In My Opinion

Ms. White wrote:
''The ORC concernig increases in salary of public officails, Parrish put on the Home page. He has stated before that this ORC does not have to be upheld in Valleyview because Jim Petro said so. I have never seen that the State legislature annuled this law or changed it to exclude Valleyview.''

Ms. white is correct that the Ohio House and Senate have not repealed the law concerning when the salaries for elected officials can be set. The Opinion from the Attorney General's Office (Available on the front page of the website under the community pages) states that once a person has left office you cannot go back after them for the overpayment of their salary if they have provided a service.

If the former Mayor was still in office the Village could have recovered the overpayment. If the Council at the time and Village Solicitor had been doing their job the former Mayor would have never been overpaid. Ms. White wants to blame the former Mayor who did not vote on the Ordinance to change his salary and he did not write the checks to pay himself.

Yes, conceivably the Village could sue the former Mayor for the overpayments, but the Village would have to rely that the Courts would rule in its favor and it could potential cost the Village thousands of dollars to pursue the matter in the courts. If the Village were to lose, and based on the opinion from the AGO which is based on current case law the Village would lose the case, the Village would still be out the Money and then you would add to it the money lost by taking it to court. Does that make sense when the Village has a limited budget to waste the funds pursuing a lawsuit that they would mostly likely lose?

I do not believe that I screw up my supporting Tom Watkins for Mayor. As I have stated time and time again, there were three candidates and of the three Tom Watkins was the best choice to help get the Village back on the right track. I did not believe and still believe that the other two candidates could not get the job done.

In reviewing the finances of the Village the Money that should have gone to the IRS and PERS never went in to anyone's pockets. It should have been sent to the IRS and PERS, but the Village Clerk/Treasurers at the time did not send in the Money. That money was used to pay the other expenses of the Village and it should not have been used that way. No one stole the money, they jsut did not do their jobs and it cost those Clerk/Treasurers thousands of dollars each to cover the costs of the penalties and interest the Village incurred. People made mistakes, but they were because the Clerk/Treasurers never learned their jobs and the Councils never did the oversight that they should have. Honest mistakes were made and unforunately it cost two people thousands of dollars because they did not learn their jobs.

Fraud is Fraud

If you commit fraud, it is against the law.

When accepting the raise while in office Russolillo committed a crime. Council believed Russolillo and Ed Kirk, that was their ignorance.

I say again, Jim Petro cannot decide that once you are out of office you are not responsible for a felony. This is the man who wants to be governor. GOD help Ohio!!

If it were a jury trial, who would be people who Russolillo scammed of their money, he would not be found innocent.

Did You Even Read The Opinion?

Jim Petro will not be the next Governor of Ohio. I thought you would follow the election a little closer Ms. White.

Again, you want to blame the people who are not at fault. The opinion is provided on the front page of the website for you to read. The opinion was written in 1967. Jim Petro was probably not even in school yet. The Opinion was written for William Saxbe, the Attorney General at the time in 1967.

While they are the opinions of the Attorney General, they are based on previous court cases and how the judges ruled on them. Case law takes presedence when other Judges look at a lawsuit.

Here Jim Petro is getting attacked by you and he has no involvement with the opinion other than being the current Attorney General.

Russillo did not committ a crime. He was paid by the Clerk/Treasurer according to an Ordinance that the Council passed that they believed was legal. The person to blame would be the solicitor for not doing his job.

Ms. White, if you had found you information while Russlillo was still in office the Village could have done something about it.

Council members had plenty of time to learn of the mistake if they would have done their jobs and learn their jobs about serving on Council.

Blame the ones responsible, the Council at the time and the Village Solicitor.

I Do

I do blame all those they speak of.

The Ordinance for a raise had to be passed before Russolillo filed to run again. It was not passed until September after Russolillo knew he was running uopposed.

When Parrish asked about the Ordinance Petro was the AGO.