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Commissioner Brakey Plays Video of Then-Commissioner Skip Claypool Advocating for One of the County's NOACA Board Seats to Go to the County Engineer

Board of County Commissioners Meeting - February 10, 2026

Meeting Details: The Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) met in Regular Session on Tuesday,  February 10, 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 and can be accessed here by scrolling down and clicking on the section for YouTube videos.  Recordings are available for the public. This meeting can be found here.  As of this report’s publication date, the video has been viewed 278 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.  

Attendance: Present were Commissioners Carolyn Brakey and James Dvorak. Commissioner Ralph Spidalieri was absent. Also present were Senior Financial Specialist Deborah Ashburn (substituting for Commissioners’ Clerk Christine Blair), County Administrator Amy Bevan, Deputy County Administrator Mark Jimison, and Finance Manager Adrian Gorton.

County Representatives: Linda Crombie, Director, Planning Commission; Chief Deputy Sheriff Thomas Rowan; Bob Weigel, Maintenance Director; Liz Ruvino, Contract Coordinator, Maintenance; Charles Tkach, Program Manager, Maintenance; Nick Gorris, Director, Water Resources; Austin Rice, Emergency Management Director; Megan Ericson, Benefits Specialist.

Others in Attendance: Observer Note:  This observer attended virtually, so only individuals visible from the video are listed. Vistra (Perry Nuclear Plant) Vice President Terry Brown; Skip Claypool, Member, Geauga Metropolitan Housing Authority Board; Adam Litke, Administrator, Geauga Public Health; Frank Antenucci, Chief Deputy Administrator, ADP; ADP technicians for video; and members of the public.  

7:11 Min. Pledge of Allegiance and Prayer (Commissioner Dvorak)

7:13 Min. Public Comment on Agenda Items - Ms. Bevan noted that this would be comment on Agenda items only. There were no comments from the public.

Minutes - No Minutes were submitted for approval. Observer Note: Weekly LWVG Observer Reports for the BOCC are available online through February 10, 2026 for informational purposes but are not substitutes for approved minutes. Approved BOCC Minutes are posted online here through October 28, 2025.  

8:07 Min. Administrator’s Report - Ms. Bevan reported on the following action she took on February 6: For the Department of Water Resources, approved and executed the service contract with Independent Diesel Service Incorporated to perform planned maintenance on generators within the department for one year to be effective February 6, 2026 in an amount not to exceed $7,775. She said that the funds will be dispersed as follows: $6,984 for wastewater treatment and $791 for the water department.

Financial Report - Mr. Gorton received approval for the following:

• Supplemental increase from the General Fund for the payroll accounts of each county office and department within the General Fund to cover pay increases, excluding the Clerk of Courts, Coroner, Probate and Juvenile Court, Prosecutor, Recorder, Sheriff's Office, and Veterans as those departments have provided pay increases within their existing budgeted appropriations. 

• Supplemental appropriation to the General Fund for hospitalization accounts to cover the increase granted to the county's portion of health insurance. 

• Cash transfer from the General Fund to Community Development for their fourth quarter 2025 payroll funding reimbursement and first quarter operational commitment for 2026. 

• Vouchers 

  • $246,800 from the Auditor's Office to ISSG Incorporated for the third year of the master services agreement for the county's property management software.

  • $337,740.51 from the Commissioners’ Office to Infinity Construction Company for pay request number 29 of the courthouse expansion project 

  • $124,882.43 from the Engineer’s Office to Morton Salt Incorporated for road salt.

  • Revenue certification from the Commissioners’ office in the senior center construction fund transfer-in account.

Mrs. Brakey asked about bed taxes. Mr. Gorton said that if a location (township or village) does not have their own bed tax, it gets collected by the county, and then the county gives a portion of it back to that entity.

11:24 Min. The Clerk of Courts received approval, through the request of Mr. Gorton, to execute the Certification Request to County Auditor, Request to the Board of Commissioners, Quarterly Use of County Credit Cards for the Geauga Credit Union Visa, for Quarter 1, during the Year 2026.

