COLUMBUS, Ohio - The fight over the legal residency of Niki Frenchko, the Republican candidate for Trumbull County Commissioner, is not over despite a unanimous ruling earlier this month by the Board of Elections that she is a qualified elector in the county.

Rick Brunner, the Columbus-based attorney who challenged Frenchko’s standing on behalf of Thomas Cool, a Warren bail-bondsman, has filed suit in Franklin County Common Pleas Court seeking to overturn that decision. The suit names as defendants Frenchko, who is running against incumbent Democrat Dan Polivka, and her domestic partner Joseph Szeman who lives in Mentor where Frenchko’s daughter attends school. However, Brunner has added a number of county and state officeholders to the list of defendants including the Trumbull County Prosecutor Dennis Watkins, Ohio’s Secretary of State, Attorney General and Auditor. Why?

 

“You have to join everybody who might be affected by the judgment,” he told 21 News.

 

Brunner is asking for a declaratory judgment by the court that residency rules applied to married couples should be equally applied to domestic partners. Frenchko has a residence and business in Warren and also lives with her partner in Mentor during the school year. The lawsuit says that if Frenchko and Szeman were married, Mentor would be considered her residency.

 

“How is domestic partnership considered differently than a marriage,” he asked, adding the case is a constitutional issue involving equal protection of the law. Brunner has also asked the court to find that Frenchko does not have a residence in Trumbull County and thus could not serve if she wins the Nov. 3 election.

 

Brunner said he could have filed in either Trumbull or Lake Counties, but instead “chose the neutral ground in Franklin County …where the (Secretary of State) could have removed the case and where it’s proper to name all the state agencies and officials.”

 

Frenchko’s response when contacted by 21 News: “Welcome to more dirty politics by my opponents’ operatives,” she said in a text message. She identified several of them including Terry Thomas, president and chief executive officer of Warren’s Community Bus Service (CBS). Frenchko, who serves on the Senior Citizens Advisory Council, has been an ardent critic of Thomas, CBS and the Trumbull County Transit Board, which is expected to be dissolved once the county officially joins the Western Reserve Transit Authority. A message left for Thomas by 21 News has not been returned.

 

Frenchko also questioned Cool’s role in the lawsuit, in particular his financial support adding that Cool “has fallen on hard financial times publicly.” 21 News contacted Cool for a response. “I’ve been asked not to make any comments unless my (legal counsel) is with me,” he said. Brunner declined comment on the financial question as well citing “attorney/client privilege.”

 

A timetable provided by the court shows the next proceeding in the case will not occur until February. Should Frenchko defeat Polivka, she would already be serving as commissioner. Brunner said he hopes to “accelerate the timetable” to get the suit resolved.

 

Frenchko said she and Commissioner Mauro Cantalamessa “brought changes in county transportation that lost CBS a contract. I believe we are now targets…for putting people over politics.” Cantalamessa is also running for re-election in November.