MOUNT VERNON – Some questions remain about whether emails between councilmembers and the mayor regarding Safety-Service Director Rick Dzik’s actions (which led to his suspension) violated Ohio’s open meetings laws.
“Courts have determined that email exchanges among a majority of members of a public body can in fact violate the Open Meetings Act,” City Law Director Rob Broeren told the Mount Vernon News.
Councilmember Samantha Scoles had an email discussion with Mayor Matt Starr on May 11. After Starr told her how he planned to discipline Dzik, Scoles told the mayor that was inadequate in an email reply she shared with all councilmembers and media representatives.
Dzik had been accused of changing the order in which councilmembers voted in the May 10 council meeting. In the session, votes were cast on two controversial issues: a fire and EMS contract with College Township and a community advocate for the Police Department.
Councilmembers John Francis and Tammy Woods replied in the email chain that they supported Scoles. Francis demanded Dzik’s resignation, whereas Woods said trust had been lost with the administration.
On May 14, Councilmember Janis Seavolt gave her thoughts on the issue. The order in which Seavolt cast her vote in the May 10 meeting had been altered by Dzik.
“Of course it matters to me the order of voting when it has been the same for years,” Seavolt told the News. “The President of Council is the only one that has the power to do that, as he runs the meetings.
“This is a serious trust issue which I along with others are going to have to deal with,” she added.
By Thursday of last week, Dzik had been suspended without pay for two weeks and ordered to apologize to council. A special executive session was scheduled for May 17 with one item on the agenda: Personnel Matters – Employee Dismissal, Discipline. Council President Bruce Hawkins confirmed that the special meeting agenda did not include anything other than the executive session. State law forbids votes or action during an executive session.
Any person may bring an action to enforce the state’s open meetings law, Broeren said. In Ohio, no state or local government official has the authority to enforce the Open Meetings Act, according to the Ohio Sunshine Laws Open Government Resource Manual (2021), distributed by the state Attorney General’s Office.
A suit can be filed in the Court of Common Appeals against the people they believe are violating the law to seek an injunction to stop the practice and to collect statutory damages and attorneys’ fees, the Open Sunshine Laws “Yellow Book” said. Individual members of a public body may be named as defendants in these suits.
Whether an email discussion by fewer members than a quorum of council is seen as a meeting under the law is a question of fact that a court would need to determine, Broeren said. [A quorum is the minimum number of members required to be present before an assembly can transact business. For City Council, it is four members.]
Courts have ruled that some other bodies have deliberately held serial email conversations with only two members on each message to evade the Open Meeting Act regulations, Broeren said.
“Whether that occurred here, I don’t know,” he added.
