Title: State ex rel. Baldzicki v. Cuyahoga Cty. Bd. of Elections

State: ohio

Issuer: Ohio Supreme Court

Document:

[Cite as State ex rel. Baldzicki v. Cuyahoga Cty. Bd. of Elections, 90 Ohio St.3d 238, 2000-Ohio-
67.] 
 
 
 
 
THE STATE EX REL. BALDZICKI ET AL. v. CUYAHOGA COUNTY BOARD OF ELECTIONS. 
[Cite as State ex rel. Baldzicki v. Cuyahoga Cty. Bd. of Elections (2000), 90 Ohio 
St.3d 238.] 
Elections — Writ of prohibition sought to prevent submission of Ordinance No. 
2000-68 to the Westlake electors at the November 7, 2000 election — Writ 
denied. 
(No. 00-1647 — Submitted October 10, 2000 — Decided October 11, 2000.) 
IN PROHIBITION. 
 
Crocker Park, LLC (“Crocker”) is an Ohio limited liability company that 
owns a seventy-five-acre parcel of land in the city of Westlake, Ohio.  Crocker 
proposed a development on the property composed of residential, retail, and office 
uses as well as open and civic spaces.  In order to so develop its property, Crocker 
applied to have the property rezoned from its present classifications to Planned 
Unit Development District. 
 
On July 20, 2000, the Westlake City Council held a public hearing at which 
it considered Ordinance Nos. 2000-68 and 2000-71.  Ordinance No. 2000-68 
provides for the rezoning of the Crocker property from Single Family District, 
Multi-Family District, and Planned Unit Development District to Planned Unit 
Development District.  Ordinance No. 2000-68 also provides that the uses 
permitted by the rezoning of the property shall be in accordance with a preliminary 
development plan attached to and incorporated by reference as an exhibit to the 
ordinance.  As required by Section 13(a), Article IV of the Westlake Charter,1 
Ordinance No. 2000-68 authorizes the submission of the rezoning to Westlake 
electors at the November 7, 2000 election.  Ordinance No. 2000-71 amends various 
sections of Chapter 1212 of the Westlake Zoning Code, which sets forth 
requirements for Planned Unit Development Districts. 
 
 
2
 
At its July 20 meeting, the city council amended Ordinance No. 2000-68 by 
including changes in the preliminary development plan regarding maximum 
heights of buildings and setback lines, and then adopted the ordinance as amended.  
The city council noted that although these changes would be effective on that date, 
the developer would have to provide a final amended preliminary development 
plan reflecting council’s changes.  The city council enacted Ordinance No. 2000-
71 just before it enacted Ordinance No. 2000-68. 
 
On July 20, the council president signed Ordinance No. 2000-68, and on 
July 21, the mayor approved and signed the ordinance.  On July 21, the clerk of 
council attested to the validity of Ordinance No. 2000-68, and beginning on July 
27, the clerk of council posted the ordinance for a period of fifteen days in two 
public places in the city.  On August 7, in accordance with city council’s July 20 
instructions, Crocker provided the city with a copy of an amended preliminary 
development plan incorporating council’s revisions, and the amended plan was 
then posted as an exhibit to the ordinance.  On August 8, the clerk of council sent a 
certified copy of Ordinance No. 2000-68 to respondent, Cuyahoga County Board 
of Elections, for placement on the November 7 election ballot. 
 
On August 15, relator Stephen L. Huber, a Westlake elector, filed a protest 
with the board of elections, challenging the placement of Ordinance No. 2000-68 
on the November 7 ballot. Huber claimed that the ordinance could not be 
submitted to the electorate at the November 7 election for several reasons, 
including that a referendum petition being circulated would suspend the ordinance 
from taking effect, that the ordinance had not been posted with the amended 
preliminary development plan for fifteen days as required by Section 10, Article III 
of the Westlake Charter, that the council violated the zoning code by failing to 
approve the preliminary development plan and by not having Ordinance No. 2000-
71 become effective before its adoption of Ordinance No. 2000-68, and that the 
 
 
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mayor, council president, and clerk of council’s attestations and validations of the 
ordinance were ineffective because the amended preliminary development plan had 
not yet been attached to the ordinance. 
 
Thirty-two days following the July 20 adoption of Ordinance Nos. 2000-68 
and 2000-71, on Monday, August 21, referendum petitions were filed requesting 
that council reconsider the ordinances and, if not repealed, to submit them to a vote 
of electors at the next general or regular municipal election occurring more than 
ninety days after the filing date, i.e., November 2001.  On September 11, relators, 
Huber and other Westlake electors, joined in Huber’s earlier protest and submitted 
a supplement to the protest in which they contended that the filing of the 
referendum petitions on Ordinance Nos. 2000-68 and 2000-71 suspended their 
effectiveness and prevented the placement of Ordinance No. 2000-68 on the 
November 7, 2000 election ballot. 
 
