Commissioner Spidalieri and Supporters of Mr. Claypool Speak Up Again
About NOACA Bylaw Changes
Board of County Commissioners Meeting - January 27, 2026
Meeting Details: The Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) met in Regular Session on Tuesday, January 27, 2026 at 9:30 am for a meeting at the Geauga County Office Building, 12611 Ravenwood Drive, Room B303, Chardon, OH. Meetings can be live streamed through the Geauga ADP Youtube channel. Recordings are available for the public. This meeting can be found here. As of this report’s publication date, the video has been viewed 343 times. Notations in the report refer to the minute notation on the video for a particular section. An agenda is available in advance via request to the Commissioners’ Clerk and at the meeting. Items discussed at the meeting but not on the agenda, if any, are addressed at the end of this report.
Public Comment Policy: Permitted as outlined in the BOCC’s Public Comment Policy that was adopted on January 28, 2025, revised on April 15, 2025, and again modified on September 30, 2025. The revision approved in September allows public comment on agenda items at the beginning of the meeting, with general public comment still at the end of the meeting.
Attendance: Present were Commissioners Carolyn Brakey, James Dvorak and Ralph Spidalieri. Also present were Commissioners’ Clerk Christine Blair, County Administrator Amy Bevan, Deputy County Administrator Mark Jimison, and Finance Manager Adrian Gorton.
County Representatives: Shane Hajjar, Deputy Engineer; Jessica Boalt, Director, Office on Aging; Gina Hofstetter, Director, Community and Economic Development
Others in Attendance: Vicki Clark, retiring Executive Director of Ravenwood Mental Health; Paul Bolino, new Executive Director for Ravenwood; Frank Antenucci, Chief Deputy Administrator, ADP; Nick Gorris, Director, Water Resources; Bob Weigel, Maintenance Director; Chief Deputy Sheriff Thomas Rowan; Allison Wilson, Geauga County Maple Leaf reporter; Walter (Skip) Claypool, Metropolitan Housing Authority Board Member; Jonathan Broadbent, Republican Central Committee member; members of the public and this observer from the League of Women Voters Geauga.
6:25 Min. Pledge of Allegiance and Prayer offered by Mr. Dvorak
Public Comment - Ms. Bevan reminded the public that this first opportunity to comment was for anyone to comment on an item on the Agenda that the Commissioners would discuss and then vote on.
No members of the public spoke at this time.
8:30 Min. Minutes - Minutes were approved for the meetings of October 16, 2025 and October 21, 2025. Observer Note: Weekly LWVG Observer Reports for the BOCC are available online through January 27, 2026 for informational purposes but are not substitutes for approved minutes. Approved BOCC Minutes are posted online here through September 24, 2025.
Observer Note: Ms. Bevan had no report this week.
9:02 Min. Financials - Mr. Gorton received approval for the following:
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Transfers
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Supplemental from the Commissioners Reserve Fund for phase 2 starter appropriations for 2026 charges to cover change orders, new equipment or other purchases.
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Cash transfer from the Community Corrections fund to the Probation Services fund to reimburse monies used to cover payroll.
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Transfer from the General Fund to Family First Council for the January through March 2026 commitment.
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Transfer from the Commissioners’ Office to the Unemployment Rotary fund.
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Vouchers
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$26,910 from ADP to Docusign Inc. for electronic signature software renewal for the county.
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$79,360.11 from the Engineer's Office to Morton Salt Incorporated for road salt.
10:51 Min. Ravenwood Mental Health - Executive Director Vicki Clark, who is retiring, introduced new Executive Director Paul Bolino to the Board. Ms. Clark and Mr. Bolino spoke about the merger of Ravenwood and Community Counseling Center of Ashtabula to form a combined organization. Mr. Bolino will be the President and CEO. He had been the President and CEO of the Community Counseling Center. The BOCC commended Ms. Clark for her 40 years of service and presented her with a resolution honoring her service.
16:24 Min. The County Engineer’s Office received approval for the following:
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To execute Resolution #26-010 to Improve Various Sections of County Roads by Applying Pavement Markings, Year 2026. Mr. Hajjar discussed the fact that the County generally applies markings on a third of all roads every year, with roads going through Amish areas done more frequently as the side markings wear faster.
