The Summit County Board of Elections is examining whether an Akron City Council newsletter was too political.
The two-page newsletter, which ran in the Beacon Journal in November, urged voters to turn down Issue 2 — the statewide referendum on a collective bargaining law — and to approve two other local tax issues.
Republican elections board members think the council violated election laws by using tax dollars for an advertisement that advocated votes for or against ballot issues.
“I’ve never seen a political subdivision run an ad telling people how to vote,” said Alex Arshinkoff, one of two Republican board members. “We’ve got a real problem here.”
Council President Marco Sommerville said the council was trying to inform the public about where the council, which had passed resolutions on the three ballot initiatives, stood on the issues.
“I think this boils down to politics,” Sommerville said. “The Republican Party is still reeling from the loss of Issue 2.”
The elections board delayed a hearing on the newsletter issue scheduled for Thursday. It plans to discuss the topic further at its Feb. 7 meeting and to set a new hearing date.
The City Council News piece ran in the Beacon Journal on Nov. 5, which was three days before the general election. It featured several articles and a voters guide that said the council “urges a NO vote on Issue 2, and YES votes on Issues 14 (the Akron Public School levy) and Issue 25 (the Summit County Developmental Disabilities Board levy.)”
The newsletter included a box that said it was published by the Akron City Council and produced by Highland Public Relations, the council’s Akron-based public relations firm.
The council paid $10,043 to Highland to cover the cost of publishing the newsletter, according to the council clerk’s office.
Sommerville said the council decided to publish its quarterly newsletter in the Beacon Journal after doing a cost analysis and finding this a cheaper option to mailing the newsletter to residents. He said this action has not been a problem in the past.
“We might have said ‘vote for,’ but that was based on the fact council had passed resolutions,” he said. “We made our views known where we stood. We felt, once we did that, this wouldn’t be a problem.”
Sommerville said the votes on the resolutions for or against the ballot issues were unanimous on the all-Democratic council.
The elections board subpoenaed information from the Beacon Journal regarding the newsletter. The newspaper has declined to provide that information.
Karen Lefton, an attorney representing the Beacon Journal, said in a letter to the elections board that the subpoena was “vague and overbroad” and the board hadn’t made an effort to get the information it was seeking from other sources, such as the Akron City Council. She asked the board to withdraw its subpoena.
“There is no need to trample on the media’s First Amendment rights,” she wrote.
During Thursday’s board meeting, Tim Gorbach, the board’s Democratic chairman, questioned whether the board has the authority to decide if the newsletter was a violation. He said it wouldn’t be up to the board to determine if this was a proper expenditure of the city’s tax dollars. He added that he doesn’t want the board to devolve into a “circus atmosphere.”
Ray Weber, the board’s other Republican board member, said the board has “broad powers” to investigate “irregularities” or potential violations of state election law. He and Arshinkoff said the board needs to hold a hearing to determine if the council’s actions were violations and forward any information to the Summit County Prosecutor’s Office.
The board decided to make public records requests for the information it needs on the newsletter and — if additional information is still needed — craft a more narrow subpoena for the Beacon Journal.
If the board takes this step, Lefton said, she will “take a look at it and see if it’s appropriate and should be responded to.”
Stephanie Warsmith can be reached at 330-996-3705 or swarsmith@thebeaconjournal.com.