On September 11, the board conducted a combined hearing on relators’ 
protest to Ordinance No. 2000-68 and their protest to an initiative petition 
concerning a separate enactment, Ordinance No. 2000-130.  The board permitted 
attorneys for the interested parties to present legal arguments on the protests, and 
the hearing was bifurcated for the arguments concerning the separate ordinances.  
No sworn testimony was introduced at the hearing.  Further, although the city law 
director and relators’ counsel evidently gave folders containing documents to the 
board, these documents were never formally introduced into evidence as exhibits 
and are not part of the record of the board proceedings filed by relators.  After 
remarks by one board member that it was not the board’s responsibility to address 
charter matters and the opinion of the county prosecutor’s office that the board 
lacked jurisdiction over the protests concerning Ordinance No. 2000-68, the board 
voted unanimously to deny relators’ protests against Ordinance No. 2000-68. 
 
 
4
 
On September 13, relators filed this action for a writ of prohibition to 
prevent the board from placing Ordinance No. 2000-68 on the November 7, 2000 
election ballot for the city of Westlake. 
 
We permitted Crocker to intervene as a respondent, and the parties filed 
evidence and briefs pursuant to our expedited election schedule in S.Ct.Prac.R. 
X(9).  On September 18, the clerk of council determined that the referendum 
petitions on Ordinance Nos. 2000-68 and 2000-71 were not valid because they 
were submitted after the effective date of the ordinances. The law director 
concurred with the clerk’s view, concluding that the referendum petitions were 
invalid because the petitioners failed to file the petitions before the effective date 
of the ordinances, and Ordinance No. 2000-68, which already contains an 
automatic referendum provision, was not subject to further referendum. On 
September 21, the city council forwarded the referendum petitions to the board 
with copies of the clerk’s and law director’s opinions and requested that the board 
review the clerk’s determination that the referendum petitions on the ordinances 
are not valid.  On October 2, the board held a hearing on protests to the referendum 
petitions.  At the conclusion of the hearing, the board granted the protests based on 
its determination that it lacked jurisdiction to consider the validity or sufficiency of 
the referendum petitions after the clerk of council had concluded that the petitions 
were invalid. 
 
This cause is now before the court for a consideration of the merits. 
__________________ 
 
Kelley, McCann & Livingstone, LLP, Stephen M. O’Bryan, Thomas J. Lee 
and Timothy J. Duff; Brunner, Kirby & Jeffries Co., L.P.A., Jennifer L. Brunner, 
Rick L. Brunner and David R. Funk, for relators. 
 
 
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William D. Mason, Cuyahoga County Prosecuting Attorney, and Reno J. 
Oradini, Jr., Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for respondent Cuyahoga County 
Board of Elections. 
 
Donald J. McTigue; Chester, Willcox & Saxbe, John J. Chester and J. Craig 
Wright, for intervenor respondent Crocker Park, LLC. 
__________________ 
 
Per Curiam.  Relators request a writ of prohibition to prevent the 
submission of Ordinance No. 2000-68 to the Westlake electors at the November 7, 
2000 election.  In order to be entitled to a writ of prohibition, relators must 
establish that (1) the board is about to exercise judicial or quasi-judicial power, (2) 
the exercise of that power is unauthorized by law, and (3) denial of the writ will 
cause injury for which no other adequate remedy in the ordinary course of law 
exists.  State ex rel. Henry v. McMonagle (2000), 87 Ohio St.3d 543, 544, 721 
N.E.2d 1051, 1052. 
 
Therefore, in order for the writ to issue, relators must first establish that the 
board exercised quasi-judicial power in denying their protest and placing 
Ordinance No. 2000-68 on the November 7 ballot.  See State ex rel. Thurn v. 
Cuyahoga Cty. Bd. of Elections (1995), 72 Ohio St.3d 289, 291, 649 N.E.2d 1205, 
1207 (“[A] writ of prohibition may issue to prevent the placement of names or 
issues on a ballot even though the protest hearing has been completed, as long as 
the election has not yet been held”). 
 
“Quasi-judicial authority is the power to hear and determine controversies 
between the public and individuals that require a hearing resembling a judicial 
trial.”  (Emphasis added.)  State ex rel. Wright v. Ohio Bur. of Motor Vehicles 
(1999), 87 Ohio St.3d 184, 186, 718 N.E.2d 908, 910; State ex rel. Hensley v. 
Nowak (1990), 52 Ohio St.3d 98, 99, 556 N.E.2d 171, 173. 
 
