Trending
Taxpayers have a right to expect the officials elected to serve the rest of us will do the people's business openly and transparently. It is the basis of the Open Meetings Act, which protects the public's access to the work done by all public bodies.
Violation of that act is rightly punishable by fine. But the Ohio Supreme Court is now considering how to handle the case of the Rootstown Township board of trustees, which was found to have hidden its dealings from the public by illegally going into executive session eight times in 2016.
Should they pay the $500 fine for such a violation once or eight times?
A judge issued an injunction ordering the board to discontinue the illegal meetings, and levied a single $500 fine as punishment. A resident appealed that ruling, arguing the township should have to pay for every violation.
Predictably, the lawyers for Rootstown Township government say such a move would violate state law, and inspire more claims. Well, yes. That's the idea -- though the pretense that lawyers arguing in support of Rootstown Township's illegal behavior are worried about protecting taxpayer dollars -- when they are, in fact, being paid by tax dollars -- is such an obvious scare tactic one wonders why they bothered.
However, should it be found that payment for each violation is prohibited under state law, legislators should get to work on changing that immediately.
Otherwise, there will be public bodies who decide $500 is a small price to pay to keep their efforts hidden from the taxpayers they were elected to serve.