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To execute Resolution #26-011 to Improve the Replacement of the Bascom Road Bridge (Structure #BR-0069-01.01) in Hambden Township. Mr. Hajjar said this was a small concrete structure. They want to get this bridge done before the Township starts work on the road.
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To execute Resolution #26-012 to Improve Messenger Road (CH-0031, Sections B-C) in Auburn and Newbury Townships.
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To execute Resolution #26-013 to Improve Mumford Road (CH-0024, Sections E-F) in Troy Township. Mr. Hajjar said this will match up to sections done a few years ago, to complete the section between Routes 422 and 168.
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To execute Resolution #26-014 to Improve Bass Lake Road (CH-0023, Sections D-G) in Munson and Newbury Townships. Mr. Hajjar said this was two projects, with one locally funded and the other funded by Ohio Public Works
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To execute Resolution #26-015 to Improve Bainbridge Road (CH-0011, Sections A-H) in Auburn and Bainbridge Townships. Mr. Hajjar said this will complete this project between County Line and Washington Street. This is for replacement of a bridge and culverts, with a full resurfacing in 2028.
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To execute Resolution #26-016 to Improve Auburn Road (CH-0004, Section Q) in Chardon Township.
23:48 Min. The Commissioners’ Office received approval to execute Resolution #26-017 Objecting to the Exemption for the Number of Years in Excess of Ten and the Exemption for the Percentage of the Improvement to Exempted in Excess of Seventy-five Percent relating to the Proposed TIF Ordinance for the Heritage Pointe Incentive Districts 1-5 (PP Nos. 19-072972, 19-044150, and 19-070800 as such parcels may be further sub-divided, combined, re-combined, re-numbered, or re-platted) in accordance with R. C. 5709.40 (E)(2).
It was discussed that this resolution will start the path to negotiate on this Tax Incentive Financing (TIF) with Middlefield. Observer Note: See information about TIFs here.
25:32 Min Board Discussion – Ms. Bevan said she had nothing for discussion.
Observer Note: The following discussion and Public Comment centered on a vote last week regarding NOACA (Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency). See the LWVGeauga Observer Report for the January 22, 2026 BOCC meeting for more information. Here is a link to the resolutions passed by NOACA that are referenced in public comment. The change to Article IX was approved by the NOACA Board. The change to Article IV was ratified by the Geauga County Commissioners (2-1) at their January 22nd meeting. NOACA sent a letter the night before this meeting requesting that the Board ratify the Article IX change as well. No vote was taken on this request.
Mr. Spidalieri said that he wanted to talk about NOACA. He said he had received a copy of a letter from NOACA the previous night. He said, “you know, we had the process last week and obviously something must have not been either correct or I'm not really completely clear on what happened with that.”
Mrs. Brakey said, “I can clarify if you want, Commissioner. When the NOACA board approved several bylaws changes and it was the board's understanding that some of those bylaws changes only need to be approved by the board of directors of NOACA whereas others need to be approved first by the board of directors of NOACA and then later ratified by the counties. So that is what I believe Mr. Claypool is objecting to in his lawsuit against NOACA and Commissioner Dvorak and myself. Observer Note: See this article here from Cleveland.com. “And I think in an abundance of caution, NOACA decided, hey, we'll just ratify - we'll just have the counties ratify everything.” Mrs. Brakey said that the other part of the bylaw change had to do with the representatives for the various counties on the NOACA board.
Mr. Spidalieri responded saying that, “... I mean to be totally honest with you, it was one thing that completely caught me off guard is that all of a sudden my seat is in jeopardy and I have no idea that that's even going on.” He continued, “I think last week was really a reality check when I saw so many people here, that I'm basically silenced….” He went on to say “I'd just like to have some questions answered as far as, how did we come to that, of asking for this to happen?”
Mrs. Brakey answered, “Yeah. I mean I'd be happy to answer those questions but because of the pending litigation I think it would be inappropriate for us to have that discussion right now.”
Mr. Spidalieri continued, “I guess at the end of the day, you know, you have to look at it - is it illegal, immoral, or corrupt of what we're doing? And I feel like there's a potential that something happened without me being put in that conversation to be able to move forward to NOACA to ask for us specifically my seat to be removed… and I'm not an attorney so I'm not going to comment on it and I think that this is probably something that we should get our legal counsel to look at it too because you know NOACA puts this thing out last week and we vote on it. We never, you know, and it was a little bit troubling that I think that our legal counsel should have given us some advice on that too rather than us, you know, knee-jerking this thing and just putting it to a vote. And now it comes up with another side of this that we're basically dealing with that they're, it just doesn't pass the smell test. And I just think that we really need to ask some questions. And I'm just feeling like… there's things that don't want to get spoken about because of the fact that something either was not done correctly or that you guys truly don't want me involved that bad.”
