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BAZETTA -- Trumbull County commissioners discussed procedural matters with attorney Robert Burkey regarding the upcoming public annexation hearing involving Niles and Howland and Vienna townships at Wednesday's meeting at the Trumbull County Fair.
Burkey and the commissioners discussed how the public hearing, which is scheduled for 10 a.m. Monday at the commissioners' building, will be structured.
The main thing commissioners discussed was what role, if any, Burkey would play at the hearing.
"One of the questions that I have is, is I assume you want me near the table where you will be sitting in case questions come about. Or, do I even need to be there at all?" Burkey said.
Commissioner Denny Malloy said he is in favor of Burkey playing a significant role in the meeting. As the board president, Malloy guides the commissioner meetings, moving members along from one agenda item to the next.
But the annexation hearing will be different. The commissioners described the hearing as a "quasi-judicial" hearing, in which the chairperson of the meeting will guide the parties through each section of the agenda.
Though Malloy is the president of the board, he suggested Burkey play the role of chairman for the annexation hearing.
"I would prefer, if possible, that you (Burkey) would chair," Malloy said. "So that I can dedicate my time to hearing the arguments both ways and understanding that stuff. Rather than running the meeting, I would prefer to have that time to hear both sides clearly and fairly."
Commissioner Niki Frenchko disagreed. Frenchko questioned whether paying Burkey to run the meeting would be worth it, or whether it is allowed.
"I haven't had any email responses to any statutory authority that would give the chairperson of the quasi-judicial body while we're acting in that fashion to delegate that duty," she said. "And I haven't received any memorandum of law or any authority saying that is permissible."
"In addition to that, if you are the chairperson, chairing the meeting is just allowing people to go in a particular order. We already had our attorney prepare the agenda, all you (Malloy) would have to do is these few things, and we can save money by not having our attorney there for eight to 10 hours," Frenchko said.
Burkey said he is unaware of any laws that would prohibit Malloy from delegating the chair position to him. Commissioner Mauro Cantalamessa said that allowing Burkey to run the meeting would not be out of the ordinary.
"In my eight years here we have had different public hearings where the attorney does run the meeting," Cantalamessa said. "It is not uncustomary. We've had annexations, the prosecutors office has never weighed in on that. I'm going to defer to our legal counsel here, he's our attorney."
Frenchko said commissioners need to take the hearing seriously s not to allow any of the involved parties to question the effectiveness of the meeting.
"It's a serious matter," she said. "There's an effort to have an annexation from the townships to the city of Niles. We need to make sure that we did everything procedurally correct, in case there comes a point where they could argue that we didn't follow proper procedure."
Said Malloy, "If we have our attorney representing us who is running the meeting, I think he'll be a little more astute with this. To make sure that he follows procedure. He has 40 years of experience doing this stuff. He'd know proper procedure much better than we would, regarding this. I still defer. I think that if he's the professional representing us in this, they'll have all their attorneys on both sides, I just think it's professional courtesy, also, to allow him to run that meeting."
Malloy and Cantalamessa both said that they would be satisfied with Burkey running the meeting.
Commissioners can approve or deny the annexation the day of hearing, or within 30 days.