Embattled Mahoning County Clerk of Courts Michael P. Ciccone, a Republican, owes more than $3,000 in delinquent property taxes — most of it for the Austintown house where he lives.

Meanwhile, the leaders of the county Republican and Democratic parties will announce as soon as next week that they will proceed with a petition drive to start the process to have Ciccone removed from office through legal action.

The list of new delinquent property taxpayers, compiled by the county auditor’s office and published in The Vindicator, includes two properties solely owned by Ciccone and two others he co-owns with Patrick W. Ciccone as owing back taxes.

The largest amount due is $1,983.92 for Michael P. Ciccone’s house at 18 S. Edgehill Ave. in Austintown, which is co-owned with Patrick W. Ciccone.

The two purchased the home for $18,000 on Dec. 11, 2013. The property is currently appraised at $105,950.

Numerous messages seeking comment were left by The Vindicator for Michael P. Ciccone, who didn’t respond to any of them.

Ciccone’s annual salary as clerk of courts is $101,823.

Ciccone also owes $1,058.64 in back taxes for a house he owns at 6402 E. Garfield Road in Springfield.

Ciccone bought the property on May 25, 2022, for $15,100. It is appraised at $61,830.

An undeveloped parcel at 1195 S. Turner Road that Ciccone owns is also delinquent. He owes $188.01 to the county for unpaid taxes in 2024.

Ciccone bought the property June 10, 2022, for $3,088. It is currently appraised at $6,880.

Also listed as delinquent is a vacant parcel on Edgehill Avenue owned by Ciccone and Patrick W. Ciccone, owing $150.89 in delinquent taxes.The auditor’s website shows those back taxes were paid Oct. 28, nearly three months late.

The second half of 2024’s property taxes were due Aug. 2 to the county.

County Auditor Ralph Meacham said those who haven’t paid are sent a couple of letters about delinquencies before being added to the delinquent list. The list was compiled by the auditor’s office a few weeks ago and then provided to the newspaper, which published it Thursday. The $150.89 was paid during that time after the list was finalized and before it was published, Meacham said.

The list published in the newspaper doesn’t include those who were on previously published lists and still haven’t paid their taxes.

But the auditor’s website lists these four properties as the only ones Ciccone owns or co-owns.

PETITION DRIVE

Meanwhile, the heads of the county Republican and Democratic parties will announce as soon as next week that they are working together to start the process of collecting signatures to seek the removal of Ciccone as clerk of courts through legal action.

“The petitions should be finalized by the end of next week, and we’ll announce how we’ll go about it,” said Mahoning Democratic Party Chairman Chris Anderson, who was the first person on Oct. 17 to call for Ciccone’s resignation. “It’s not often that an elected official has to be removed for gross incompetence so it took time for the folks to iron out the fine points. The petition is almost ready to be circulated.”

Tom McCabe, the Republican Party’s executive committee chairman, said he and Anderson will have a news conference next week to announce the joint petition drive.

Republican Party attorney A. Ross Douglass and Democratic Party attorney David Betras, who is also chairman of the county board of elections and a former Democratic chairman, are finalizing the language, said McCabe, who also serves as the election board’s director.

Also being worked out is renewed legislation in the Statehouse to give the Ohio attorney general the authority to remove county clerks of courts for negligence and / or misconduct, McCabe said.

“A big problem in Ohio is clerks of courts,” McCabe said. “There’s no oversight, and they deal with money and the court system. We’re going to approach it both ways, but the removal by the attorney general is an easier way to do it.”

A group of Mahoning Republican Party leaders and elected officials called for Ciccone to resign Oct. 18, the day after he fired Republican Jennifer J. Ciccone as his chief deputy clerk and chief of staff.

Ciccone has refused to resign.

McCabe said Friday: “He’s not going to resign without being forced. This keeps the pressure on him.”

Hours after being fired, Jennifer J. Ciccone posted on Facebook several text messages between her and her ex-boss in which he used a racial epithet about black people a number of times, talked about his wife finding out about a supposed affair he was having with an employee, that he “consumed edibles” on a “work-related trip” in bed with that woman, and showed text messages and photos of Ciccone’s wife, Emily, with a bruised eye contending that her husband struck her.