There was applause from some members of the public at this point. Mr. Spidalieri continued for several more minutes.
36:25 Min. Public Comment - Observer Note: Please see the video for complete remarks. The following are highlights only.
Mr. Claypool: Addressing Mr. Spidalieri, he said, “I think you have legal cause for action. If you look at the statutes in the state of Ohio, each commissioner is equal in their authority. Two commissioners cannot undermine the authority of the third commissioner. And so I think there's cause and I think you should look at that…. I stand here, no surprise, in opposition to Article IX ratification.” Mr. Claypool mentioned that he was at the January 9th Meeting and then said, “ As Carolyn and Jim might remember, in the January 9th meeting I mentioned . . . to the attorney and to NOACA, that their action to ratify or to take action on Article IX I thought was improper and illegal, and I said that publicly at that time. They ignored me and they moved forward with their current board approval process of Article IX. Now it appears they might have seen the error in their ways and it looks like at least it appears that way to me they're making a correction in trying to get a retroactive ratification, and I think that's due in part to the lawsuit that I filed. Thank God for the thousands of dollars that I'm spending.” He then spoke about his support for Geauga forming a new MPA (Metropolitan Planning Agency) with Lake County.
Resident from Newbury: She questioned when the Commissioners would take action to ratify Article IX as requested in the NOACA letter.
Mrs. Brakey said that the letter mentioned “as soon as possible.” The Newbury resident responded that she hoped the Commissioners would not ratify it. Mrs. Brakey said it would be helpful if people gave more specifics about why rather than just, “Don’t ratify it.”
A Munson resident responded: “The reasons are everything that Ralph (Spidalieri) just spent 10 minutes reiterating over and over.” She continued, “The thing is, okay, this whole thing was written custom-made to eliminate Skip.”
Mrs. Brakey responded, “in regard to Article IX… all that Article IX says, so the way the bylaws currently are is, that if Geauga wants to change who's on our board, who our makeup is… every other county has to agree to that as the board of directors…. So this gives Geauga County more autonomy because it allows us to choose our delegates. That's giving us more power in our county, not less power in our county. And I mean in the same way it gives every county more power within their own county to make decisions about their county.”
Mr. Spidalieri said, ”I guess I just got to, you know, chirp in on this one, you know, in the sense of how it gives our counties more power. It doesn't. It totally took me out of the mix because, and that’s what's bad about this too is that you know it. You saw the scenario last week that I pretty much was taken out.” He further said, “setting a precedent that you could have two commissioners in a similar situation like this that come in and want to try to silence one of the other commissioners that's standing up for the people and it's real easy to happen as you saw last week.”
Mrs. Brakey said, “I mean, we're a three member board, so sometimes there's going to be one person out and that's been me, I think, more often than any other commissioner. So, you have this idea that you're the odd man out on everything, but I mean, I think I've voted alone more often than anyone else this past year.”
Mr. Spidalieri replied, “It should not have been a situation that the two of you backdoored me and went down there to do this. And I sometimes question the integrity of that also because how did that happen? I don't know. But I could tell you this, I was never involved in that conversation.”
Resident from Bainbridge: “A lot of us were here last week spoke up, but we're not heard. So, that is very concerning. I don't know the ins and outs of the legal things, but this Article IX sounds like it's trying to pigeon hole us into not being able to make any changes for what we want. It's all coming top down and the sovereignty of Geauga is being affected. So, please hear us.”
Mr. Broadbent: “What we just heard from Commissioner Brakey were a series of evasive arguments and I'm frustrated by that. Conflating a vote as a board member with changing bylaws to silence somebody are two completely different issues. To say that something in Article IX doesn't specifically reference Skip Clayool and his elimination is evasive. The result of the changes that you're contemplating are the removal of Skip Clayool.”
