By Krystal Smalley
ksmalley@wbcowqel.com
In a unilateral decision, the Crawford County Board of Elections voted not to place the Galion initiative petition on the November ballot.
The four-member panel held a special meeting Monday morning to hear a protest filed by the City of Galion concerning the initiative measure on the city’s electric fund audit and possible rebates. The petition, filed by the group Citizens for Galion, called for an ordinance that authorizes the city to enter into a contract for auditing and consulting services to audit the city’s electric rates billed between July 1, 2005 and Dec. 31, 2012. If the audit found overage charges, the petition would require the city to issue refund checks to those overcharged during that period.
RELATED CONTENT: Galion group stands behind demand for utility refunds | Push to put refund on ballot in Galion gets started
For nearly three hours, Donald McTigue, outside counsel hired by the city to battle the issue, and E. Roberta Wade, former City Council member and former city law director representing Citizens for Galion, argued whether the city’s protest should be validated. Much of McTigue’s argument relied upon the city currently being under a state of fiscal emergency, the constitutionality of the issue, and the unlawful delegation of legislative authority.
RELATED CONTENT: Galion City Council ready to fight Electric Fund audit in court
As explained by Belinda Miller, a chief project manager who assists the city during its fiscal emergency, any appropriations the city wants to make must first be approved by the Financial Planning and Supervision Commission before the funds can be used as expenditures. The Financial Planning and Supervision Commission is a board consisting of state and local representatives that assists the city with its recovery plan.
Even if the city approved the appropriation before bringing it to the Commission, Miller explained, the Commission could still reject the appropriation.
Wade argued that, just as the city received permission to use funds to hire McTigue, it could also appropriate funds or put the potential audit into the 2016 budget. She also noted that appropriations are made throughout the year that are approved by the Commission but weren’t originally in the recovery plan.
Wade called two more witnesses for the proceedings: Galion City Auditor Brian Treisch and Galion Council Clerk Julie Bell. The former council member ran through the initiative petition process with Treisch, confirming that she filed the certificate statement and proposed ordinance with the auditor on June 11, filed the initiative petition with Treisch on July 6, filed the statements of circulator/agent on July 10, and confirmed that Treisch had the initiative petition certified by the Board of Elections on Aug. 5.
Wade then asked why Treisch approved each step if he had reservations about the petition.
RELATED CONTENT: Galion auditor responds to initiative petition
Treisch, who took office in 2013, said he questioned the legality of the issue and felt that it was an “un-auditable action.”
Board member Maggie Barth asked whether the vagueness in wording caused Treisch any concern as an auditor.
“My largest concern as auditor is two-fold. First of all, I don’t know what is going to be audited,” Treisch told Barth. The second concern Treisch had was keeping the 
city on its track out of fiscal emergency.
“I don’t know what you would check for in the audit,” Treisch said. “We have already established with prior audits that the funds collected were proper, that in simply doing the math seemed to be a waste of time and money.”
On a fact-finding mission, Barth questioned Wade whether it would have been better for Citizens for Galion to pursue a lawsuit against the city rather than to seek a petition. Wade responded that it would have cost the Citizens of Galion in the long run. Rather, she argued, they pursued a petition because they wanted to make their government work better.
Board member Jo Swain felt that the petition was one-sided.
“I read in the newspaper that there was probably an overcharge – a little one compared to what you’re suggesting – at one point in time but that there were other times when the cost adjustment was not applied and people weren’t charged enough,” Swain contended. “Are you suggesting that when this audit is complete that you’re going to give back any money that people are owed but you are not going to collect any money they should pay?”
The electric fund balance was supposed to be around $3.5 million but grew to over $7 million, Wade argued. “So you can see the history is there that those rates were over-collecting from charging people,” she added.
“You’re basing this upon the fund balance in the electric fund?” Swain asked with a look of disbelief.
“Yes,” Wade said. “The rates were designed to have a $3.5 million balance so when the rates started climbing, we should’ve known then we had a problem.”
When Wade called on Bell as a witness and began to question her on the ordinances and minutes from the open council meetings to refer to the issues surrounding the city’s filing of the protest, board chairwoman Patricia Armstrong reminded Wade that how the protest was filed was not the issue.
County prosecutor Matt Crall added that the Board of Elections did not need to hold a hearing on the protest but chose to hold one in order to get more facts on the issue. A written protest was filed by both the law director, Thomas Palmer, and Carl Watt who is City Council president.
Many of the board members echoed the sentiments that the legality of the city’s protest was a legal issue but not an issue for the Board of Elections to deal with.
The board voted 4- 0 not to place the initiative petition on the ballot. Crall reported that the board found sufficient evidence to uphold all three grounds argued by the City of Galion.
The full written report can be found below:
The Crawford County Board of Elections today ruled 4-0 to not place the initiative petition filed by the Citizens for Galion on the ballot on November 3, 2015. The Board received a protest from the City of Galion via Law Director Thomas Palmer and Carl Watt, as an individual, stating the following:
(1) The proposed ordinance may not be submitted to the voters under the general initiative provisions in state law due to the special provisions in Article XVIII, Sections 4& 5 of the Ohio Constitution governing the municipal operations of Public Utilities
(2) The proposed ordinance may not be submitted to the voters due to Ohio’s overriding laws governing fiscal emergency
(3) The proposed ordinance, if adopted, would constitute an unlawful delegation of legislative authority
The board found sufficient grounds on each part to grant the protest and not place the issue on the ballot.