11:59 Min. The Planning Commission received approval to execute a Letter of Support to be included with an application for the Ohio Department of Agriculture Land Use Planning Grant to update the 2008 Geauga County Farmland Preservation Plan.  Mrs. Crombie explained that this grant to update the plan can be up to $25,000. She said that it's not for acquisition of land or anything of that nature. It's simply to update the plan.  She said that the staff is going to do it.  There would be two public hearings and then the plan will come back to the Commissioners for approval.  Ms. Crombie said they hope to hire an intern, and also that the grant could be used for expenses associated with the public meetings and for training.

15:56 Min. The Sheriff’s Office received approval to execute the Equitable Sharing Agreement and Certification, Annual Certification Report for Fiscal Year ending December 31, 2025.  Chief Deputy Rowan explained that, “anytime that we conduct an investigation or anything with our federal partners, FBI, DEA, anything like that, and there's any kind of assets that are seized and forfeited, basically… seizures are shared amongst the investigating agencies and because all the money comes back through the county, we have to prepare the reports for all that.”
He said this was done annually.

17:26 Min. The Maintenance Department received approval for the following::

• To execute a service Contract Agreement with Burton Carpet Shoppe to perform installation, repairs, and replacement of carpet in various county buildings per the Maintenance Director for a two-year period, effective February 10, 2026, in an amount not to exceed $65,000.00.  Maintenance Director Weigel said that this covers any type of emergency for a two year period.

• To execute the Construction Agreement with The John F. Gallagher Plumbing Company for the West Geauga Senior Center Condenser Upgrade Project in the amount of $327,900.00 ($307,900.00 Base Bid, $20,000.00 Contingency Allowance) and to execute the Change Rider for the Bid Bond submitted, that changes the name of the Principal from The John F. Gallagher Co. to The John F. Gallagher Plumbing Co, for the West Geauga Senior Center Condenser Upgrade Project, and further retain the Bid Bond to serve as the Performance Bond for the project.

• To execute the Notice of Commencement of Public Improvement, pursuant to O.R.C. 1311.252 for The John F. Gallagher Plumbing Company for the West Geauga Senior Center Condenser Upgrade Project as well as the Notice to Proceed for The John G. Gallagher Plumbing Company for the West Geauga Senior Center Condenser Upgrade Project on or before March 2, 2026.

• To discuss, review and approve the proposed concept design for upgrading the accessibility lift at the Patterson Center, located at 14269 Claridon-Troy Road, Burton, as the engineering estimate of construction costs is approximately $110,000.00. Mr. Tkach explained how the work has proceeded and why there were cost increases. He also said that this work will address water drainage issues.

25:27 Min. The Department of Water Resources received approval for the following:

• To execute Contract Maintenance Form #1, increasing the service Contract Agreement with Workman Industrial Services, Incorporated to add services for the Water District locations in the amount of $25,000.00, for a new not to exceed amount of $75,000.00. Mr. Gorris said that they wanted to add another service provider “especially during this weather we wanted to make sure we had somebody additional…. There's actually a break outside our system up on Pettibone (road) right now.”  He mentioned it is important “... to have somebody to be able to come in on an emergency at 2:00 in the morning….”

26:47 Min. The Emergency Management Agency (EMA) received approval for the following:

• To execute the First Addendum to the service Contract Agreement with DEX Imaging that will remove the Ricoh IMC300F copier from the contract and replace it with a Ricoh IMC401F copier of the same value and with no additional increase or decrease in contract pricing, and all remaining terms and conditions of the original contract shall remain in full force and effect.

New Vistra Vice President Terry Brown from the Perry Nuclear Power Plant introduced himself and spoke to the Commissioners. He said that they had just entered into a deal with Meta.  He said that this does three things for them. He said it "solidifies a future for the power plant,” increasing the power output of the plant “by 200 megawatts.”  They will be upgrading their equipment which also allowed them to ”go for another 20-year license extension.”  He said this means that the Plant will be in operation until 2066.  He thanked the Commissioners and the community for their support. Mr. Dvorak asked about outages for maintenance, and Mr. Brown said there will be three outages, with the longest outage (80 days) occurring in 2031.  He said that outages occur in the spring.  He said they are hiring right now.  Mrs. Brakey asked about changes in ownership. He said Vistra is based in Dallas and is in 19 states.  He stated the biggest change is the investment into the Plant by Vistra. He said that there could be a plan in the future to add to the existing plant but that isn’t something he is working on right now.

