Efforts to oust Ciccone stall
Petition drive falters, legality of prosecutor action challenged
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YOUNGSTOWN - There are only two ways to forcibly remove controversial Mahoning County Clerk of Courts Michael Ciccone from office -- and both are at dead ends.
Issues with Ciccone, a Republican -- including the failure to handle basic functions of his job such as paying utility bills and routine monthly financial reconciliation reports, as well as his documented use of racial slurs and other insulting words -- have led officials in both the county Republican and Democratic parties to call for his resignation for nearly a year.
Ciccone has refused to resign.
One option for removal is to collect the valid signatures of at least 15% of those who voted in the last governor's election -- that would be 13,029 required signatures based on the 2022 election -- on petitions to qualify for removal. Under state law, the petitions would have to be submitted initially 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.
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.
Ohio Revised Code Section 3.09 allows for an appeal to the appellate court if the officeholder is removed through a common pleas court decision while ORC Section 3.10 allows the common pleas and the appeals courts to subpoena witnesses.
Tom McCabe, county Republican chairman, and Chris Anderson, county Democratic Party chairman, announced an effort Dec. 19 to collect signatures.
But McCabe said Friday that his party has collected a little more than 1,000 signatures while Anderson said his party has collected "far less than" that.
OPTION NO. 2
The other option under ORC Section 2733.05 allows the county prosecutor -- Republican Lynn Maro -- or the state attorney general -- Republican Andy Wilson - to seek his removal by bringing a court action called a quo warranto. That is a legal term that means by what authority or warrant that challenges an elected official's right to hold office.
Maro said: "The disciplinary rules (of the Ohio Supreme Court) are clear: A county prosecutor cannot file a quo warranto action against his/her client," which includes Ciccone as he is a county officeholder.
Asked if she could seek outside counsel to handle it or ask the attorney general to get involved, Maro said, "Yes, there are other mechanisms." She declined to say if she's moved forward with other options.
Steve Irwin, Wilson's spokesman, said the attorney general's office doesn't have any information on Ciccone. Irwin said he was not aware of any complaint filed.
In a July 14 unanimous decision, Esrati v. Foley, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that a Montgomery "County resident lacked standing to seek writ, under R.C. 2733.05 because he is not the attorney general or a prosecuting attorney or under R.C. 2733.06 because he does not claim entitlement to office of county clerk of courts."
In that case, the court denied David Esrati's complaint for a writ of quo warranto against Michael J. Foley, the Montgomery County clerk of courts, to have the latter removed from office after pleading no contest to criminal charges.
The court wrote: "Ordinarily, an action in quo warranto against a public official must be brought by the attorney general or a prosecuting attorney under R.C. 2733.05. An exception is provided in R.C. 2733.06, which authorizes a 'person claiming to be entitled to a public office unlawfully held and exercised by another' to bring an action in quo warranto."
Anderson on Friday issued a "formal demand" calling for Maro to immediately file a writ of quo warranto to remove Ciccone.
Anderson said: "The citizens of Mahoning County have endured more than enough of the continuous circus, dysfunction and gross incompetence emanating from the clerk of courts office under Mike Ciccone. The legal precedent set by the Ohio Supreme Court in state ex. rel. Esrati v. Foley makes it undeniably clear: Everyday taxpayers cannot personally file a writ of quo warranto to oust a negligent official unless the county prosecutor does her job."
Anderson said: "Prosecutor Lynn Maro can no longer sit on the sidelines. It is time for her to uphold her statutory obligation, protect the integrity of our legal system and petition the 7th District Court of Appeals or the Ohio Supreme Court to oust Mike Ciccone. The public record speaks for itself. Ciccone's tenure has been an unmitigated disaster marked by nonfeasance, misfeasance and total disregard for the public trust."
Anderson added: "Ciccone is proof that when you elect clowns, you can expect a circus."
Several elected officials from both political parties -- including county commissioners, county Auditor Ralph Meacham, Sheriff Jerry Greene, state Sen. Al Cutrona and state Rep. Tex Fischer -- as well as Anderson and McCabe have called for Ciccone's resignation.
The effort by the two political parties to gather the needed signatures to force the matter to a court has failed.
McCabe said: "We're nowhere near the goal of what is needed. It is very difficult and challenging to get people to sign petitions. It's really tough to get signatures for citizen initiatives. It's a high threshold to get. We're picking at it, but it's a tough endeavor."
McCabe said he's asked state legislators from the area to introduce a bill that would give the governor and/or the attorney general the authority to remove county clerks of courts and other elected officials for negligence and/or misconduct. Currently, the governor has the removal power for only sheriffs and prosecutors.
McCabe said: "A simple change in the law is needed. The stories are unbelievable coming from (Ciccone's) office over the last 1 1/2 years. We're focused on the 2028 primary against him. By the time we collect signatures and go to court, it will be 2028."
The latest issue raising questions about Ciccone's ability to handle a job he's held since January 2025 is his office's failure to pay more than 20 monthly electric and gas bills at area county courts. The situation was so dire in the Sebring court that FirstEnergy went to the court Monday to hand-deliver a disconnection notice for the electricity and Columbia Gas of Ohio sent a termination of service notice the same day. After a judge notified Meacham about the issues, which should have been paid by the clerk of courts, the auditor's office made the payments.
Ciccone's office failed to pay the routine bills for months and also didn't pay them on time in December, Meacham said.
It led to rare criticism by judges of an officeholder with Scott Hunter, a Republican who serves as the area court's administrative and presiding judge, saying: "I'm at a complete loss as to how this situation even occurred. This is walking and chewing gum. You pay the utilities."
Judge Joe Schiavoni, a Democrat who runs the Sebring court, said: "It's concerning. The most basic function in the world is to pay your bills. Taxpayers trust that their money is providing adequate services and if the clerk of courts doesn't pay the bills it's dereliction of duty and it almost was. I understand when you're new at the job, you can have issues, but he's been in office for about two years."
The Vindicator has written about numerous issues with Ciccone over the past year.
The newspaper reported July 28 that Ciccone's office failed to file routine monthly financial reconciliation reports for well over a year until county commissioners agreed to pay an accounting firm to do the job.
When the firm discovered how bad the problem was, the commissioners increased the fee from $25,000 to $75,000.
Ciccone's office twice failed to handle its finances resulting in bounced checks, Meacham said.
In May, Ciccone's office put $1 million into the wrong fund and it wasn't discovered until several checks written on that account bounced, Meacham said.
Two months later, Ciccone's office again put money into the wrong account and checks written for appraisers to handle sheriff's sales bounced, Meacham said.
Ciccone hired his third chief of staff after firing Jennifer Ciccone on Oct. 18 after a falling out. Katherine E. Rudzik quit a couple of months ago with Michael Ciccone promoting Brent Hanni, his fiscal officer since December, to the job.
After being fired, Jennifer Ciccone posted several incriminating and embarrassing text messages from and photos of her former boss and once close friend on Facebook. That included the use of a racial epithet a number of times and slurs about elected officials.
Thais Scott of Girard, a former clerk of courts' administrator who is black, filed a lawsuit July 21 against Ciccone and his office contending he fired her after she reported to the human resources department that he called her a racial slur. Scott is suing Ciccone for racial discrimination, retaliation and having a hostile work environment. An attorney representing Ciccone said he fired Scott for legitimate reasons and denies the allegations.
The Ohio Clerk of Courts Association censured Ciccone in November, and then removed him from all committees and asked him to resign from the organization a month later. Ciccone has refused to resign.
The county commissioners suspended Ciccone's access privileges in December to the courthouse entrances, except the main one, for what they said were violations of security rules and protocols.