“It should be interesting,” said Dan Warnake, Butler County GOP executive committee parliamentarian.
Warnake will preside over the proceeding because the central committee parliamentarian, Jason Phillabaum, is a candidate.
Ohio law mandates the GOP central committee select the replacement for Piper, a Republican, who left the prosecutor’s office on Monday. He was elected to the Middletown-based 12th District Court of Appeals in November. The new prosecutor will serve Piper’s remaining two-year term.
According to Ohio law, if a vacancy occurs with an elected county official more than 56 days before the next countywide election, then the political party of the office’s last occupant will appoint a replacement.
The evening will begin with a short speech by each candidate: Phillabaum; Michael Gmoser, Hamilton defense attorney who was appointed interim prosecutor Feb. 1 by Butler County Commissioners; Lance Salyers, assistant prosecutor who left the office late last year; and West Chester Twp. Police Chief Erik Niehaus, who also is an attorney.
On Saturday, the four candidates met with the party’s screening committee, which Warnake said will provide one of four opinions for each candidate: highly recommended, recommended, not endorsed or not rated.
On Tuesday, when full committee members arrive, they will be given a packet containing ballots. The nearly 300 members will cast ballots after candidates speeches and a question and answer session.
The winner must receive 50 percent plus one, Warnake said.
“If that doesn’t happen in the first vote, then the lowest person is dropped and there will be another vote until one of the candidates receives 50 percent plus one,” he said.
Warnake said the evening could be a long one, if a winner is not declared on the first vote.
“It takes a while to count the ballots and it is tightly monitored,” he said.
The central committee will meet at the Fairfield Banquet Center on Donald Drive in Fairfield.
Business and politics
Michael Gmoser said his temporary appointment last week is “business for the commissioners.”
But the permanent choice, he said, “is politics for the (Republican Party) central committee.”
While he does not presume to know what will happen Tuesday, it hasn’t stopped Gmoser from showing up in court.
Thursday afternoon, Gmoser, who prosecuted high profile cases in the 1970s and 80s, was representing the state in the county’s latest homicide. When Anthony Blake of Middletown was arraigned on a murder charge in the fatal New Year’s Day shooting of Therron Moton, of Cincinnati, Gmoser was there to argue for high bond.
Gmoser said he plans to participate in the prosecution of the case, which has a Feb. 17 hearing scheduled.
“My plan is to be here on that date and participate in the case,” Gmoser said. “But, I can’t say what will happen Tuesday night.”
Gmoser threw his hat in the ring in March 2010 as the May primary election approached with Piper running opposed.
Phillabaum, 37, has been campaigning for more than a year to serve out Piper’s term.
Salyers, 36, resigned from the prosecutor’s office abruptly in November after the completion of a double-homicide death penalty case. Days later, he announced his candidacy for prosecutor and made allegations that Phillabaum plagiarized his work.
In a letter sent to central committee members, Salyers said Phillabaum apparently planned to present a legal brief as his own that Salyers had written in a high-profile case to be considered as a writing sample for certification by the National Board of Trial Advocacy.
Phillabaum said the allegations were false and Salyers searched his office looking for something to use against him.
In a letter placed in Phillabaum’s personnel file, Piper sided with Phillabaum, stating the allegations of misconduct against Phillabaum had no merit.
Finger-pointing and allegations have continued. Some question why Phillabaum left a job at a law office early in his career, or why Salyers was allegedly forced to resign from the Montgomery County Prosecutors Office before coming to work in Butler County.
Gmoser entered the fray at the end of last year, accusing Phillabaum of improperly taking $15,000 in a referral fee from a former assistant prosecutor who represented a woman in a civil case that Phillabaum had prosecuted.
Phillabaum defended the allegation with letters from Piper and an independent Dayton attorney who stated there was nothing unethical about assisting prosecutors doing civil legal work outside the office.
A surprise candidate entered the race last month. Niehaus, son of late county Juvenile Judge David Niehaus, announced he would like to be considered.
The 39-year-old top cop stated last week he wanted to bring his experience in law enforcement to a position that serves the entire county.
“I have had people say, ‘you are just doing this to be sheriff,’ ” Niehaus said, “I do not want to be sheriff.”
He said he has always aspired to someday follow his father into the legal profession.
Sparks flew Tuesday when county commissioner were tasked with naming a temporary prosecutor to serve eight days between Piper’s departure and the central committee vote.
Phillabaum didn’t buy the theory that the commission’s appointment was just business.
Phillabaum said the commissioners’ decision to appoint a specific candidate for the office was a political attempt to dilute the central committee’s vote. He referred to it as evidence of another back-room deal involving the commissioners’ office.
Before the vote, Phillabaum sent a letter to commissioners, urging them to appoint a noncandidate as interim prosecutor.
“To inject a person from outside the office (and who is involved in the political process) would inject politics into the prosecutor’s office, and it would be injecting politics into justice,” Phillabaum wrote.
Piper expressed similar sentiments in a letter sent to commissioners last Monday.
“To place one of the potential candidates in charge of the office will cause confusion and increase the stress level, which is not conducive to smooth operations during this transactional time,” Piper wrote.
Gmoser said there will be no politics in the prosecutor’s office during his interim term. He said many assistant prosecutors and staff members are also members of the central committee.
“I made it clear to all of them, we are not going to get involved in office politics,” Gmoser said. “I let it be known, their politics are their own. They are to vote their own conscience.”
But Phillabaum, who was on vacation until after the central committee vote, said, “... many on the central committee will see this as another back-room deal designed to circumvent and dilute their vote.”
Commissioners Chuck Furmon and Cindy Carpenter defended their decision to appoint Gmoser, saying they don’t think it will impact the central committee’s vote. Commissioner Don Dixon was absent from the meeting because of illness. He did not return calls seeking comment.
Salyers agreed, saying he’s not concerned about one of his competitors getting the commissioners’ appointment.
“Being appointed the steward of an office for seven days is not going to make a difference,” Salyers said. “The commissioners exercised their authority as they saw fit.”
Salyers said the members of the central committee are adults capable of making decisions for themselves.
Niehaus declined to comment.
Despite rumors, Gmoser made it clear he did not seek the commissioners’ appointment, directly or indirectly.
“It’s not a decision I had anything to do with,” he said. “But I would never turn down public service when asked to serve.”
He didn’t deny that he hopes the central committee will allow him to keep the corner office on the top floor of the Government Services Center.
The 65-year-old Hamilton defense attorney was an assistant Butler County prosecutor during the late 1970s and 80s and spent the summer of 1981 as acting prosecutor.
Carpenter said it was largely that experience that earned her vote.
The stakes are high Tuesday night. Most believe the man appointed to the job will have a big advantage in the 2012 election.
And for 12 members of the central committee who are prosecutor’s office employees, it could mean their jobs.
Contact this reporter at (513) 820-2168 or lpack@coxohio.com.
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