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Despite causing numerous problems and great embarrassment to Mahoning County, Clerk of Courts Michael Ciccone isn't going anywhere.
When I last wrote a column about Ciccone, a Republican, nearly 10 months ago, the county Republican and Democratic parties were united in an effort to have him removed from office.
Ciccone refuses to resign.
The parties accused Ciccone of repeatedly abusing the authority of his office, using "discriminatory and degrading language, and failing to "perform core statutory duties."
Since then, it's only gotten worse for Ciccone in terms of job performance, but efforts to remove him from office are going nowhere.
The county political parties needed to collect 13,029 valid signatures on petitions to qualify for an attempt to remove Ciccone through a court proceeding.
That law requires the signatures of at least 15% of those who voted in the last governor's election. Then the petitions would be submitted initially to the county clerk of courts -- which, of course, is Ciccone -- and then forwarded to the board of elections to determine if enough valid signatures were collected and finally a court proceeding.
A judge would handle the removal proceedings unless a jury trial is demanded by the official facing the charges, according to state law.
After the complaint is filed, a hearing must take place within 30 days and the court may suspend the official pending the hearing, according to state law.
But Tom McCabe, the county's Republican Party chairman as well as director of the board of elections, said his party has collected a little more than 1,000 signatures, and county Democratic Party Chairman Chris Anderson said Democrats have collected far fewer than that.
McCabe said the effort is essentially abandoned because obtaining the signatures is too difficult.
Instead, McCabe said the Republicans will seek to field a challenger in the 2028 primary against Ciccone. The party-backed candidate lost the 2024 Republican primary to Ciccone.
McCabe also wants state legislators to introduce a bill to give the governor and/or the attorney general the authority to remove county clerks of courts and other elected officials for negligence and/or misconduct. Currently, the governor has the authority to do that for only sheriffs and prosecutors.
That proposal doesn't have legs at this point.
The other option to seek Ciccone's removal is an Ohio Revised Code statute that permits county Prosecutor Lynn Maro or state Attorney General Andy Wilson, both Republicans, to bring a court action called a quo warranto. That's a legal term that means by what authority or warrant that challenges an elected official's right to hold office.
Maro said she cannot file such an action against Ciccone because the Ohio Supreme Court's disciplinary rules state prosecutors cannot do so because as prosecutor, she represents the clerk of courts.
A Wilson spokesman told me his office doesn't have any information on Ciccone and isn't aware of any complaint filed.
While Maro said the Ohio Supreme Court disciplinary rules don't permit her to file the quo warranto, that same court issued a July 14 unanimous decision in Esrati v. Foley, that a Montgomery "County resident lacked standing to seek writ, under R.C. 2733.05 because he is not the attorney general or a prosecuting attorney or under R.C. 2733.06 because he does not claim entitlement to office of county clerk of courts."
In that case, the court denied David Esrati's complaint for a writ of quo warranto against Michael J. Foley, the Montgomery County clerk of courts, to have the latter removed from office after pleading no contest to criminal charges.
The court wrote: "Ordinarily, an action in quo warranto against a public official must be brought by the attorney general or a prosecuting attorney under R.C. 2733.05. An exception is provided in R.C. 2733.06, which authorizes a 'person claiming to be entitled to a public office unlawfully held and exercised by another' to bring an action in quo warranto."
That led Anderson to call for Maro to immediately file a writ of quo warranto to remove Ciccone.
Several issues have raised questions about Ciccone's ability to serve as clerk of courts, which he's been since January 2025.
Just recently, Ciccone's office failed to pay more than 20 monthly electric and gas bills at area county courts. FirstEnergy went to the court on Sept. 21 with a hand-delivered disconnection notice for the electricity and Columbia Gas of Ohio sent a termination notice the same day at the Sebring court. If judges and county Auditor Ralph Meacham didn't quickly intervene, those services would have likely been disconnected.
This wasn't even the first time Ciccone's office failed to pay basic utility bills as it occurred in December and Meacham said he wouldn't be surprised if it happened again.
Three months into Ciccone's term, his office stopped filing routine monthly financial reconciliation reports with the county commissioners having to pay an accounting firm earlier this year to do that work.
Also, Ciccone's office in May put $1 million into the wrong fund, causing checks to bounce. Two months later, the same mistake was made, resulting in more bounced checks.
Ciccone also faces a racial discrimination lawsuit, has had incriminating and embarrassing text messages and photos posted on Facebook, been censured and asked to resign by the Ohio Clerk of Courts Association, and had his courtroom access privileges suspended.
David Skolnick covers politics for the Tribune Chronicle and The Vindicator.