YOUNGSTOWN — The heads of the Mahoning County Republican and Democratic parties today will launch a bipartisan effort to start the process of collecting signatures to seek the removal of embattled Clerk of Courts Michael P. Ciccone from office through legal action.

The announcement will be made by county Democratic Chairman Chris Anderson and Tom McCabe, chairman of the Republican Party’s executive committee, along with David Betras, chairman of the county board of elections and a former Democratic chairman, in the latter’s law office in Canfield. Joining them will be Tallie Orengia, an attorney in Betras’ office, who helped him draft the complaint against Ciccone.

“We have to move ahead with this because we need to remove an officeholder who’s disgraced himself,” said McCabe of Ciccone, a fellow Republican.

The petition drive was initially discussed by Anderson shortly after Ciccone fired Jennifer J. Ciccone on Oct. 17 as his chief deputy and chief of staff after a falling out between the former allies and controversial figures.

Hours after her firing, Jennifer J. Ciccone posted on Facebook several incriminating text messages between her and her former boss in which he used a racial epithet a number of times, slurs about elected officials and admitted to having an “affair” with a female subordinate while being married. Jennifer J. Ciccone also posted a picture of Michael P. Ciccone’s wife with a bruised eye — which his wife contends was caused by her husband striking her — and numerous other embarrassing messages and photos between the two.

Jennifer J. Ciccone also wrote that her former boss was “consuming edibles in bed” with the subordinate on a “work-related trip.”

Michael P. Ciccone and the woman previously denied an affair and the woman also said she does “not use any illegal drugs.”

The effort to have Ciccone removed from office falls under 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 — on petitions to qualify for removal. Under state law, the petitions would have to initially be submitted to the clerk of courts — who is Ciccone — be forwarded 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 the final stage that 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.

COLLECTING SIGNATURES

As for collecting 13,029 valid signatures, McCabe said, “We’ll start the process and see where it goes.”

Anderson said, “I don’t think it’s going to be nearly as difficult as Ciccone hopes it will be. The way he’s acted and governed will make it easier to collect signatures. Also, it’s going to be a bipartisan effort so the infrastructure is in place to do it. After everything that happened, the No. 1 question we received was: how do we get him out of office? This is how. We’ll have the petition drive in a bipartisan way. With the current political climate, having this done with both parties marching lock-step together on this will attract a lot of attention.”

Mahoning Republican leaders on Oct. 18 called for Ciccone to resign.

Ciccone has refused to resign, writing in an Oct. 19 statement: “I remain committed to the responsibilities I was elected to carry out by the people of Mahoning County.”

He also wrote he was “surprised and disappointed” that Republican and Democratic leaders called for him to resign “without ever reaching out to me directly.”

Since then, Ciccone has refused to respond to requests for comment from The Vindicator, including on Thursday.

Betras said he “stepped up” to write the complaint against Ciccone when no one else would and if the political parties gather enough valid signatures, he would represent them in court at no cost.

Ciccone “abused his office and I wanted to do what I could to help with the process,” he said.

Asked about collecting the required signatures, Betras said, “It’s going to be on them to do that. It’s not going to be easy.”

McCabe said he still wants to discuss legislation to permit a method to grant the authority to the governor and / or the attorney general to remove county clerks of courts for negligence and / or misconduct.

“The governor has removal power for sheriff, prosecutor and other elected officials so clerk of courts should be included,” he said.