Toledo mayor wants council members suspended

TOLEDO — Toledo’s mayor has asked Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost to begin the process of using a state statute to suspend the city’s four criminally charged council members, who have refused to leave their posts after being accused of bribery and extortion.

Another process to remove them from office is available, but the complexity, political uncertainty, and sheer necessary number of signature makes it a tall order.

Toledo voters have the ability to force a recall vote to get councilmen Yvonne Harper, Gary Johnson, Tyrone Riley, and Larry Sykes out of office. All four have refused to resign, despite calls from Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz and Council President Matt Cherry to step aside so the chamber can better focus on its business at hand during a challenging year for the city.

One reason for a recall vote would be if the suspension process, which entails the Ohio Supreme Court convening a commission of retired judges to rule on the matter, takes too long. A suspension also does not remove the member from council, it just bars them from performing their duties.

At the moment, there’s no public indication of an emerging recall effort, which appears to be the least effective and most complicated way of removing the members. Cherry did not return a call for comment about whether a recall vote is on the table.

Recall elections are not easy or common. The organizers of the campaign first need to collect the signatures of 25 percent of electors who voted in the last regular election for that office. That triggers the election. Then voters do the rest.

So for instance, to force a recall on Harper, who was last elected in 2019, it appears that backers of the effort would have to gather around 650 signatures from her district. But it’s unclear what would happen with an at-large member such as Johnson, who competed against a dozen others in a race where the top vote-getters win seats.

“It’s a lot of work,” said Jerry Dendinger, the city council clerk, who hasn’t heard of any recall attempt and noted the city charter also specifies that officials can’t face a recall within the first year of their last election. This means that Harper and Riley, who were re-elected in 2019, couldn’t be recalled until 2021.

But the city charter leaves lots of room for interpretation in how to treat district versus at-large (citywide) council seats, as well as the process in general.

Tom Schlachter, who ran the unsuccessful 2009 recall effort by pro-business groups against former Toledo Mayor Carty Finkbeiner, said the process involved money and legal resources to help interpret the charter. The Ohio Supreme Court eventually ruled the recall petition invalid.