Lorain County pays $8,400 to settle two legal actions over public records, open meetings law (UPDATED)

This story has been updated with comments from Brian Ames and Aaron Knapp. Lorain County will pay legal settlements totaling $8,400 to two men who last year filed actions over public records and state open-meeting laws against county boards and officials in Common Pleas Court Brian Ames of Randolph Township in Portage County sued the Lorain County Budget Commission in Common Pleas Court in March 2024. The county will pay him $5,900 in a negotiated settlement the Board of Commissioners approved Friday. The Budget Commission is made up of the county auditor, prosecutor and treasurer. Commissioner Jeff Riddell, a Republican, said the claim arose from the Budget Commission holding a meeting that was not properly advertised under state open meetings laws, or Sunshine laws. The Budget Commission's procedures and protocol were "found a little lacking, and we were forced to pay a settlement in order to recognize that," he said. Riddell said public boards are being made to be more careful about following the law. "There's a hundred letters of the law and if they don't follow the last two" it can result in a legal fight, he said. The Budget Commission has no budget, no revenue and no spending authority, so the settlement will come from the county's general fund, Riddell said. In an email, Ames said the Lorain County Budget Commission is one of several he has sued. "It, like so many others, were totally unaware that it is subject to the Open Meetings Act. That was the situation in Lorain County. The LCBC provided no notices of its meetings and had no rule for doing so. The members would send other unelected people to the meetings in their place. The meeting minutes were grossly inadequate," he wrote. Chief Assistant Lorain County Prosecutor Leigh Prugh, the board's legal counsel, said every board her office represents needs to make sure its doing things appropriately. "I don't necessarily find this to be that bothersome because if there's an entity out there or a person that's making sure the government is run more efficiently and in accordance with the law, we're in a better position going forward knowing that we're doing what we're supposed to do," she said. Riddell said he thought it was "good" that "more people are paying attention to what we do." A retired software engineer, Ames has filed a multitude of lawsuits against county officials and school boards of education, particularly in Portage County and now in Lorain County, over the past two years and in years previous. Since the beginning of 2023, Ames has sued the Avon, Avon Lake, Clearview, Columbia, Elyria, Firelands, Keystone, Lorain, Midview, North Ridgeville, Sheffield-Sheffield Lake and Wellington school districts in Common Pleas Court, according to court records. It appears almost all of the legal actions were settled or voluntarily dismissed by Ames, according to court records. "One of the strengths of American government is the right of the public to know and understand the actions of their elected representatives. This includes not merely the right to know a government body's final decision on a matter, but the ways and means by which those decisions were reached," Ames said in his email. In 2023, Ames told The Portager that he has been nicknamed "the Open Government Act Bounty Hunter as he has set himself the mission of holding public bodies responsible for following transparency laws," the news outlet reported. "I find it rather amusing," Ames told The Portager in July 2023, after the Crestwood (Mantua) School District settled a public records lawsuit he brought against it. He has publicly said he doesn't file his lawsuits for the money, but to hold public officials accountable to the law. A Republican, Ames lost a close race for Portage County clerk of courts in November to incumbent Democrat Jill Fankhauser. Knapp settlement In a second case, filed in October, Aaron Knapp of Lorain will receive $2,500 as a settlement from Lorain County. Knapp had asked the Common Pleas Court to settle a dispute over a video recording he sought for months that he alleged would show him being illegally detained at the Lorain County Justice Center in 2023. Knapp sought to force Moore, Riddell and now-former Assistant Prosecutor Dan Petticord, at the time the commissioners' legal counsel, to release the video to him. He alleged he was "forced out of" the lobby of the Prosecutor's Office on the third floor of the Justice Center on Nov. 3, 2023. Petticord denied Knapp's request, calling the video in question a security record that was exempt from public disclosure and saying his office had consulted the Sheriff's Office about it. Knapp sent multiple emails to county officials over the issue, and found a supporter in former Commissioner Michelle Hung, a Republican who encouraged county officials to release the video to Knapp but blur out any security protocols. That put her at odds over the matter with Petticord. Hung lost the May 2024 Republican primary to Marty Gallagher, now a commissioner, and Petticord lost a race for Common Pleas judge and now works for Lorain County Job & Family Services. The settlement money will come out of the Lorain County Sheriff's Office's portion of the county general fund. "Although this $2,500 is being taken away from the county safety forces budget, these dollars are not coming from the essential services of our sheriff's department," Commissioner David Moore, a Republican, said Friday. He said he, Riddell and Gallagher all have talked to Sheriff Jack Hall "and ensured him, if the resources are available, to make sure he is appropriately funded in regards to this frivolous amount of action that I believe happend, so ... that's all I'm gonna say about it," Moore said. Riddell said his first inclination was not to settle, but if the county had continued fighting Knapp's legal action "we could have easily added another zero" to the $2,500 through litigation and costs, he said. "The new prosecutor (Tony Cillo), and new sheriff have tackled this, and hopefully it will not arise again," Riddell said. "In many cases, it would be nice to fight it out but then you get into an expense" and have to decide what will spent to fight it, Gallagher said. "It's tough for us up here to look at this this way and settle it, but at the cost of saving taxpayer money." In an email, Knapp said his "pursuit of legal action was not initiated by choice but was necessitated by the actions and decisions of Daniel Petticord and other county officials, who repeatedly refused to cooperate with my reasonable requests."He wrote that he tried to get the video he requested through "informal" means but was met with "resistance and obstruction" which "ultimately forced me into litigation, a route I had hoped to avoid." Knapp said he hired attorney Robert Gargasz, a Republican former candidate for Lorain County Prosecutor, at a cost of $2,000. He wrote that he spent another $300 on the filing fee and paid $164.65 for copies of documents. "It is important to highlight that I did not seek punitive damages; my goal was merely to recover my costs incurred due to the county's refusal to act in accordance with public records laws," he wrote. Riddell "acknowledged the settlement as reasonable and noted that further litigation could have been far more costly to the county. This underscores the legitimacy of my claim and the unnecessary escalation that county officials forced upon this matter." "I did not enter this legal dispute lightly, nor did I seek to burden taxpayers unnecessarily," Knapp wrote. "The responsibility for this situation lies with those who failed to comply with transparency laws and who obstructed my lawful request. Had cooperation been offered from the beginning, litigation would have been entirely unnecessary." A social worker and therapist who is a vocal critic of Lorain city officials and City Council members, Knapp is a Republican candidate for Ward 6 on Lorain City Council this year. There will be no Republican primary, and if the general election were held today Knapp would face former Lorain City Councilman Angel Arroyo Jr., a Democrat, for the seat vacated by Councilman Antonio Baez, D-Ward 6, on Feb. 6. Contact Dave O'Brien at (440) 329-7129 or dobrien@chroniclet.com.