School board conducts business in the dark
The Reynoldsburg Board of Education and its lawyers tried to hide an unusual expenditure of public dollars and got caught.
It’s remarkable that public officials would think that it’s a good idea to sneak a potentially controversial spending measure past the public.
Even more remarkable is that this is not the first time we have seen such stupidity by public officials and their lawyers, and undoubtedly it won’t be the last.
That’s one of many reasons we all should be grateful that a reporter asked a couple of simple questions: What was that vaguely worded resolution you voted to approve? And can I have a copy of the public record that provides the details?
What Dispatch reporter Shannon Gilchrist found was that the Reynoldsburg school board voted 3-2 to approve an agreement with Superintendent Tina Thomas-Manning to make her a consultant from her home for a full year for $100,000 plus benefits.
In return, she agreed to leave the office and not sue the district.
It was presented for a board vote as “the agreement with Ms. Tina Thomas-Manning as presented.” That’s it. No further detail. The vote came after the board met in a private session.
A board member who was asked about the agreement and the vote said that the district’s legal counsel, Bricker & Eckler, “really pushed the fact that we aren’t supposed to talk,” and that all questions were to be directed to the central office.
Think about that for a minute. An elected public official says she can’t discuss a public vote on public business because a lawyer advised the board not to talk about public business.
The settlement itself included a section titled “MEDIA COMMENT
The first sign of discontent came when the Willard Area Chamber of Commerce was planning a welcome-back party for the migrants, most of whom come from Mexico and other countries farther south. Vendors were to sell food and drink. A soccer tournament, rides and singers were to entertain the crowd. At the chamber’s February meeting, everyone seemed on board.
“Our community is very fortunate we have a group of people who come here every year to work,” said Cari McLendon, the chamber president. “We all ramp up for the season.”
But after a local newspaper published an article about the event in March, a far less welcoming response emerged, one rooted in the vigorous national debate over illegal immigration that brought President Donald Trump to office.
Some Willard residents complained that Latino workers did not deserve any special treatment, and that those without papers ought to be met not with open arms, but rather with handcuffs. Daniel Young, a Vietnam War veteran, wrote a letter to the editor of the Norwalk Reflector saying that he and others “are still waiting on our welcome-home party.”
By the April chamber meeting, enthusiasm for the party had waned as the controversy grew and local business leaders feared that it might attract protesters. At the May meeting, the festival was called off.
“We were just trying to have a fun community event,” said Ricky Branham, the chamber’s executive director. “It took on a life of its own. It got political.”
Founded in 1874 at the junction of several rail lines, Willard blossomed into a manufacturing base and agricultural hub, even though its population never broke the 7,000 mark.
Today, the blue-collar town in Northern Ohio is home to a maker of snowblowers, a large book printer and a Pepperidge Farm cookie factory.
The farming operations grow, pack and deliver fresh produce for consumers across the East and the Midwest.
For decades, the farmers have relied on migrant labor from spring to fall. Depending on how quickly they work, field workers can earn up to $18 an hour, compared with Ohio’s $8.15 minimum hourly wage.
Many return year after year to do the strenuous seasonal work, sometimes in temperatures that soar to 100 degrees. (Local residents largely steer clear.)
Seven in 10 field workers nationwide are unauthorized, according to estimates by the American Farm Bureau Federation. In Willard, it is probably no different.
“Without the (Latino) labor force, we wouldn’t be able to grow crops,” said Ben Wiers, noting that he considers many workers at Wiers Farms, which cultivates more than 1,000 acres of produce under the Dutch Maid label, to be friends.
But beefed-up border enforcement has slowed the flow of workers who enter the country illegally. Last year, a shortage forced Wiers and the other growers to leave millions of dollars’ worth of produce in the fields.
This year could be worse. The Trump administration has encouraged local law enforcement across the country to help identify deportable individuals for federal authorities, making long-distance travel risky for those already in the country without legal status.
“It’s not a hospitable climate,” said Wiers, who joined other farmers in discussing their concerns recently with Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio.
About 30 people showed up for a community meeting on May 16 at the Church of God of Prophecy here to learn about the potential effect of immigration enforcement on Willard.
They heard from a panel of clergy members, immigrant advocates, lawyers and Jesus Manuel Lara Lopez, a Mexican national who has lived in Willard since 2001 but is facing deportation.
“I have four children; I’ve never been in trouble. I’d like to ask for your prayers,” he said in Spanish, which was translated into English. “Sadness fills my heart.”
Over the years, many Latin Americans have settled here, working year-round on the farms as well as at nurseries and factories.
Downtown Willard’s main artery, Myrtle Avenue, has enjoyed a renaissance thanks to Taco Rico and other Latino-owned businesses.
“We need to make them part of the fabric of Willard,” said city manager Jim Ludban, who grew up here. He said he had been “100 percent” in favor of throwing a welcome-back party for the seasonal migrants.
As it is, the fear that exists among Willard’s immigrants is palpable and, with apprehensions on the rise, fewer are expected to arrive.
“People used to be carefree. Now they’re afraid to leave their homes,” said Romeo Perez, who arrived here from Mexico 13 years ago to work in agriculture but now runs Romeo’s Bakery, which prepares traditional Mexican sweet bread called pan dulce. As a consequence of that fear, he has seen business drop by 20 percent since January.
Perez worries that his bakery will not get a seasonal bump this summer from farmworkers, either, because “everyone knows they aren’t coming like they used to.”
It has been 16 years since Lara left his village in Chiapas, Mexico, sneaked across the border and headed to Willard, where he had heard that jobs were plentiful.
He worked the land. He fell in love with Anahi Salinas, a fellow Mexican, and they eventually married and had U.S.-citizen children. He became rooted in the community.
“I was working and raising a family,” Lara, 38, recalled on the back porch of the beige clapboard house with maroon shutters that he bought a year ago with a $60,000 mortgage.
His sons, Eric, 13; Edwin, 11; and Anuar, 10, played basketball nearby. His daughter, Elsiy, 6, entertained herself by skipping around.
In 2008, Lara was pulled over on his way to the dentist. Unable to produce a driver’s license, which is not issued to unauthorized residents in Ohio, he was jailed. A deputy sheriff contacted Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Deportation proceedings followed, culminating in a removal order in 2011.
The government granted Lara a deportation reprieve because he was otherwise law-abiding, and he was placed under an order of supervision with a work permit, requiring that he check in with ICE annually and renew it.
In January, after the Trump administration announced that no one in the country illegally was exempt from deportation, immigrants like Lara became vulnerable.
On March 28, when he arrived for his check-in with ICE in Cleveland, officials tethered an electronic tracking monitor to his ankle over objections from his lawyer, who argued that he was no flight risk.
Authorities ordered Lara to report to the ICE office in Cleveland on May 19 with an airline ticket back to Mexico, which he bought at his own expense. On June 5, the agency denied a request by his lawyer that it reconsider removing him. The request included references from an employer, his neighbors and his children’s teachers.
Lara’s flight is scheduled for July 18.
For the moment, he continues to work the graveyard shift packing Milano cookies and Goldfish crackers at the Pepperidge Farm plant. He also picks up other part-time work.