34 Min. The Commissioners’ Office received approval to accept the 2026 CEBCO Wellness Grant to promote employee health and wellness lifestyles in the amount of $4,000.00 for Administrative Funds and $15,990.00 for Program Funds and further approved and authorized the President of the Board to execute the Wellness Grant Agreement. Ms. Ericson said, “I've been in talks with Quest Diagnostics to come and do biometric screenings for the employees.”  She continued, “I've got some other ideas in the works.”  Mr. Jimison said that they want to work on a plan to increase the health of employees.

37:02 Min. Board Discussion – Mr. Gorton asked for a discussion of how to initialize the 2027 Tax Budget. He said that he wanted input on how the Commissioners wanted to initialize the budget and to go over the schedule.

He said they can take last year's actual budget multiplied by a percentage of change.  He said that in the past they utilized the prior year’s approved budget, not the actual budget.  In order to eliminate unused appropriations, he recommended using the actual budget.  He said there was $5 million in unused funds in 2025.

The second option Mr. Gorton reviewed was to start with zero balances and have the departments put in what they feel they need.  Mr. Gorton said they have never done that before (or using actual budget numbers as a starting point).  He said there were other options but these two were his favorites.  He said a zero balance approach could require departments to look more.

Mrs. Brakey and Mr. Dvorak said they wanted to try the zero balance approach for this year.  

Mr. Gorton then reviewed the timeline as follows:

1. The departments will have the budget files by Wednesday, March 18. Mr. Gorton said that gives departments at least a month.

2. The due date for having department budgets back is scheduled right now for Friday, April 17. Mr. Gorton said that, “by law that has to be at least 45 days before the date upon which the tax budget needs to be approved.”

3. The budget hearings would be on every Tuesday in the month of May (with the last one moving to Thursday due to Memorial Day).  Hearing dates would be May 5, 12, 19, and 28.

4. Public Hearing on the Budget would be June 30. 

5. Formal adoption of the tax budget by the Commissioners would be July 7, and then delivering that approved tax budget to the Auditor's Office would occur by July 8.  Mr. Gorton said he has built some flexibility into the budget timeline to meet the submission deadline to the Auditor on July 20. Mrs. Brakey asked that they invite the Juvenile and Probate Court to attend a hearing this year.  Mr. Gorton said they have never come in the past.

46:15 Min. The Prosecutor's Office received approval to authorize the President of the Board to execute the joint application for appointment of counsel to employ Meyers Roman for continued representation concerning the defense of the complaint filed against the Clerk of Courts namely Courthouse News Services versus Sheila Bevington et al.; United States District Court case number 1 25-CV-02617 pursuant to ORC (Ohio Revised Code) 305.14(A).  This representation would be effective once the CORSA (County Risk Sharing Authority) coverage has been exhausted.

48 Min. Public Comment Observer Note:  Please see the video for complete comments.

Skip Claypool - He commended the Commissioners on going to a zero budget initiative. He  said that he had never asked for a Commissioner’s seat on NOACA to be given to the Engineer.  He talked about his concerns that the Commissioners ratified Article IX changes to NOACA.  He said that NOACA has implemented NEO 2050. He said that, “The big concern that a lot of us have is that NOACA is pushing this progressive ideological concepts, and we don't have any Commissioners right now pushing back with the exception of Ralph Spidalieri and myself, and so we've got rubber stamps on the current board for climate change and other stuff.” Observer Note: See the LWVG Observer Report on the February 3 BOCC Meeting for additional information.

