The Union City Commission voted against appointing a fifth member to an open seat on the city commission on Wednesday as the city continues to reel from election issues arising from wrongful ballot distributions on Election Day.
Mayor Larry Solomon made a motion to appoint former City Commissioner Doug Bine, who lost his bid for reelection, according to the currently tabulated election results, to the open seat. Bine and his attorney, Steve Megerle, have been spearheading an election challenge following reports of voters receiving wrong ballots. Neither Bine nor Megerle attended Wednesday’s meeting.
Solomon and newly reelected Commissioner John Mefford voted in favor of the appointment but reelected Commissioner Brian Garner, and newly elected Commissioner Eric Dulaney cast no votes. In situations like this, where there are an even number of votes and no mechanism to break a tie, a tied vote counts as a no.
There are five seats, including the mayoral seat, on the city commission, and the commissioners share legislative and executive power with the mayor. The open seat appeared after former Commissioner Jeremy Ramage, who won a bid for reelection in November, vacated his seat on the commission.
Ramage’s decision followed reports of incorrect ballot distributions at two Union precincts on Election Day, although Ramage has not indicated his decision to resign was due to the election problems. The affected elections included the race for the city commission seats and the medical cannabis ballot question.
Voters began reporting what appeared to be wrongful ballot distributions on Election Day itself, and the office of the Boone County Clerk Justin Crigler later admitted that “human error,” as he put it, had led to mix-ups among some of the poll workers.
Crigler filed a petition for a recount on Nov. 8., but Boone County Circuit Court Judge Richard Bruegemann rejected this as “futile” for determining the scale of the disenfranchisement that may have occurred and later granted Bine leave to levy a challenge against the election. The Board of Elections certified the results on Nov. 15. Bine then filed an official election challenge on Dec. 4.
On Dec. 9, the clerk filed a motion to strike Bine’s challenge, arguing that it failed to follow proper legal protocols. The clerk also requested postponing evidence discovery until Bruegemann could rule on the motion to strike, which the judge granted at a hearing on Dec. 17.
Bine’s team then filed their own motion, accusing the board of “forum shopping” (i.e., trying to move the proceedings to a venue that would be more favorable). Bine’s team also pointed out that the board failed to advertise the meeting where they certified the election results, arguing it violated Kentucky’s open meetings laws. Then, on Dec. 27, Bine filed a motion for a restraining order, which would have effectively prevented Mefford, Dulaney, and Garner from taking office.
Bruegemann tossed both the clerk’s motion to strike the challenge and Bine’s restraining order at a hearing on Dec. 30. That action allowed Bine’s challenge to proceed in court, but a new hearing date has not yet been scheduled.
Solomon made the case that it would be easiest to simply appoint Bine back onto the commission since he was the only other person who ran for a seat. Moreover, he believed it would spare the city continued stress and potentially obviate a lengthy court battle.
“By doing so, the healing process can begin, and we all together can focus on city business…,” Solomon said. “Then we all can work together to get the board of elections and county clerk to provide us solutions to correct the voting practices in the city of Union so this travesty never happens again.”
The election challenge itself still has to go through the court system. If the court throws out the election results after the challenge goes to trial, it can call a new election to determine who will finally serve in the commissioners’ roles.
Alternatively, the court can reject the current election results, dissolve the current commissioners’ seats and grant the mayor the right to appoint a new commissioner, who would, in conjunction with the mayor, appoint people to the remaining open seats.
By law, the commission forfeits its right to make appointments 30 days after its first meeting of the year (in this case, the meeting on Wednesday), regardless of the case’s progress in court. At that point, the power to appoint commissioners to any open seats falls to Gov. Andy Beshear.
Dulaney called the idea of allowing Beshear to make an appointment “wretched,” and Mefford agreed with Solomon that Bine was the ideal choice, pointing to what he characterized as Bine’s experience and history serving the community.
“When we have a choice of appointing someone who has a proven track record of accomplishment with the city, who displays professionalism and respect in all this dealings with the commission or the staff and has the unyielding mindset of servant leadership and service to others, or our other choices are to appoint or have the governor appoint someone for whom we don’t have any of this knowledge, to me, the choice is clear,” Mefford said.
Garner, on the other hand, didn’t think appointing Bine by default was a good idea. Instead, he pitched the idea of soliciting applications from residents, job-opening style, and interviewing potential candidates in a public meeting to determine who best to appoint. Other cities in the region, such as Covington, have used similar methods for filling open government seats.
At times, the discussions got heated, and Garner was clearly frustrated throughout much of the exchange.
“There were five people on the ballot, and only one of those people was not elected,” Garner said. “That’s the people saying, ‘We don’t want that person.’ And I don’t like saying that. I’m not trying to be a jerk, but that’s what it says. I think it’s a better approach to see if there’s somebody out there that maybe they looked at this election process and said, ‘Hey, man, I need to get involved in that.’ Or maybe they saw the recent snowstorm and said, ‘You know, man, I could do better.’ And that’s that’s my preference on how I would approach it.”
“I concur with commissioner Garner,” Dulaney said.
Discussion continued even after the motion to appoint Bine was voted down. Solomon argued that, rather than take up a motion to implement Garner’s open-application idea, it would be better to wait and see what the court rules.
“I think that the court process will be going through pretty expeditiously,” Solomon said. “So, until I hear something more from the court, I’m not going to vote for this.”
“The position of the head of the city, the mayor, is to sit and do nothing?” Garner said. “And just wait for a judge to tell us what we’re going to do?”
Solomon reaffirmed his stance but invited Garner or another commissioner to make a motion in favor of Garner’s alternative. No motion was made.
The Union City Commission will meet again on Wednesday, Jan. 22, at 6:30 p.m. at the Union City Building on Bristow Drive.