Munson Resident: ”I'm here today to urge you to vote against the changes to Article IV and IX of the NOACA bylaws. Over the years, our county has sent far more of our tax dollars to NOACA than we ever receive in return. We end up financing projects for Cuyahoga County, not our own county. NOACA is not in Geauga County's interests and there are many more things about NOACA that are not in the interests of Geauga County residents that time does not allow me to mention. The Planning Commission members all voted in unison to recommend leaving NOACA. I urge you to heed their recommendations.”
Russell Township resident: He said he wanted to talk about property taxes and said, “....property taxes, which may seem like a lesser matter based upon the discussion I heard today, but for us retirees living on fixed incomes, it is a major concern. Based upon very limited information that was put out in December that I read that the county found itself with a $15 million surplus, which was way above the $6.7 million that was expected. And in light of that much larger surplus that there was proposed eliminating the child services (levy) portion of the tax bill, which would result in a reduction of$ 1.7 million. So I read that and… I'm like, we have a $15 million surplus. That's more than double what the county expected and they're proposing giving back $1.7 million. I'm happy for that. But my question is why not more?” He also said, “Another bill I got was I'm going to have to pay $100 to inspect my septic. My septic is perfectly fine. I don't need to pay $100.”
Mrs. Brakey responded, ”being my first year, I was… caught off guard by that amount of carryover. What we ran up against is so some levies are qualified and some levies are unqualified or non-qualified…. The qualified levies have state funding attached with them. So if we give that money back, if we don't collect that levy, we also give a windfall to the state. So there is I think our only levy that we could suppress without giving that money to the state was that child services levy.” She asked Mr. Gorton if that was correct.
Mr. Gorton said that the Department on Aging had an unqualified levy also, but they had only one levy; whereas JFS (Job and Family Services) had two.
Mrs. Brakey continued, “Amy (Bevan) and I have been working on some ideas of getting ahead of that faster this year and making sure people get more of their money in their pockets.”
Resident from Newbury: “Have you ever heard a positive reinforcement for NOACA… you just really showed a dysfunctional board…. You've now voted one person off someone else in his stead and he could have been- and I think that the engineer would be a great alternative- but to take the place of a sitting commissioner was pretty despicable. I think last week nobody voted in favor of NOACA. Nobody. Everybody voiced concern. Another concern: How you represent me matters a lot. I've listened to some of the NOACA meetings. Their plans do not reflect what is best for Geauga. It reflects what's best for Cuyahoga. And that's a concern. We want to keep Geauga Geauga and you ran committing to do that as well. And so I want to encourage you to do that. Don't vote off a sitting member of our commissioners.”
Resident from Cuyahoga County: “I live in Cuyahoga County. Don't get down on me. I hate NOACA, too. But I bring you news from Washington. NOACA is being defunded. And just like that, anybody that still… participates in the DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion), they will lose federal funding. Anybody who still participates in any green new “fill in your own adjective” will also lose federal funding. So if you guys want to keep supporting NOACA, you're going to lose your funding for all this stuff here if there's any federal funding involved in it.”
1:02:23 Min. Executive Session - The Department on Aging received approval at 10:26 am to move into Executive Session for the purpose of discussing the employment of a public employee, pursuant to O.R.C. 121.22 (G)(1). The Commissioners were joined by Ms. Bevan, Mr. Jimison and Ms. Boalt.
1:14:08 Min. Return from Executive Session at 10:38 am with action.
Department of Aging received approval for a Voluntary Disability Separation Request, as well as approval to
advertise for the position of Information and Referral Assistant.
1:15:17 Min. The Commissioners’ Office received approval to move into Executive Session at 10:40 am for the purpose of considering the purchase of property for public purposes, if premature disclosure of information would give an unfair competitive or bargaining advantage to a person whose personal, private interest is adverse to the general public interest, pursuant to O.R.C. 121.22 (G)(2).
The Commissioners were joined by Gina Hofstetter, Director, Community and Economic Development, Jessical Boalt, Director, Office on Aging, as well as Ms. Bevan and Mr. Jimison.
Return from Executive Session at 11:28 am with no action
1:32:18 Min. Meeting adjourned at approximately 11:29 am.
Information and Posted Minutes: Available here.
Next Regular Meeting of the BOCC: The next Regular Meetings of the BOCC will be on Tuesday, February 3, 2026 at the County Administration Building, 12611 Ravenwood Drive, Room B303, Chardon, OH.
Observer: Gail Roussey
Editor: Rooney Moy
Reviewer: Sarah McGlone
Date Submitted: February 2, 2026
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