Mrs. Brakey responded that she had the minutes in which Mr. Claypool (then a County Commissioner) did vote to replace one Commissioner with the County Engineer on the NOACA Board.  She offered these to Mr. Claypool, as well as the Youtube video.

A Russell Township Resident spoke about taxes and said, “the problem is this is statewide. I understand  that. And the Governor's been saying that if this new property tax referendum goes through, it's going to be bad. I'd like to tell the governor and I'd like to tell all the local governments, we have the bad right now. What we're asking for is some consideration that ‘Yeah, we hear you. This is what we're going to do. It's going to be all hands on deck. We're going to trim our budgets and we're going to do everything we can do to try and return some of that surplus that came in through the property evaluations.’ I was hoping for more from this board.”  With regard to NOACA, he said, “Most of us that live in Geauga County are not here because we like snow. We're mostly conservative and we're not interested in climate initiatives or what NOACA is currently doing is helping build the Browns a new stadium. If they leave, I don't care. I'm currently supporting the Broncos.”

56:01 Min. Mrs. Brakey attempted to play the video of Mr. Claypool advocating for the Engineer to replace a Commissioner on NOACA, but she didn’t have the right type of portable device to play it on the system in the conference room.  Mr. Claypool objected from the floor, and Mrs Brakey said that he would have to leave if he couldn’t “control himself.”  Mrs. Brakey did get the video working but the sound quality was poor.  Mr. Claypool again interjected as Mr. Dvorak was speaking and Mrs. Brakey again said he would have to leave.  Mr. Claypool said, “I’m not leaving.”

59:24 Min.  Executive Session began at about 10:30 am for the purpose of discussing the employment and compensation of public employees, pursuant to O.R.C. 121.22 (G)(1). 

1:22:16 Min. Return from Executive Session at 10:45 am with action.

Before reporting on the action after the Executive Session, Mrs. Brakey again played the video, which now had better sound quality.  Mr. Claypool can be heard stating on the video: “I think that the resolutions or the bylaws should be amended to always include the County Engineer. That is the most important person relative to this county, to any county, relative to what they're doing. They're getting their taxes for roads and bridges. Every county should have a county engineer on there. We should amend the bylaws to say that….”

Actions that were approved coming out of Executive Session:

• To approve hiring Maximus Yost to the position of part-time communications/media specialist. Reviewer Note: Mr. Yost previously served as a Communications Intern for the BOCC.

• To approve the revised job description for the position of administrative fiscal assistant number 1331 to be effective February 10th, 2026.

NOACA - Mrs Brakey said that she thought it would be good to invite the executive Director of NOACA, Grace Gallucci, to attend a meeting and to discuss what NOACA does.  

Budget - Mr. Gorton said that he wanted to make sure that the Commissioners agreed that only the expense side of the budget would start at zero.  The revenue would be the adopted amount from this year.  Mr. Dvorak and Mrs Brakey indicated agreement with that approach. 

Returning to the NOACA discussion, Mrs. Brakey said, “I think we should have facts for folks of what NOACA actually does rather than some of these narratives that have been repeated and repeated and they're almost treated as fact even though it's divorced from it.”

Ms. Bevan said that Ms. Gallucci had reached out to her to say that she would be available.

Mr. Dvorak asked if there was any news from Geauga Public Health, addressing Geauga Public Health
Administrator Adam Litke.  Mr. Litke said that they had received two applications for the position on the Geauga Public Health Board.  The position will be decided on March 11 at the HDAC (Health District Advisory Council) meeting.  Observer Note: Information about the position and how to apply can be found here.  The deadline to apply is February 25, 2026.

1:30 Min. Meeting adjourned 

Information and Posted Minutes: Available here.

Next Regular Meeting of the BOCC: The next Regular Meeting of the BOCC will be on Thursday, February 19, 2026 at the County Administration Building, 12611 Ravenwood Drive, Room B303, Chardon, OH. Observer Note  This is the change from the normal Tuesday meeting due to the President’s Day holiday on Monday.

Observer: Gail Roussey

Editor: Rooney Moy

Reviewer: Sarah McGlone

Date Submitted: February 13, 2026

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