Grendell: No Hope for Mediation with Walder

July 14, 2020 by Amy Patterson

In an appearance before Geauga County Commissioners July 14 to discuss his request for special counsel, Geauga County Juvenile Probate Court Judge Tim Grendell said Auditor Chuck Walder has misrepresented the truth in a recent dispute over non-payment of three court invoices.

Walder told Geauga County Prosecutor Jim Flaiz July 10 his office is engaged in mediation through Ohio Supreme Court Government Conflict Resolution Services, at no cost to the county, over the matter of the three invoices.

“Either I misunderstood or told wrong information, but I thought the auditor’s office was in some type of mediation,” Commissioner Tim Lennon told Grendell. County Administrator Gerry Morgan seconded Lennon’s point.

“I was told was they were in mediation over these, the three items,” Morgan said.

“They’re lying if they’re telling you that,” Grendell said. “We’re not involved and none of the vendors are involved.”

Walder, reached by phone after the meeting, said his office first initiated mediation through the GCRS last year. A document shows the auditor’s office requested mediation April 3, 2019, and renewed the request through the same mediator in May 2020 over the disputed invoices.

“He’s very good at calling other people liars, but the fact of the matter is that is not the truth,” Walder said of Grendell’s claim.

Walder added he is communicating with the state mediation team to let them know the judge is unaware of the current mediation process.

Grendell said he has no faith or hope mediation will have any benefit – adding Walder turned down an offer of mediation from Ohio Auditor Keith Faber and Grendell paid out of pocket to pursue mediation last year.

“So while we will be open to mediation, we’re not feeling very hopeful that it’s going to have any better return,” Grendell said.

The judge also told commissioners the funds used to pay for the ads in question come from a special project fund.

“(The funds are) are dollars that are generated off of court fees and specially designated for court expenditure by the state legislature — that even you folks can’t veto the spending of — and there’s no way under law the auditor can veto that,” Grendell said.

Walder again took issue with the judge’s statement, saying he does not agree fines and fees are different from tax dollars.

“Even for a minute we assume that argument is true, how do I pay for that ad without consuming tax money?” he added. “How do my people process the paperwork if I don’t spend tax money? I am paid for with tax money, the judge is paid for with tax money, he recorded that conversation on the taxpayer’s dole, and in doing so, he consumed taxpayer money.”

Grendell also protested Walder’s refusal to pay for a $24,000 website revamp, although both the Geauga County Engineer’s Office and the Geauga Park District websites were paid for using the same vendor as those other departments.

Walder said those websites were remodeled before he took office.

Ohio Revised Code requires all contracts to be certified before they’re executed and the court failed to have the contract certified, Walder said.

“My job is to protect the treasury,” Walder said. “If I would have looked the other way, I would have not protected the treasury and I would have become personally liable for that expenditure and I’m not willing to do that. In my opinion, the judge is personally liable for that expenditure.”

Walder said Grendell is good at clouding the real issue — which is that he issued three advertisements which stated no tax dollars were used to create them.

“I cannot be a party to lying to the public at the public’s expense,” Walder said. “I’ll stand by that, and if a court wants to order me to pay them, so be it, but it falls on them, not me.”

Grendell told commissioners the three vendors involved in the latest scuffle are charging late fees for non-payment, adding one has threatened to sue. The judge requested the services of either Stephen Funk of Roetzel & Andress, William Seitz of Dinsmore & Shohl or Dale Markowitz of Thrasher, Dinsmore & Dolan, in his letter to Flaiz.

While commissioners ultimately approved the necessity for special counsel, they chose to delay a decision until the July 21 meeting to give Flaiz time to solicit quotes from attorneys to get an affordable rate for the county.

Grendell initially objected to Flaiz’s involvement, since he is legally required to represent both the court and the auditor’s office by statute, but Lennon said the final decision is made by the commissioners.

“He’s the one picking and choosing what law firms he’s soliciting and the court just wants to object to that,” Grendell said.

“From my position, just sitting here, I think the role of what the commissioners is just to say is it a reasonable rate and that it’s good counsel,” Lennon said. “But obviously, we’re not gonna get a thousand dollar an hour attorney in here or something like that, but something that’s gonna be reasonable.”