Except for the texts and photos of Ciccone’s wife, Jennifer J. Ciccone has removed the other texts from her Facebook page.

Michael P. Ciccone and Meghan Hanni, the clerk’s employee who Jennifer J. Ciccone said he was having an affair with, have both denied that is true even though Michael P. Ciccone used the phrase “the Meghan Hanni affair set her off” about his wife in a text his former employee posted on Facebook. Hanni has also denied the use of “any illegal drugs.”

REMOVAL PROCESS

Since Michael P. Ciccone started serving in January as clerk of courts, the office has faced scrutiny over how it operates the title department and that case service notices weren’t being sent in a timely manner. Jennifer J. Ciccone admitted in a since deleted Facebook statement that her former boss told her to make the 7th District Court of Appeals her last priority.

The petition drive to get Ciccone removed from office is listed in Ohio Revised Code Sections 3.07 and 3.08.

The first section states any person holding office “who willfully and flagrantly exercises authority or power not authorized by law, refuses or willfully neglects to enforce the law or to perform any official duty imposed upon him by law, or is guilty of gross neglect of duty, gross immorality, drunkenness, misfeasance, malfeasance or nonfeasance is guilty of misconduct in office.” A person in those situations can be removed from public office.

ORC Section 3.08 requires the valid signatures of at least 15% of those voting in the last gubernatorial election – 86,859 voted in Mahoning County in 2022 so 13,029 are needed – to qualify for removal. Under state law, the petitions would have to initially be submitted to the clerk of courts – Ciccone holds that office – then go to the board of elections to determine if enough valid signatures were collected and then go to trial. It’s highly likely that if it got to this stage, the common pleas court judges would recuse themselves and a visiting judge would be appointed by Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Sharon L. Kennedy.

A judge would handle the removal proceedings unless a jury trial is demanded by the official facing the charges, according to state law. After the complaint is filed, a hearing must be held within 30 days and the court may suspend the official pending the hearing, according to state law.

A Facebook page, “Mahoning County – Remove Mahoning County Clerk of Courts Mike Ciccone,” was also seeking to collect signatures for such a proceeding. That page has since been deleted, but Jennifer J. Ciccone still has a post about getting signatures on a petition on her Facebook page.

Michael P. Ciccone hired Jennifer J. Ciccone after his unlikely win in the November 2024 election for clerk of courts in which he reported raising and spending no money.

Her starting salary at the clerk of courts was $120,000 until she received a pay raise April 20 to $156,000, making her one of the highest paid non-elected employees in Mahoning County after less than four months on the job.

In comparison, her predecessor, Kathi McNabb Welsh, who served as chief deputy for 29 years, made $89,045 right before she left the job.

Two days before her firing, the Ciccones, who are not related, were seen arguing at Oakhill Renaissance Place, a county-owned building where the clerk’s title office is located. The argument became so heated that a sheriff’s deputy asked them first to go into the hallway and when that didn’t calm matters, the two were told to leave the building.

There also have been issues between Michael P. Ciccone and his wife, Emily.

She was arrested Sept. 25 on a domestic violence charge over an alleged altercation involving her husband after an argument at their South Edgehill Avenue home in Austintown. That led to her withdrawing as an Austintown Township trustee candidate.

The misdemeanor charge was dismissed Oct. 14 when the prosecutor in the case cited a lack of evidence.

She initially was charged after her husband told police he was sitting on the toilet when his wife threw numerous objects at him, including a coffee mug and a Stanley drinking cup, and one of them struck him on the right leg causing him to bleed, according to the police report. He was treated for injuries to his leg at St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital.

Ciccone told police he would need stitches for his injuries and that he wanted to press criminal charges against his wife.

He told police he called Jennifer J. Ciccone to pick him up at his home to “alleviate the current argument,” with his wife becoming “irate” when she heard the conversation, according to the police report.

Emily Ciccone filed for divorce Oct. 7, but she requested Oct. 21 that it be dismissed with a judge agreeing to drop the matter a day later.

Before the criminal charge was dismissed, Emily Ciccone’s attorney said she was going to argue she was the victim of domestic violence on and before the day of her arrest.