Niki Frenchko isn’t the type to be quiet when she feels she’s been wronged.

So it was almost as if those who wanted her to resign as auxiliary chairwoman of the Trumbull County Republican Party didn’t understand her at all.

It shouldn’t have come as a surprise to anyone paying attention that the support to remove Frenchko from the position isn’t there.

Party Chairwoman Julia Shutt came to that realization late last week when she canceled a meeting scheduled for this past Tuesday to vote on removing Frenchko as auxiliary chairwoman.

Shutt told me: “When I want to have a meeting, I want it to be successful and have a goal. I didn’t think it was looking good for our goal.”

There were efforts to remove Frenchko from the post almost immediately after the party elected her to it at a June 10, 2022, reorganizational meeting. The meeting was very contentious, but that was because of a fight over who would be elected chairman.

After that dispute, the party struggled to fill a number of the remaining party officer positions with no one interested in auxiliary chairwoman.

People practically begged Frenchko, then a county commissioner, to take the position — and she agreed, running unopposed.

The auxiliary chairwoman’s duties, according to the party’s bylaws, are to “organize and work with the various clubs and groups in the county and shall have such other duties as assigned by the chairman.”

The initial issue with Frenchko was a bylaw, passed a few months before she was selected auxiliary chairwoman, that states elected officers “must be registered Republicans for four consecutive years.” Frenchko drew a nonparty ballot in 2018 before being elected county commissioner as a Republican in 2020.

But she wasn’t alone. At the time, the party’s chairman and secretary also were in violation of the bylaw.

So it was dropped for a while, but didn’t go away.

While Frenchko was on vacation, party officers called a May 17 meeting to remove her as auxiliary chairwoman.

At least two-thirds of those who attend central committee meetings — with a quorum of at least 28 members — have to vote to remove an officer under party bylaws. There were doubts that the party could get a quorum for this meeting. Also, if the party had a quorum, there was no guarantee enough would vote to get rid of Frenchko.

Instead of a vote, Chairwoman Julia Shutt unilaterally decided at that May 17 meeting to remove Frenchko.

At a June 5 executive committee meeting, James Dunlap, the party’s first vice chairman, said Shutt’s decision to remove Frenchko wasn’t done according to the bylaws or Robert’s Rules of Order.

Shutt said she doesn’t agree with that interpretation, but agreed that Frenchko would remain as

auxiliary chairwoman and another effort would be made to remove her.

However, she said back in February on recorded police footage that she didn’t have the sole authority to remove Frenchko.

The party officers, excluding Dunlap, sent Frenchko a letter on June 18 requesting her resignation as auxiliary chairwoman — and from the executive committee — citing a list of supposed party bylaws infractions.

Shutt said Frenchko’s lack of four years as a registered Republican before her selection as auxiliary chairwoman was one of the main reasons for seeking her ouster, but it was not listed on the letter asking for her resignation.

Instead, the letter accused Frenchko of “opening and publicly making derogatory remarks about” the party, its officers and members; “openly and publicly supporting a Democratic candidate against a Republican candidate in the same race”; being absent from central, executive and officer board meetings for the past three months; and for “assaulting a fellow officer at an officers meeting with four eyewitnesses present.”

At a Feb. 4 meeting of party officers, largely to discuss yet another procedural error made by the party, the officers in attendance accused Frenchko of throwing two lemons at Marleah Campbell, the party’s secretary, with one hitting her in the chest.

Frenchko strongly denied throwing the lemons.

Howland police were called and no charges were filed.

Frenchko and her attorney, David Betras, have demanded a retraction. Betras said the June 18 letter libels and slanders Frenchko.

The party officers sent Frenchko a letter on July 2, but it didn’t include a retraction.

Frenchko said she’s still waiting and that the party’s own attorney acknowledged she deserves a retraction.

Frenchko said Shutt’s “refusal to address it demonstrates she’s a liability to (the party). Integrity demands better and so do the people we serve.”

Shutt, who was elected chairwoman in December on a platform of unifying the greatly splintered party, also said she didn’t know if Republicans would again

seek to remove Frenchko as that’s a decision for the officers to

make.

David Skolnick covers politics for the Tribune Chronicle and The Vindicator.