MIFFLIN — A resident of Mifflin has filed a petition to recall the village’s mayor with the Ashland County Board of Elections — the first such petition its director of 22 years has ever seen.
Fred Craig, 64, filed the petition with the Ashland County Board of Elections on Tuesday.
If approved, the petition will appear on a ballot as a question: shall Vickie Shultz be removed from the office of mayor by recall?
Shultz did not respond to requests for comment.
In Ohio, all elected officials are subject to recall if they have served at least one year in office, according to state law. Petitioners are required to gather signatures equal to at least 15% of the total votes cast in the last regular, municipal election within 90 days.
In Mifflin, that number was 11, because 69 people voted in the last election, Craig said. His petition gleaned 14 signatures.
Ashland County Board of Elections Director Shannon Johnson said those signatures still need to be verified. The protocol for verifying signatures includes confirming the signer is a registered voter, verifying his or her address and doing a signature match.
“But I’ve never had a petition to recall filed,” she said. “So I can’t elaborate much on the process yet.”
Johnson said she has asked Ashland County Prosecutor, Chris Tunnell, for guidance on how to move forward.
Tunnell was not immediately available to comment.
Craig, a former mayor of the village, said Mifflin’s voters in November elected to reduce the yearly $2,200 stipend down to $2 a year. Council members’ pay decreased from $40 to 60 per meeting to $1 a meeting, he said.
“But the solicitor found some sort of loophole and they’re still being paid,” Craig said, citing information he obtained through a public records request.
Another issue he cited in the petition was the fact the village’s sewage facility received 122 violations from Jan. 1, 2017 through Aug. 1, 2019. The violations were revealed by an April 2019 inspection report from the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency.
An EPA official visited the facility in early June to investigate the cause of a 5,000-gallon sewage dump into an unnamed creek that happened in May.
“We never heard anything about those 122 violations,” Craig said.
Craig served as village mayor from 2012 to 2016. Shultz was elected November 2015. Craig then ran against Shultz in 2019 but lost to a vote of 38-22.
Since 2009, there have been 45 recall campaigns in Ohio, according to BallotPedia. Of those, seven have resulted in approved recalls and three ended with resignations.
The majority of petitions from 2009 to date have either resulted in failed attempts or the petitions have failed to go to a vote.
