Power struggles and spats within local Area Commissions are nothing new, but the events unfolding within the Clintonville Area Commission appear to be reaching a disturbing level of absurdity and alarm.
In August, Clintonville resident Will Klatt, well-known for his progressive community activism, overwhelmingly won his vote to be seated on the Clintonville Area Commission (CAC) and representing the commission’s District 3. He ran against three other candidates for an open seat and received 65 votes. The second place candidate, with the second highest number of votes, received 26 votes.
No doubt it was a victory for the many Clintonville residents worried about how out-of-control development could impact their community. To be clear, Klatt is not anti-development. But he believes development must have regulatory input from impacted neighbors.
“I ran on a platform of putting community needs before special interests,” said Klatt (pictured above with his family). “I am broadly concerned with zoning changes are prioritizing economic interests over community needs. That’s not always the case but that’s been the MO [modus operandi] for a long time.”
He campaigned on these promises: Maintain our historic architecture as we grow, prioritize bike and foot traffic safety, continue to build a community that is welcoming and working family focused, promote and protect the interests of our vibrant and diverse local business community.
But Klatt’s landslide is being challenged. One of the losing candidates formally complained to the CAC’s election committee that on the day of the vote, Klatt crossed the 100-foot border from the polling location to speak with eight voters. The 100-foot border is mandated by the Ohio Revised Code.
The CAC elections committee, after reviewing the complaint, ruled: “The Elections Committee affirms the election results and declines to disqualify Will Klatt.”
It didn’t end here. A second losing candidate appealed this decision. At the upcoming Thursday, October 2 CAC monthly meeting, the commissioners “will discuss and vote whether to sustain the District 3 election complaint and vacate August 25 election results.”
The pettiness of those who lost is clear, but it gets even worse. The losers – who have allies on the CAC and within the Fraternal Order of Police Ohio – tried to keep Klatt in the dark about the elections’ complaint against him.
“Under the election rules, it requires that candidates who have a complaint against them, are provided due process. They provided me no prior knowledge of the meeting. They provided no documents of the complaint itself,” he said. “And so they violated their own constitutional bylaws.”
Moreover, and arguably most important, it was improper for the appeal to even go before the elections committee.
“The appeal itself was improperly brought before the board,” said Klatt. “The election committee ruled the complaint was immaterial to the outcome, and basically the admonishment was, ‘read the rules again,’ and in the future, they’re saying what they should [have] done in the first place, put a flag where they think the line is.
“But what happened then, after violating my due process, after violating procedural rules, they still brought the appeal forward. But the appeal wasn’t from the [losing candidate who filed the complaint] it was from [another losing candidate]. They literally went in front of a public body and described their attempt to rig a second outcome because they weren’t happy with the first one.”
“I served on the Near East Area Commission for seventeen years and never seen this type of behavior,” said Bob Fitrakis, “Trying to overturn a landslide election is out of character for an area commission.”
Former Clintonville Area Commissioner Joe Motil sent a letter to the current CAC commissioners about their attempts to re-run the election, stating: “Such action would be reminiscent to what our country is currently fighting against. Anti-democratic attempts to overturn elections due to someone’s displeasure with the results and possibly a candidate’s political views. And as a 55-year resident of Clintonville, I do not want to have the reputation of my neighborhood smeared as one that would support such nonsense. I am respectfully encouraging all of you to allow the election results to stand and claim Mr. Klatt the winner.”
Community members are asking people to support Will’s election and the democratic process by showing up at the next Clintonville Area Commission meeting at 7:30 pm, Thursday, October 2 at the Whetstone Library, 3909 N. High Street, Columbus, Ohio 43214.
