ST. CLAIRSVILLE — St. Clairsville City Council members took no action Monday to correct a vote cast by email that appeared to violate the Ohio Open Meetings Act, but the emails were read aloud and each member verbally confirmed their vote was recorded correctly.

The vote by email occurred April 5 to fill two seats on the recreation board. Council chose not to rescind the vote and said plans are in the works to revive in-person meetings, which would hopefully prevent such incidents in the future.

According to the “2021 Ohio Sunshine Laws Manual” published by Attorney General Dave Yosts’s office: “A public body must make all of its meetings open to the public at all times. Secret ballots, whispering of public business, and ’round-robin’ discussions are all prohibited under the openness requirement.”

Audio difficulties and other confusion plagued the last meeting and council members emailed their votes on the matter. Incumbent recreation board members Alicia Freeman and Diane Schubert took the lead over nominee Lisa Amos, meaning Schubert and Freeman each will serve another four-year term. The public heard the results of the vote April 5, but the breakdown was not available to the public during the meeting itself.

“Was the vote proper? Was the vote legal?” Councilwoman Beth Oprisch asked Monday.

“If we were in a live meeting Beth, we would have obviously done a role call vote like we normally do,” Law Director Elizabeth Glick said. “There were technical difficulties on our end and obviously we’ve been dealing with this for over a year. Last meeting it was particularly bad. In retrospect, we should have read the vote at the meeting and had individual council people confirm. Unfortunately that did not get done, so … somebody can either make a motion to rescind that vote.”

“We’re kind of in a no-man’s land here,” Council President Jim Velas said. “Prior to COVID, no one on council was allowed to call in and vote on the telephone. That was totally improper. You had to be present in the meeting to vote, but COVID has changed a lot of things temporarily and we’re kind of flying by the seat of our pants.”

Velas said he was concerned last meeting that audio difficulties meant council members could not hear each other clearly.

“Since we had three nominees for two positions, we wanted to make sure the votes were correct,” he said, adding that the vote results have been shared with the public and would remain available.

“It’s just a question of whether you want to go through the re-vote or whether you want to just have the council clerk read who voted and who the persons were they voted for, and confirm,” Velas said. He added that nominations were made in open session and would not change.

Councilman Mark Bukmir asked for Glick’s legal opinion. Glick said rescinding and voting again remain a possibility.

“It would correct any question of error … on the last vote,” she said.

The votes were read out for council members.

Mike Smith confirmed his votes for Freeman and Schubert.

Oprisch confirmed her votes for Amos and Freeman.

Frank Sabatino confirmed his votes for Freeman and Schubert.

Perry Basile confirmed his votes for Amos and Schubert.

Terra Butler confirmed her votes for Amos and Schubert.

Jordan, Freeman’s mother, confirmed her vote for Schubert.

Mark Bukmir confirmed his votes for Freeman and Schubert.

This gave six votes to Schubert, four for Freeman and three for Amos. No motion to rescind the vote or to cast a new vote was made.

Afterward, Velas said while the next meeting, to be held at 7:30 p.m. May 3, would again be a teleconference, this situation will hopefully change soon.

“We are attempting to put the final touches on having council meet in person,” Velas said. We’re trying to work out a couple details and hopefully we’ll be able to allow a few residents to attend the meetings also. But I will get back to you soon and hopefully we won’t be going for more than a few more meetings before we can actually meet in person.”

Mayor Kathryn Thalman extended sympathies to Jim Behl, who has handled video and telecommunications at prior meetings, for a recent loss in his family which prevented him attending last meeting.

“The sound difficulties were because Jim was not there,” she said.

In other matters, Safety and Service Director Jeremy Greenwood reported Appalachian Development Program is awarding a grant of $155,000 grant through the Ohio Mid-Eastern Governments Association to connect with Belmont County’s water on the east end of the city.

“That is approximately half of what the project will be, so our next step is to contact the Ohio Water Development Authority to look at getting a matching loan, and then we’ll be able to hit the ground running with that project and get the connection underway.”