Petsche says he’s not withdrawing from ballot in mayoral race or resigning from council

by Jacqueline Mitchell

Sept. 17 city council meeting

Brecksville City Councilwoman Kim Veras has asked Councilman Jack Petsche to resign from his seat on council as the Ohio Ethics Commission investigates Petsche’s decision not to disclose to council that his company installed the roof on the city’s new police station.

Petsche requested the opportunity to consult legal counsel before responding to Veras’ query, and council voted 6-1 to give him one week to reply. (Petsche voted no, asking for two weeks).

On Sept. 25, Petsche’s lawyer, Peter Pattakos of Pattakos Law Firm in Fairlawn, sent a letter to Brecksville Law Director David Matty informing him that Petsche will not resign from council.

The next day, Petsche announced via his public Facebook page that he was resuming his campaign for mayor of Brecksville.

At the Sept. 3 council meeting, Petsche had stated that in light of the ethics investigation, he was suspending his campaign for mayor as the lone candidate facing incumbent Mayor Jerry Hruby, who is serving his eighth four-year term.

However, after the Sept. 17 council meeting, Petsche told ScripType Publishing he did not plan to withdraw his name from the Nov. 5 ballot, and he requested that ScripType send him a questionnaire to fill out for Brecksville Magazine’s November candidate profile section.

Councilwoman Laura Redinger asked Petsche if that meant he was still running for mayor, to which he responded, “I haven’t decided yet.”

According to the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections, candidates had until Aug. 27 to remove their names from the November ballot, but they have until the day before the election to notify the board that they are withdrawing from a race. In that case, a note will be provided with both absentee and Election Day ballots stating that the candidate has withdrawn from the race, and the candidate’s vote tally will not appear in official polling results, said an elections board representative. As of Sept. 17, the representative said the board had not received a request for removal from Petsche.

Charter rules

Residents once again packed Brecksville City Hall during the Sept. 17 council meeting to voice opinions in both support and opposition of Petsche, as they have at the last several meetings where Petsche’s contract activities have been discussed.

At the beginning of the meeting, Matty told council that he received notice via council clerk Tammy Tabor that Petsche has retained an attorney in response to talk at the last council meeting of members taking action to remove him from office.

Matty differentiated between Ohio state law – which the OEC will examine in its investigation of Petsche and his business’ (USA Roofing) subcontract with police station contractor Panzica Construction – and the Brecksville city charter, which offers grounds for a councilperson’s removal.

According to the charter, a council member “shall not, directly or indirectly, solicit, contract for, receive or be interested in any profit or emolument from or on account of any contract, job, work or service with or for the municipality.”

The Brecksville administrative code within the charter states that members may not vote on issues involving personal or financial interests.

Matty delineated the charter section about a councilperson’s removal.

“The council shall be the judge of the election and qualifications of its own members,” the charter states. “It may expel or remove any member for gross misconduct or malfeasance or nonfeasance in or disqualification for office, or upon conviction while in office of a felony or other crime involving moral turpitude, or for violation of his oath of office, or persistent failure to abide by the rules of council…”

Five or more council members must approve the removal following a public hearing on the charges brought against the councilperson in question.

The accused member must be notified in writing of the charges against him at least 15 days in advance of the public hearing. He and/or his legal counsel must have the opportunity to “be heard, present evidence, and examine witnesses appearing in support of such charge or charges,” the charter says.

Veras asked if Petsche would consider resigning so that council did not have to go through a formal proceeding.

“It’s pretty clear in light of what’s come to our attention repeatedly, Jack’s pattern of activities, that per what the law director just read – all of the laws in our charter – his actions seem to be contrary to that,” she said. “I was wondering, Jack, if maybe you might think it would be in the city’s best interest to not put the city through anything more, and maybe you might consider resigning from council.”

Petsche’s response

While Petsche said he would consult with a lawyer before answering Veras’ question, he did make a statement urging council against instituting removal proceedings against him.

“It’s clear that the charter provisions at issue are intended to prohibit Brecksville’s public officials from using their government positions to benefit themselves, and I certainly agree with this intent,” Petsche said. “But here, it’s also clear that my position on city council had nothing to do with my company performing this work on the police station.”

Petsche asserted that Panzica hired USA Roofing as a subcontractor for the job before he was elected to office in 2017 (though Panzica didn’t sign the official contract with him until Jan. 8, 2018, six days after Petsche took the oath of office).

“It should be clear to both the council and the public that no harm was caused by my company completing this job,” he said. “… It’s clear enough that there is no such misconduct, malfeasance or nonfeasance at issue here, let alone that any such conduct could be considered gross or excessive.”

He said that if council moved forward with removal proceedings, “it would be an affront to the Brecksville citizens who elected me to this council. It would also invite the inference that removal proceedings have been instituted for improper political purposes.”

Later, Petsche emailed ScripType Publishing a statement regarding Matty’s allegation that Petsche was under criminal investigation.

“There is no criminal investigation,” he said. “To say so is a slander on my good name.”

Petsche said he met with the Ohio Ethics Commission in June, though city council members have said they did not find out about Petsche’s police station subcontract until he mentioned it at the Aug. 6 council committee meeting.

“At the Ethics Commission’s request, I met with their investigators,” Petsche said. “I answered their questions fully. I have not heard from the Ethics Commission since meeting with their investigators in June.”

Petsche also responded to Matty’s report to council at the Sept. 3 meeting that the city had received a subpoena.

“A subpoena is a request, usually from a lawyer to a person or an organization to produce documents for inspection,” Petsche said. “The law director has refused to say who issued the subpoena. I can only assume that the subpoena was issued by the Ohio Ethics Commission, who issue subpoenas as a regular activity in their conduct of investigations. Their issuance of a subpoena does not mean there is a criminal investigation.”

Aquatic center bid

At the Sept. 17 council meeting, Matty said Petsche has displayed a pattern of similar conduct in bidding on city projects.

“Lo and behold, in May of this year, when this council was considering the aquatic center bid … after those bids were opened, Mr. Petsche again solicited a roofing contract, this time from Seitz Builders. … This council, this mayor and this law director did not know that that was occurring until we received on that project the preliminary list of subcontractors, and lo and behold, USA Roofing was on that preliminary list without knowledge by anybody here. Instruction had to be given to our purchasing director to inform Mr. Seitz that that subcontract would not be a contractor that the city would approve.”

Matty said the city was fortunate to receive a preliminary list of subcontractors on the aquatic center, something it did not receive for police station project, because it was a different bidding process.

“Panzica took care of all of that,” he said.

In the case of the aquatics center, Matty said, “We had a choice to make: do we allow this conduct to continue, or do we make the hard choice and follow that law? Which is what we did. We, the city, took USA Roofing off that preliminary list.”

Petsche responded, “I didn’t know the law. I thought it would be OK. And really, what was the harm here? There was no harm, because the city undid it.”

Featured image photo caption: Councilman Jack Petsche gives an impassioned speech at the Sept. 17 Brecksville City Council meeting. Photo by J. Kananian