Pounds: Trashing Husted’s BOE road map
Written by Tom Pounds | President / Publisher | tpounds@toledofreepress.com“The only sure things in life are death, taxes and Lucas County having the worst election board in the State of Ohio.”
— Steve Fought, campaign manager for Rep. Marcy Kaptur
Six months ago, Ohio Secretary of State (SOS) Jon Husted, undoubtedly with an eye on the then-upcoming presidential election, placed the Lucas County Board of Elections (BOE) under SOS administrative oversight and assistance. That long-overdue move helped protect the integrity of the elections process from the BOE’s dysfunction and inability to rise above the severely flawed personalities in charge. In a report issued this week, SOS-hired consultants who evaluated the Lucas County BOE recommended that Director Meghan Gallagher and Deputy Director Dan DeAngelis be removed from office.
In their report, consultants Jim Ruvolo, a Democrat who served on the BOE from 1976-82 and from November 2011 to February 2012, and Jon Allison, a Columbus-based attorney and Republican, wrote, “We conclude that the Lucas County Board of Elections as presently situated is devoid of management leadership, is without most of the basic organizational structure, policies and procedures necessary to function as an accountable government entity and is culturally plagued by mistrust and fear.”
We have been saying that since August 2011 and have long called for Gallagher’s resignation. Jon Stainbrook, board member and chair of the Lucas County Republican Party, would also better serve the public by going back to whatever it is he did before applying his unique talents to staining the democratic process with conflict and obstinance. In a Feb. 26 letter to the BOE, Husted wrote, “With yesterday’s release of Mr. Allison and Mr. Ruvolo’s report and recommendations, you have been provided with a roadmap to place the Lucas County Board of Elections on track. My office has provided you with all of the tools and resources that we can reasonably provide.”
Predictably, at a Feb. 26 board meeting, no movement was made toward following the SOS recommendation. There is no indication that any of the SOS’s efforts will effect change, or that any confidence has been restored.
This era of BOE operation will be remembered as an utter failure, a humiliation on a statewide level and an example of managerial incompetence that lowered an already pitiful standard in Lucas County.
Gallagher is collecting an annual salary in excess of $85,000; what are voters getting for that investment? Gallagher’s epic failure to control the BOE and its most basic functions has resulted in acrimony and an unimaginable situation for the Secretary of State. There is no logical future for her as BOE director and no clear path for true reform until she resigns or is removed from office.
Husted has provided a solution. The BOE is ignoring it. Stainbrook and Gallagher may feel they have outlasted the SOS intervention and “won,” but Lucas County continues to be the loser as long as these two have a presence at the BOE.
Thomas F. Pounds is president and publisher of Toledo Free Press and Toledo Free Press Star. Contact him at tpounds@toledofreepress.com.
Tags: Dan DeAngelis, Jim Ruvolo, Jon Allison, Jon Husted, Jon Stainbrook, Lucas County Board of Elections, Meghan Gallagher, Ohio Secretary of State, Publisher's Statement, Tom Pounds
Like I have been saying, I agree that Stainbrook and Gallagher are the problem and must go by resignation or otherwise. But please give credit where credit is due.
Degido and Irish are being attacked by Stainbrook and Gallagher because they don’t agree with him. That’s all stainbrook ever does is to terrorize employees and threaten others. So investigate the facts and you will be surprised what you might find. For example Degido just won on the complaint that stainbrook told Marshall to file over his residency.
In the end you’ll see that the whole board is not rotten but stainbrook is crying so loud you can’t her anyone else. BTW dd you see the massive binders that Gallagher had produced by our employees at the BOE to respond to the secretary of state’s demand to fire her? That’s her personal problem and its not the position of the Board yet she probably used ten thousand dollars worth of employee time to try and defend herself from getting fired. Does anyone care about that? Why doesn’t the blade report that?
This comment was posted on March 28th, 2013 at 11:24 am