"There was a dispute between some of the firefighters and the chief about a specific issue," says Youngstown law director Jeff Limbian. "There was a meeting about that, it got rather contentious and there was an attempt then to provide some discipline by the chief."

That's when the Youngstown Firefighters' Union, on behalf of firefighter Pat Holcomb, filed what's called a writ of mandamus.
It simply asked the city to name a neutral mediator to investigate Chief Barry Finley's conduct during that meeting.
But last Thursday, the Seventh District Court of Appeals ruled the city doesn't have the power to do that.

"In much the same way a police department has internal affairs, the law department is sort of the internal affairs of the city," said Limbian. "We try to be judicious and careful about the decisions we make and we don't side with the administration or the member who's making the grievance."

In a statement - union president Charlie Smith said “Local 312 and myself are disappointed to learn of the ruling. We remain confident in Pat Holcomb, and we were hopeful that he would be awarded a third-party investigator. That being said, we are still optimistic that the outcome will rule in Pat's favor, and we will continue to support him through the entirety of this process.“

"We're not trying to have continual fights with the firefighters," Limbian says. "We're all on the same team."

But the mandamus also included the claim the city hadn't responded to Holcomb's public record request for documents to back up his complaint.
The city says since the investigation wasn't completed, it couldn't give up those documents.
The union now has to decide whether to fight the city's claim that Holcomb waited too long to file his complaint.