Lawyer: I informed ex-trustee of violation

Published:Tuesday, July 1, 2008

By Denise Dick

Moracco helped create the job.

CANFIELD — A former township trustee can’t serve in a position he voted to create.

Paul Moracco said he would not accept the newly created position of roads superintendent and construction projects manager, said Atty. Mark S. Finamore, who advises the township.

Moracco couldn’t be reached Monday.

Finamore said trustees contacted him a few weeks ago asking if they could employ a trustee after he or she resigned.

Finamore said he was researching the issue but then went on vacation. When he returned, he learned that they already had hired Moracco for the new post after consulting a different attorney.

Moracco “called me [Monday] and I told him that it’s a violation and that he can’t accept the job,” Finamore said.

He instructed Moracco to send a letter to the township declining the post and Moracco indicated he would, the attorney said.

The Vindicator brought the issue to light in a Sunday editorial, saying that it would be an ethics violation for Moracco to serve in a job he voted to create.

Moracco, who was elected to his fourth trustee term in November, resigned at a June 9 trustees’ meeting. Earlier at that same meeting, he and trustees Bill Reese and Randy Brashen had met in executive session, after which they unanimously passed a motion to ask their attorney to help them in advertising for the roads superintendent and construction projects manager job.

Moracco then tendered his resignation as trustee.

Moracco had resigned April 25 from his position as Canfield Fairgrounds superintendent. Last week, he told The Vindicator that he left that job “to find something better and to move on to the next step in my life.”

Reese said Monday that he hadn’t spoken to Moracco but heard from Finamore that Moracco would turn down the $60,000-per-year township job, which was to start today.

Reese said the need for a roads superintendent and construction projects manager remains, but trustees will have to decide how to proceed at their next meeting.

Of the 11 applicants for the job, four were interviewed.

“Paul was far and away the best,” Reese added.

He said that he and Brashen had no idea when they voted to create the position that Moracco would resign from his trustee job.

Brashen also could not be reached to comment.

Mahoning County Prosecutor Paul Gains said trustees contacted his office Monday and “I have given them the law.”

He declined to discuss what he told trustees, citing attorney-client privilege.

According to Ohio Revised Code, during a public official’s term of office or within one year thereafter, the official is “prohibited from occupying any position of profit in the prosecution of a public contract authorized by the public official or by a legislative body, commission, or board of which the public official was a member at the time of authorization ... .”

Finamore said that a former public official can be hired after resigning if certain criteria are met. The official can’t solicit the job, the official must resign before the job is created, the position must be advertised, an interview process followed, and the appointment must be based on who is the best and most qualified, he said.

Moracco, however, hadn’t resigned when the job was created, Finamore said.