Commission recommends mayors
be charged in nepotism case
By Kevin Kelley
Westshore
Published March 8, 2006

The Ohio Ethics Commission has recommended that charges be filed against the mayors of Rocky River and Westlake in connection with the employment of their relatives at the Rocky River Wastewater Treatment Plant.

Five relatives of Westlake Mayor Dennis Clough and two relatives Rocky River Mayor William Knoble are employed at the Rocky River Wastewater Treatment Plant. Clough and Knoble serve on the plant’s management board. Employees of the plant are technically employees of the city of Rocky River.

The mayors could each face a charge of improper use of a public office, a misdemeanor; or having an unlawful interest in a public contract, a felony; or both.

Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason wants to present the case to a grand jury within a month, according to Jamie Dalton, public information officer at Mason’s office.

The Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s Office investigated the employment of the mayors’ relatives following an Oct. 13 article in The Plain Dealer. Those findings were turned over to the Ohio Ethics Commission in January.

“We are reviewing the investigation of the Sheriff’s Department and the report of the ethics commission,” Dalton said.

The sheriff’s investigation was very thorough and detailed, Dalton said. Together, the sheriff’s report and the ethics commission report are five inches thick, she said.

Dalton told West Life the attorneys of the two mayors have been contacted by the prosecutor’s office but the talks have not been substantive.

On Friday, Knoble told West Life that neither he nor his attorney has seen the ethics commission report, which has not been publicly released.

Knoble said he has fully cooperated with investigators.

“My approach is not to run away from these things and hide,” he said.

Knoble maintained he did nothing illegal, nor did he violate the Rocky River Charter.

“I certainly don’t feel that I violated any moral trust that the voters placed in me at any point in my 30-year career,” he said.

Clough told West Life he personally has heard from neither the county prosecutor nor the Ohio Ethics Commission.

The Westlake mayor has said it was not inappropriate for him to be used as a reference for a relative. His family members hired at the plant grew up in Rocky River and were qualified for their jobs, Clough said.

“This is all political,” Clough said, adding the controversy rose from a bitter mayoral contest last fall.

According to an Ohio Ethics Commission publication, Ohio law prohibits officials from hiring family members; however, ethics laws do not prohibit family members from being employed by the same public agency as an official as long as the official has not secured or authorized the job for the relative.

A public official also is not generally prohibited from approving a union contract when a relative is a member of the union, according to the Ohio Ethics Commission.

The charters of both cities provide for the removal of a convicted mayor.

Rocky River’s charter states that a mayor “convicted of a felony or other crime involving moral turpitude ... shall forthwith forfeit his office.”

If a vacancy occurs in the mayor’s office, the council president (currently Pam Bobst) becomes acting mayor until council appoints a mayor by majority vote.

Westlake’s charter grants its council the right to remove the mayor by a two-thirds vote for specific reasons, including “for conviction while in office of a crime involving moral turpitude.”

In the case of a vacancy, the director of public service (currently Don Glauner) becomes acting mayor until a special election can be held.

Both Knoble and Clough were re-elected by large margins in November. Knoble beat Fred Sokol 70 to 30 percent, while Clough defeated Westlake school board member Joe O’Malley 72 to 28 percent.