Reelect Amanda Deery as Elyria law director

A law director needs a steady hand and a keen legal mind. Fortunately for Elyria, the city's law director, Amanda Deery, has both, and voters would be well served to reelect her to a second term. Deery, 45, started working for the Law Director's Office in 2012. She became chief of staff in 2016 and was named law director by City Council in 2019 after her predecessor, Scott Serazin, retired early. She won election in her own right a few months later. Before going to work for the city, she picked up valuable experience as an assistant county prosecutor, a role in which she dealt with juvenile crime, child support and Lorain County Children Services. In addition to managing the office, the law director focuses in large part on the civil side of law, including advising Council and other city entities. We have found Deery to be capable in that role. We also have been impressed with her willingness to acknowledge when she needs to do more research before giving legal advice. That's what smart lawyers do. Deery also oversees the prosecutors who work in Elyria Municipal Court. Like the rest of Deery's staff, the city's prosecutors appear to do their jobs effectively under her leadership. Law directors have far too many other responsibilities to be prosecuting cases in court every day, but Deery has filled in for prosecutors in the courtroom over the years, including during the pandemic, she told us in an endorsement interview. Deery is being challenged by Republican Honey Howard, a former city prosecutor now serving as the vice president of the Lorain Ladies Republican Club. Howard ran against Deery four years ago as well, although she did so as an independent. The reason for that, she told us at the time, was she didn't know Serazin, a Democrat, was going to retire. She said she didn't want to challenge her boss. Serazin signed Deery's election petition and backed her as his replacement after he stepped down. By the time Serazin announced his retirement, Howard contended, it was too late for her to gather signatures to run as a Democrat. As we noted four years ago, that's politics. Howard based her 2019 campaign on her experience in court, but we have less information about the argument she's making this year. She refused to sit down with us for an endorsement interview, citing what she claimed was unfair coverage and our endorsement of Deery four years ago. We hold no personal animosity toward Howard, but we aren't going to endorse someone who won't meet with us. Moreover, her decision revealed a lack of transparency that should concern voters. By contrast, we have found Deery to be accessible and transparent during her time in office. One complaint about Deery from Howard's supporters that we have heard is that the city spends too much money on outside law firms. Deery told us that over the past four years, the city has paid approximately $530,000 to outside law firms, although she said the city would end up recouping some of that money. Hiring outside law firms isn't confined to Elyria, and we've heard similar grumbling about the practice in Lorain and elsewhere. Although it might lend itself to political attacks, there are good reasons why cities bring in outside legal counsel, including requirements by insurance carriers. There are times, Deery said, when "it would be reckless and foolish to handle it in-house." For example, the city paid around $160,000 to an environmental lawyer to deal, in large part, with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency complaints about the discharge of untreated sewage into the Black River. The city reached a $250 million settlement with the EPA last year. Environmental law is a highly specialized field and the work can be time consuming. If Deery and her staff are busy dealing with something of that magnitude, it means they have less time to handle the Law Department's other legal work. "I'm doing the job every day and I'm giving it my all every day," Deery said. That's the sort of work ethic and passion residents should expect from all elected officials. Voters made the right call in electing Deery in 2019. They should do so again in November.