - Mahoning Matters
An Ohio Sunshine Law “bounty hunter” has taken aim at local government officials in the city of Hubbard and Johnston Township, accusing them of transparency violations in two separate civil lawsuits and seeking a monetary award from the courts.
By reviewing the minutes of local government meetings, Portage County man Brian Ames discovers violations of Ohio’s Open Meeting Act. He wants a $500 fine for each infraction. Local governments are fighting his attempts, asserting the law wasn’t created to reward open meeting “bounty hunters.”
Ames maintains he is owed thousands of dollars for uncovering repeat violations. Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost is on his side. In Ames’ lawsuit against the Rootstown Township Board of Trustees, Yost submitted an amicus curiae brief, stating the Open Meetings Act encourages citizens to sue to stop repeat violators because those bodies are “most in need of being caught and stopped.”
The state’s leading organizations representing local governments, including the County Commissioners Association of Ohio and the Ohio Municipal League, have joined the Rootstown trustees, disputing the notion that per-meeting fines can be “stacked.” During oral arguments next week, the Supreme Court of Ohio will consider whether multiple open meeting violations can be addressed with one injunction to stop noncompliance and a single $500 fine.
Lawsuits now aimed at Hubbard, Johnston
Yost on behalf of Ames and his Cincinnati attorneys last week filed two separate civil lawsuits in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court against the city of Hubbard and each of its ward and at-large council members, and against Johnston Township and each of its trustees.
All Ames’ accusations center around instances where officials improperly held private meetings called executive sessions, which are closed-door meetings used to discuss non-public matters like hiring and firing or pending litigation. Officials can only transition to a private meeting to discuss any of eight specific topics, each of which are specified in Ohio Revised Code.
The civil complaint against Hubbard and its council members alleges city officials entered into executive session during a Dec. 7, 2020 meeting but did not cite a proper reason for the private meeting, as required by law. The suit alleges three more similar violations happened on July 19, Sept. 7 and Oct. 18, when council members recessed from the public meeting to discuss, according to the meeting minutes, “employee contracts” or “contracts.”
A message left last week with the Hubbard Law Director’s office was not returned.
The civil complaint against Johnston Township and its trustees accuses the trustees of improperly entering into public meetings several times between January 2021 and December 2021 — one of those private meetings lasted more than an hour, according to the suit — and failing to properly keep minutes.
“The meeting minutes only record the general topic of conversation and the agenda for the meeting,” reads the suit. “The meeting minutes provide no rationale or any record of the respondent’s deliberations whatsoever.”
A trustee reached by phone last week said he was unfamiliar with the lawsuit.
Neither the city officials nor township officials had been served with the complaint as of Friday, court records show.
Government meeting procedures questioned
Ames’ brief against Rootstown Township states he became “concerned with the considerable financial risks” faced by Portage County taxpayers after he learned that in Putnam County, on the other side of the state, the county Board of Commissioners agreed to pay $6,500 in civil forfeiture, $497,000 in attorney fees, and $23,000 in court costs to the individuals who sued them for open meetings violations.
In 2017, Ames filed a lawsuit against the Rootstown Township Board of Trustees, alleging the trustees violated the open meetings law (Ohio Revised Code 121.22) 16 times between 2015 and 2016. He claimed the minutes reflected that the board went into executive session and met in private without appropriately moving into the private session through a roll-call vote. He cited the meeting minutes as evidence they didn’t follow the proper procedure.
The Portage County Common Pleas Court ruled in favor of the township, and Ames appealed to the Eleventh District Court of Appeals. Appellate judges agreed with Ames and found the board violated the law 14 times. The trial court was directed to impose an injunction on the township to prevent future violations.
At the trial court, Ames sought to collect $7,000 — $500 for each meeting violation — and $1,584 in attorney fees. The trial court issued a single $500 fine and granted Ames $1,000 in attorney fees. The award was affirmed by the Eleventh District and Ames appealed to the Supreme Court of Ohio, which agreed to hear the case.
The Supreme Court will consider Ames v. Rootstown Township on Wednesday. Oral arguments begin each day at 9 a.m. The arguments will be streamed live online at sc.ohio.gov and broadcast live, and archived, on The Ohio Channel.
Mahoning Matters staff contributed to this report.
source: https://www.mahoningmatters.com/news/local/article259130578.html
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