 
6
 
In State ex rel. Youngstown v. Mahoning Cty. Bd. of Elections (1995), 72 
Ohio St.3d 69, 72, 647 N.E.2d 769, 772, we held that prohibition would not issue 
to prevent a board of elections from conducting an election until 1997 for the 
office of city council member because, among other reasons, the board was not 
required to hold a quasi-judicial hearing on the matter: 
 
“There is no evidence here that any written protest has been filed against any 
candidate.  Moreover, a written protest under R.C. 3501.39 and/or 3513.05 would 
be inapplicable, since relators’ objection is not against the qualifications of 
particular candidates, but instead assails the entire 1995 city council election, i.e., 
relators/city council members attack even their own ability to be candidates for the 
1995 election. 
 
“Respondents’ decision to conduct the city council election in 1995 for terms 
commencing in January 1996 was thus not the appropriate subject for a statutory 
protest.  Therefore, no hearing was required.  Since no hearing resembling a 
judicial trial was either required or conducted, respondents’ decision to conduct 
the election was ministerial rather than quasi-judicial.  [Other election cases] are 
distinguishable, since [statutory] written protests were filed, thereby requiring 
hearings and the exercise of quasi-judicial authority.”  (Emphasis added.) 
 
Although relators filed a protest here, no statute or other pertinent law 
required the board to conduct a hearing resembling a quasi-judicial hearing on 
their protest against the placement of Ordinance No. 2000-68 on the election 
ballot.  Cf. R.C. 3501.39(A)(1) and (2), providing for board hearings on written 
protests against petitions and candidacies.  Relators’ protest was neither against 
petitions nor candidacies.  In addition, the mere fact that such a hearing was 
required on the other protest against an initiative petition for a separate ordinance 
did not transform that portion of the hearing regarding Ordinance No. 2000-68 into 
a required quasi-judicial proceeding.  In fact, relators do not so argue. 
 
 
7
 
Relators instead claim that any protest hearing before a board of elections is 
a quasi-judicial proceeding and cite State ex rel. Cooker Restaurant Corp. v. 
Montgomery Cty. Bd. of Elections (1997), 80 Ohio St.3d 302, 686 N.E.2d 238, in 
support of their proposition.  But Cooker Restaurant involved statutory protests 
requiring quasi-judicial proceedings.  Id. at 306, 686 N.E.2d at 242; see, also, R.C. 
4301.33(B) and 4305.14(D).  As previously noted, no such proceedings were 
required here. 
 
Moreover, the board did not conduct a hearing sufficiently resembling a 
judicial trial in denying relators’ protest.  No sworn testimony was introduced at 
the hearing, and despite relators’ reliance on counsel statements noting the 
presence of evidence folders or packets at the hearing, these documents were not 
formally introduced into evidence at the hearing and were not made part of the 
board hearing record.  Cf. Christy v. Summit Cty. Bd. of Elections (1996), 77 Ohio 
St.3d 35, 37, 671 N.E.2d 1, 3 (“The board exercised quasi-judicial authority by 
denying relators’ protests following an R.C. 3501.39 hearing which included sworn 
testimony”); Thurn, 72 Ohio St.3d at 291, 649 N.E.2d at 1207 (“Thurn filed a 
written protest, and a hearing which included sworn testimony was held by the 
board”).  (Emphases added.)  In essence, the board hearing was more in the nature 
of a pretrial hearing on issues or an appellate argument than the evidentiary hearing 
normally associated with a typical judicial trial. 
 
Based on the foregoing, because the board did not exercise quasi-judicial 
authority in denying relators’ protest, prohibition will not lie.  Youngstown, 72 
Ohio St.3d at 72, 647 N.E.2d at 772; Wright, 87 Ohio St.3d at 186, 718 N.E.2d at 
910-911.  Therefore, we deny the writ.  By so holding, we need not consider the 
merits of relators’ remaining claims or the parties’ various motions.  “It is well 
settled that we will not indulge in advisory opinions.”  In re Contested Election on 
November 7, 1995 (1996), 76 Ohio St.3d 234, 236, 667 N.E.2d 362, 363. 
 
 
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Writ denied. 
 
MOYER, C.J., F.E. SWEENEY, PFEIFER, COOK and LUNDBERG STRATTON, JJ., 
concur. 
 
DOUGLAS, J., concurs in judgment. 
 
RESNICK, J., not participating. 
FOOTNOTE: 
 
1. 
This charter provision provides that no ordinance shall effect a change 
in zoning classification that would allow multifamily dwellings, increase the 
density permitted on any property in any residential district, or permit a shopping 
center development consisting of thirty acres or more “unless the change or grant, 
after adoption in accordance with applicable administrative and/or legislative 
procedures, is approved at a regular Municipal or general election by a majority 
vote of the electors voting thereon, in the City of Westlake.”