Mental Health Board Incumbents Reappointed
BOCC Votes 2-1 Against New Applicants
One week after voting to advertise to fill four seats on the Geauga County Board of Mental Health and Recovery Services, Geauga County commissioners Tim Lennon and Ralph Spidalieri decided May 24 to reappoint all four incumbents.
The decision eliminated any opportunity for newcomers to apply for positions on the mental health board this year.
In May, the mental health board voted 9-1 to place Jim Adams, executive director, on paid administrative leave. No reason has been given for their action.
Jimmy Lee Holden, Kathy Johnson, Michael Petruziello and Mary Ruth Shumway will retain their seats, which were set to expire June 30, on the mental health board.
Commissioner Jim Dvorak opposed the action.
Spidalieri made the motion to revisit the decision from the previous week, citing “some situations going on” and “historical knowledge and stuff that’s built up to this” as reasons for not seeking new applicants.
“I had a chance to even talk to the chair (Jennifer Malainy),” Spidalieri said. “Some of the members, you know, wanted to get past this and then, you know, put in a resignation of their positions at a later time – that we could reappoint at a later time – but I think there’s just a lot of moving parts in that department right now that it would probably make sense to retain what the current membership is, so we will be able to move forward if there’s anything that comes up with this.”
Dvorak said new members from the community might have a different viewpoint about the situation to which Spidalieri referred.
“I respectfully disagree because we all agreed a couple weeks ago that we’d take applications and listen to and try to reach out to our over 96,000 people in Geauga County, so my vote is ‘No,’” said Dvorak.
In a phone conversation May 31, Dvorak said the mental health board received a letter from Adams’ attorney regarding possible legal action against the board.
“They (the mental health board) didn’t do something right. It’s going to cost the county a lot of money,” he said.
Mental health board members who voted to place Adams on leave were Jennifer Malainy, Steven Oluic, Michael Petruziello, Skip Claypool, Marty Fay, Jimmy Lee Holden, Kathy Johnson, Gregory O’Brien and Mary Ruth Shumway. The one dissenting vote came from Alberta Chokshi. Four board members were absent and therefore did not vote – Ann Bagley, Vanessa Jensen, Carolee Lesyk and Linda Miller.
There are 14 members on the mental health board. If the four seats were not filled, that would leave 10 board members. Of those 10 remaining positions, six are state appointed and four are county appointed.
Lennon asked if commissioners could postpone appointments to the board. Spidalieri opposed that idea.
“There’s many times I think they have a difficult time reaching quorums in some of these boards,” Spidalieri said.
County Administrator Gerry Morgan said if there were only 10 members on the board, the percentage for a quorum would be reset and changes in the make-up of the board could result in a different balance that might alter the direction of decisions.
The Geauga League of Women Voters issued a press statement calling for a formal appointment policy.
“LWV Geauga learned in January that the board of county commissioners does not have a written policy governing appointments,” the statement read. “There is no requirement to solicit applicants for positions, no consistently used mechanism for informing the public of opportunities, no stated criteria for selection, no screening for conflicts of interest and no limitation on the number of boards an individual may serve on. The complete lack of process begs the question of how these critical appointments are made.”
Furthermore, the LWV remarked on the optics of the commissioners’ decision not to solicit applications for the mental health board.
“By re-appointing previous board members without even considering new applicants, the commissioners have denied Geauga County citizens the opportunity to serve an important role and to bring needed skills and expertise to a critical government body, one that impacts many of our residents,” said the LWV statement. “Not only that, but they have further diminished the public’s faith in their elected officials by their lack of transparency and inconsistency. We strongly urge the BOCC to adopt and follow a formal policy regarding appointments to public boards in Geauga County.”
