News
Nelsonville City Council wants the Ohio Supreme Court to reconsider its dismissal of a request to remove candidates from the ballot
By: David Forster
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ATHENS, Ohio (WOUB) — Nelsonville City Council is asking the state Supreme Court to reconsider its decision to dismiss a request that the names of certain people running for city offices be removed from the ballot.
A merit brief is where a party to a legal case argues why they believe the court should rule in their favor under the law.
In this case, the council wanted the Supreme Court to order the Athens County Board of Elections to remove from the November ballot the names of candidates running for office under Issue 23.
Issue 23 is a citizen initiative approved by Nelsonville voters last November that calls for a change in the city’s government. It would abolish the city charter, which established the current government, and return the city to the form of government it had 31 years ago before the charter was adopted. The city then had a council and an independent, elected mayor who ran the administration.
The city was moving forward under Issue 23, with candidates running for council, mayor and other offices in the new government that would take over Jan. 1.
But last week the council changed course and voted to repeal Issue 23, saying it had the authority to do so under the charter. The council then filed its request with the Supreme Court. Two days later, the elections board filed its response with the court.
That was last Friday, and it triggered a three-day deadline for the council to file its merit brief. So Monday was the deadline. But on Monday the council filed a request for a deadline extension.
It did this after one of the candidates for office asked the court if she could join the case so she could oppose the council’s effort to remove her from the ballot. The council asked that the three-day deadline for filing its brief not start until after the court decided whether to grant the candidate’s request to join the case.
On Tuesday, the court agreed to let the candidate join the case, but denied the council’s request for a deadline extension, and then it dismissed the entire case because the council missed the Monday deadline.
In its motion asking the Supreme Court to reconsider the dismissal, the council argues that under court rules, when it filed the request for a deadline extension that automatically extended the deadline until the court ruled on the request. So the deadline should have been Tuesday, the council argues.
“Relators followed the Rules. To the letter,” the council argues in its motion, using the legal term to refer to itself. “And at every stage Relators exercised the utmost diligence. This dismissal should be reconsidered because Relators respectfully submit that it rests on an erroneous foundation contrary to this Court’s Rules of Practice. And even if Relators have misinterpreted the Rules or made some micro-technical mistake, justice still demands reconsideration.”