OP-ed: Sunshine Law Violations Confirmed in Geauga?
GEAUGA - Despite controversy surrounding the Geauga county commissioners, Walter “Skip” Claypool’s 209-page complaint filing doesn’t just allege Sunshine Law violations by Commissioners Jim Dvorak and Carolyn Brakey; it may prove them with the commissioners’ own records and sworn statements.
Ohio’s Open Meetings Act (R.C. 121.22) requires public business to be conducted in public. At the June 13, 2025 NOACA Board meeting, Director Grace Gallucci publicly declared the bylaw change request—to strip one elected Geauga commissioner’s seat and install the unelected County Engineer—came “from two of the three Geauga County Commissioners.” That statement is Exhibit 2 in Claypool’s complaint. Two commissioners, acting as a quorum for county business, may have directed a major governance shift affecting voter representation and taxpayer dollars. Yet they never placed the item on any Geauga County Board of Commissioners agenda.
Claypool’s October 20, 2025 public-records request asked for every email, text, or document between Dvorak, Brakey, and NOACA from January to June 2025. The Board’s response—seventy-seven pages attached as Exhibit 3—contains zero evidence of any official request. No emails. No texts. No minutes. Nothing. One potential explanation is that the two commissioners conducted their business in private, precisely what the Sunshine Law forbids.
Commissioner Ralph Spidalieri’s own sworn affidavit (Exhibit 4) may seal the case. He states under oath that the Geauga County Board “has never held a public meeting to discuss any request for a change to NOACA’s Code of Regulations to replace one of the three County Commissioners with a vote from the Geauga County Engineer.” He personally never requested it.
Three elected officials control county policy. Two of them may have bypassed every voter and every public hearing to hand a voting seat to a non-elected bureaucrat.
The potential harm is real. Geauga County’s original contract with NOACA required three commissioners (or their designees) on the board. The potential secret push replaced an elected voice with the County Engineer, diluting the franchise of every voter who elected Dvorak, Brakey, and Spidalieri. Taxpayer dues continued flowing under the old rules while the new rules were quietly engineered. Article IX of NOACA’s Code of Regulations required unanimous county approval for changes to board composition; the commissioners never sought it before the January 9, 2026 special meeting.
Claypool’s complaint doesn’t rely on speculation—it relies on the commissioners’ own silence in the public record. When a public body’s own documents and affidavits show zero open discussion of a major policy shift that a NOACA director attributes directly to two commissioners, the violation is highly probably.
The court now has the evidence: two commissioners may have acted in secret and potentially violated the Open Meetings Act. If so, the act disenfranchised Geauga voters.
