5/2/2023

Dear Crawford County NOW,

At this point, I need to give your readers an update to my previous letter regarding the illegal and unethical conduct of Galion’s Mayor Tom O’Leary and Galion’s Law Director Thomas Palmer.  Since that time, I have had an overwhelming response from citizens asking ‘how do we get rid of Mayor O’Leary?’  So I need to provide Galion’s citizens with the answer to that question.

Council Member Paula Durbin has asked Mayor O’Leary repeatedly to resign.  But he refuses.

The City of Galion absolutely needs to get O’Leary out of office.  The history of the O’Leary administration is one of government waste and government corruption at a level that needs to be exposed.  Attorney David Keller did the citizens of Galion a big favor in exposing the Mayor and Law Director concerning the ‘stolen’ Keller Trust real estate.

So what do we need to do to get rid of Mayor O’Leary?

  • We are setting up a go-fund-me page (Citizens to Remove Mayor O’Leary) to take donations to retain legal counsel that has expertise in dealing with this issue of removing a corrupt elected official.
  • We have a Post Office Box:

Citizens to Remove Mayor O’Leary

P.O. Box 72

Galion, OH  44833

  • If you are interested in helping with our effort, please drop us a note at P.O. Box 72 with your name, phone number, and email.
  • If you have any unethical or illegal conduct to report regarding the Mayor, please drop us a note.

We are particularly interested in hearing from any couple who paid the Mayor to marry them.  The Mayor’s wedding ceremony scam was advertised on the City website, and is unethical and illegal for a variety of reasons.  Now, the Mayor is denying that he got paid any money whatsoever for performing weddings.  We have had a few couples who have come forward and stated that they paid the Mayor to marry them, but we would like more couples to come forward.  (See Exhibit 1 regarding another corrupt mayor who did something similar.)

  • If you are aware of anything irregular going on with City bidding/contract procedures, City hiring, City spending, etc., please drop us a note.

If we cannot remove O’Leary by recall, we certainly can report illegal conduct to the State Auditor, the Ohio Ethics Commission, the IRS, and other entities and pursue removal through those entities.

  • I am going to regularly write letters exposing Mayor O’Leary’s illegal and/or unethical conduct and/or bad management (will post on Crawford County NOW and Galion City Watch  FB) – the citizens are paying for this government corruption and government waste.
  • We are searching for candidates for upcoming City Council elections and will assist candidates who can think for themselves and stand up to Mayor O’Leary and his unethical tactics – we need candidates who will not become a part of the problem but rather will be part of the solution.
  • We are still thinking about developing a petition asking for the Mayor’s resignation.  Only 799 citizens voted for Mayor O’Leary, and we think we can get 2 or 3 times that number to sign a petition asking him to resign. We will keep the citizens posted concerning our efforts.

Exposing Mayor O’Leary and the Prairie State Energy Campus (PSEC) ‘deal’ / and why Galion has high electric rates:

The City of Galion (along with 68 other Ohio cities) got duped into buying into the Prairie State Energy Campus (PSEC) coal-fired power plant in 2007.  By the time O’Leary took office in 2013, it was clear to those 68 cities that the PSEC project was a financial disaster for them and there were front-page stories throughout Ohio.  Galion was “extra duped” into buying far more power than it needed.

In 2013, then Council President Donald Faulds was spear heading an effort to get legislation passed to have the Ohio Attorney General investigate the PSEC 50-year, take-or-pay power contracts.  AMPOhio (the City’s electric supplier) and Sawvel (the City’s consultant) had both pushed for the City of Galion to sign-on to the costly and risky PSEC power contracts.

