COMMUNITY VIEW | Apparently, the First Amendment has been suspended in Trumbull County
“Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear,” Harry S. Truman warned in 1950.
Seventy-two years later, we watched live as deputies arrested a Trumbull County commissioner during a public meeting July 7, apparently because she, depending on the viewpoint, a.) disrupted that public meeting; b.) violated Robert’s Rules of Order; c.) failed to allow the Trumbull County sheriff to decide whether complaints about his operation were worthy; d.) failed to properly provide a demanded apology to said sheriff.
Now, this is less of a defense of Niki Frenchko than it is a vigorous critique of governmental overreach. She is often her own worst enemy, which makes her difficult to defend. You can be disruptive to the seedy political culture in Trumbull County without becoming the latest issue. Like many politicians — including fellow commissioners Frank Fuda and Mauro Cantalamessa — she has yet to master the idea that you can disagree without being disagreeable.
Her recent history is not pretty.
In June 2021, “six people who make up the commissioners’ office staff ... signed a complaint … stating Frenchko created a hostile work environment shortly after taking office,” according to the Tribune Chronicle.
In reporting on the “culture of dysfunction for Trumbull County’s government” focused specifically on Frenchko that included Clerk Paula Vivoda-Klotz filing a temporary civil stalking protection order against her, 21-WFMJ TV reported on Jan. 7, “Former Trumbull County Republican Party Chairman Kevin Wyndham described these disputes as ‘absolutely embarrassing,’ stating that he’s never seen anything like this in his life.”
After another incident, this time involving Trumbull County Transit Administrator Michael Salamone, the Tribune Chronicle in a March 13 editorial, declared, “Trumbull County Commissioner Niki Frenchko’s latest deplorable treatment of county employees and others is even more despicable than past instances we have criticized.”
So a model of responsible leadership? That’s debatable, though she maintains many of these complaints were politically motivated. In any case, Frenchko is a duly elected county commissioner, and she has the same rights to expression as any citizen. She does not need to have her concerns vetted by the government before she expresses them. That’s called prior restraint. And the Founding Fathers opposed it, believing it was detrimental to democracy.
Apparently, Trumbull County Sheriff Paul Monroe has an altogether different viewpoint. And it’s far more sinister and frankly more dangerous than anything Frenchko has said or done.
This episode really begins back at the June 1 Trumbull commissioners meeting when Frenchko read a letter from a parent who claimed an inmate was denied medical treatment at the Trumbull County jail. After reading the letter, Frenchko said, “Immediately after I got this complaint, I contacted the sheriff and asked what their policy is on inmate treatment. I said please send me what your manual is … your standard operation procedure for when an inmate requests medical treatment. And he did not give me one. Then I sent another email. They did not respond. ... I basically said if you do not have one in place, just let me know. ... I want to be able to tell people I followed up.”
And she requested commissioners Fuda and Cantalamessa join her in requesting the sheriff respond with his policies. Instead, the meeting devolved into a recitation of other county woes.
This is a duly elected commissioner doing her job. She got a complaint. She sought answers, and then she brought the concerns to the rest of the commissioners. It’s how it’s supposed to work in a representative democracy, right?
Well, apparently that’s not Monroe’s view. Full of umbrage and seemingly aghast that his operation could be questioned by mere mortals, he wrote a long letter to the commissioners denying the complaint and insisting “... such a public presentation prior to initiating an appropriate investigation through well-established, existing investigatory protocol is contrary to sound government and procedural justice safeguards.”
Her offense, as Monroe lays out: “...without any investigation or corroboration to verify whether the letter was factually based or simply unfounded allegations, Commissioner Frenchko chose to read it publically without even having initiated or attempted to initiate a proper investigative procedure … she presented this letter as if it were a fact without even minimum good faith adherence to established procedures.”
I’ve checked Ohio Revised Code and I can’t find a charge for “improper airing of unsubstantiated allegations.” And if you watch the video from June 1, that is not a good-faith representation of what Frenchko did. You know what is really “contrary to sound government and procedural justice safeguards”? Arresting someone because you disagree with what they had to say or the way they said it. I should note for the record that the plaintiffs will argue Frenchko was actually cited under ORC Section 2917.12 — “Disturbing a lawful meeting,” which disallows anyone from making “any utterance, gesture, or display which outrages the sensibilities of the group.” I will counter that this is the most vague excuse for handcuffs I’ve witnessed in my six-plus decades.
As the letter from Monroe was read during the July 7 meeting, Frenchko tried to interject her side. She was videoing the meeting, and while disruptive, she was also rather polite. Toward the end of the letter reading, you could see two deputies at the back of the room. One of the commissioners accused her of being disruptive and violating Robert’s Rules of Order. Another demanded she apologize. While the video is still running, a deputy orders her to get up. She is escorted from the room and handcuffed and led off to jail.
This happened in America.
Enter her attorney, David Betras. I’ve known Betras a long time, and he can be as bellicose as any lawyer, especially when zealously defending a client. There was NOTHING bellicose in his statement after the arrest: “What we witnessed yesterday in Warren, Ohio, was a scene out of Russia and other dictatorships where despots like Vladmir Putin and Syria’s Bashar al-Assad routinely arrest and jail their political opponents. … I never thought I would see anything like this in the United States, but there it was, live on Facebook, an elected official arrested and silenced by her political enemies for exercising her First Amendment rights. It was truly chilling.”
Let me go a step further. Apparently, the First Amendment has been suspended in Trumbull County. If you have a complaint about the Sheriff’s Department, you must first bring it to Sheriff Paul Monroe so that he can determine whether the complaint is valid. There are “established procedures” that govern raising questions about the sheriff’s department, and he alone adjudicates those procedures. You dare to refute him or refuse his demand to apologize at your own risk.
I don’t care what your political persuasion is — this should scare you. Sheriffs don’t get to stomp on freedom of speech and then send in their troops to make sure the message was sent.
In a 2005 essay on Wired.com, Tony Long wrote: “... Freedom of speech trumps everything in a free society. [As long as nobody gets killed, which is why you can’t yell ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theater.] It has to. Without it, a society is no longer free. That’s why the Nazis get to march through Skokie, Illinois, and why Rush Limbaugh gets to have a radio show. It’s revolting sometimes, but to deny a single individual the right to free expression is to begin sliding down that slippery slope toward authoritarianism.”
Complaining about Rush now seems quaint. The only thing that silenced Limbaugh was his mortality. But 17 years after Long’s essay, we are seeing increasing signs of authoritarianism and fascist inclinations both here and abroad. I think we are at freedom’s inflection point. Even if we dislike the Frenchkos of this world and vehemently disagree with what they have to say or how they say it, we have to fight like hell for their freedom of expression.
Forget about Trumbull County for a moment. In no place in America should a thin-skinned sheriff and his commissioner minions be allowed to use deputies as tools of repression in a kangaroo court masquerading as a public meeting.
Is that what happened here? Let’s demand a thorough, independent, outside investigation of the July 7 meeting. Monroe, Fuda and Cantalamessa must be held accountable if any wrong-doing indeed occurred. Already, Betras’ team says it is preparing to file a federal civil rights suit. In addition, Ohio Attorney General David Yost needs to immediately step in and assess the mess in Trumbull County before it gets worse.
This story was originally published August 1, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
