YOUNGSTOWN — While he has issues with the law that requires him to appoint a new five-member Youngstown school board, Mayor Jamael Tito Brown said he’s prepared to carry out the responsibility.

Brown said he’s meeting Friday in Columbus with Gov. Mike DeWine and members of his administration to talk about the process.

“Whether I like it or not, it’s here,” Brown said Wednesday. “I like local control, and I like people to elect their members. But I’ll serve to the best of my ability. We have to do something. Is this the right something? I guess we’re going to try.”

Under House Bill 70, referred to as the Youngstown Plan and signed into law in 2015, academically failing school districts were taken over by the state. Youngstown was the first, followed later by East Cleveland and Lorain. The state passed a moratorium in July on having other poor-performing school districts lose local control.

HB 70 also calls for school districts under state control to dissolve their school boards if they don’t get an overall grade on the state report card of C or higher in the fourth year after three failing years. Youngstown last week received an overall F grade for the fourth straight year. That will eliminate the existing elected seven-member school board effective Jan. 1.

The law calls for the mayor to appoint a five-member board to replace it.

Brown, who served as a school board member from 2004 to 2007, said that experience “gives me an understanding and perspective of the job. My first goal is to appoint the best members.”

Under the state law, Brown will appoint two members to a nominating panel that is to convene no more than 30 days after the school district received the fourth failing grade, which was Sept. 11. One of Brown’s appointees has to be either a member of the local business community or in higher education. The other could be anyone.

The rest of the panel will include a district principal chosen by a vote of the district’s principals, a teacher appointed by the teachers’ union, a parent of a student at the district selected by a parent-teacher association, the head of the district’s Academic Distress Commission, the district’s CEO, and the state superintendent. The latter serves as chairman and as a nonvoting member.

The panel has up to 30 days after it’s formed to nominate 10 candidates. All candidates must be residents of the school district and cannot hold an elected office. That rules out all seven of the sitting elected school board members.

Then, Brown has up to 30 days to select five members from the 10 finalists.

“I want the candidates’ focus to be on education and to move the needle to a passing grade,” Brown said.

Regardless of the law, there will be an election for the four available seats on the city school board, said Mahoning County Prosecutor Paul J. Gains.

There were six candidates on the ballot and one write-in candidate.

But on Wednesday, one of the six — Patrick O’Leary — officially withdrew his candidacy.

In a letter to the Mahoning County Board of Elections, O’Leary wrote: “The recent uncertainty created by HB 70 has turned the Youngstown City School Board race into a futile exercise. In order to win an election, one must campaign. In order to campaign effectively, one must raise and spend money or at least ask friends, family and even strangers to generously work on their behalf. This plan is no longer ethical or reasonable due to the likelihood that the newly elected board members will ever get to serve.”

He also wrote that he would seek to be one of the 10 nominees.

Brown said he’s considering appointing school board members who win in the Nov. 5 election.

However, he points out that the state law forbids him from appointing those who are elected officials. That would rule out the two incumbents running for re-election: Brenda Kimble and Dario Hunter.