But while other cities were filing lawsuits and contacting their state/federal officials, Mayor O’Leary was busy setting up illegal meetings with Council Members and AMPOhio representatives behind closed doors.  The Mayor’s underhanded plan was to have two Council Members at a time meet with AMPOhio, which is totally illegal and in violation of Ohio’s Open Meetings Act.  In the end, the Mayor was fully supporting AMPOhio and the PSEC project against the interests of the citizens of Galion.  And instead of joining the fight with other Ohio communities to get out of the take-or-pay PSEC power contracts, the Mayor actually went to the PSEC coal-fired power plant and schmoozed with the PSEC officials and did a photo shoot.  Attached as Exhibit 2 is the Mayor’s photo from that PSEC road trip.

The City would have been far better off to buy power on the open market than to buy power from the costly PSEC project.  After reviewing 2016 AMPOhio power invoices, I had a financial analysis done by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) on the City’s cost of power for 2016.  The IEEFA analysis determined that in 2016, ‘Galion paid $ 2.5 million more for power because it was buying power under the PSEC contract than it would have paid if it were buying power on the open wholesale market.’ So thanks to Mayor O’Leary, Galion businesses and residents paid $ 2.5 million more for power in 2016 than they should have.  Attached as Exhibit 3 is a copy of the email from IEEFA.

Now that is just one year out of the last ten (10) years that O’Leary has been in office.  The mismanagement and waste of the O’Leary Administration regarding our City’s electric utility is just unbelievable – everyone is unnecessarily paying too much for electricity and experiencing regular power outages on top of that.

But this PSEC power issue will only get worse.  The PSEC contracts are take-or-pay contracts – which means that even if the City buys no power at all, the City still is obligated to pay its PSEC loan payment, and that loan payment is about $ 230,000 per month for 50 years.   Currently, the PSEC power plant is projected to close in 2035, but the City will have another twenty-two (22) years or so of payments to make.  Council Members are being kept in the dark about this (something O’Leary does well) and need to get the details.  Clearly, this PSEC closure will be a crushing financial nightmare for the City, unless O’Leary has some other plan in the works (which I don’t think he does or that plan would definitely be a front-page story in all of the newspapers).

So the costly and risky take-or-pay PSEC contract means the City owes the $ 230,000 monthly payment for 50 years, even if it does not take any power whatsoever from that PSEC project.  And our Mayor supported AMPOhio and PSEC instead of aggressively standing up for the citizens and protecting their interests?

A final comment:

For some positive information, I want to inform the citizens of Galion that both Paula Durbin (Council at Large) and Carrie Zeger (4th Ward City Council) have questioned the Mayor and tried hard to represent the interests of the citizens.  But because of their efforts to be a checks-and-balances on the Mayor, both have experienced ongoing harassment and bullying by Council Member Kara Ault (a henchman for Mayor O’Leary).

Additionally, I want to inform the citizens that Auditor Brian Saterfield and Eunice Collene (Auditor’s Administrative Clerk) have been subjected to continuous harassment and mistreatment from the Mayor and his cohorts.  And let me make this clear, both Auditor Saterfield and Administrative Clerk Collene are the public’s watchdog over the City’s money – they have a great responsibility; they have been doing a great job under the circumstances; and they have endured way too much abuse from the Mayor.  Council Members need to ask Saterfield what he needs to run his office and provide exactly what he has requested.  As for any comments from Councilman Mike Richart about the Auditor’s Office, Richart is just a voice for the Mayor (he is clearly is scripted by the Mayor) and his comments should be disregarded as such.

I strongly recommend that citizens write on their calendars for November 7th (Election Day) – do not vote for Kara Ault, do not vote for Mike Richart, and do not vote for Carl Watt.  All three of these Council Members blindly support the Mayor and should not be re-elected, as they have worked against the interests of the citizens.

Lastly, if you see Paula Durbin (Council at Large), Carrie Zeger (4th Ward Council), Auditor Brian Saterfield, and Auditor’s Administrative Clerk Eunice Collene, be sure to thank them for their service to the citizens of Galion.  They have suffered continuous abuse from Mayor O’Leary and his sycophants, while trying to protect the public’s interest.  I applaud their efforts.

Sincerely,

 

Roberta Wade

Attorney at Law

Click HERE for Exhibits