Rejected mayoral candidate gets hearing

The Lake County Elections Board is holding a reconsideration hearing Feb. 24 for a man whose candidacy for the Eastlake mayoral race was rejected.

The board rejected the candidacy of Chuck Ellis at its Feb. 11 meeting. Elections board director Ross McDonald said at that meeting that when Ellis withdrew petitions on Jan. 7, he registered to vote at the same time.

“According to the Eastlake law director (Randy Klammer) that runs afoul of their

Regardless of the outcome of Ellis’ reconsideration hearing there will be no May 4 non-partisan primary election for Eastlake mayor.

charter in terms of qualification requirements,” McDonald said at that meeting. “It does say that the ‘mayor shall have been for at least three years prior to his election continue to be a resident of the municipality and he shall have been a qualified elector of the same.’”

Lake County Elections Board legal counsel Michael DeLeone said at that meeting the law requires the board do its due diligence to ensure all candidates are qualified by statute or “any other law or procedure mandated under the laws of the state of Ohio.”

“So the (Eastlake) charter was adopted under the laws of the state of Ohio and only the law director is empowered to interpret what the charter means,” DeLeone said. “So once there was that issue, Mr. Klammer ... reached out and said that he was preparing a memorandum on this and I said ‘please send that over as soon as possible.’

“And once we had the memorandum, which states that this candidacy does not comply with this section of the charter, that pretty much ties our hands at the board of who doesn’t meet the qualifications based on the law director’s legal opinion.”

McDonald said he and DeLeone spoke with Ellis on Feb. 10 regarding the issue and that Ellis asked about the process to request a reconsideration hearing.

The hearing is scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. Ellis will give a presentation on why his candidacy should not be rejected. The board will then hear from Klammer. There will then be time for public comment, McDonald said.

After that point, the board may go into executive session to confer with its legal counsel. McDonald said board members will make a determination regarding Ellis’ candidacy at the meeting.

Ellis was not the only candidate seeking to run for Eastlake mayor whose candidacy was rejected Feb. 11. Bob Spangenberg’s candidacy was rejected because he did not sign the date next to his signature on two of the four petitions he filed with the elections board. The signatures he collected on those pages were invalidated, leaving him with 34 valid signatures and 50 are needed to qualify for the primary.

Regardless of the outcome of Ellis’ reconsideration hearing there will be no May 4 non-partisan primary election for Eastlake mayor.

Three candidates are needed to trigger the primary. The board accepted the petitions of incumbent Eastlake Mayor Dennis Morley at the Feb. 11 meeting.