Block Communications, the company that owns The Blade, sued the Lucas County auditor and commissioners on Tuesday, Nov. 10, hours after the commissioners awarded the county’s tax-list printing contract to the Toledo Legal News instead, The Blade reported, in coverage reviewed by The Lake Erie Inquiry. The lawsuit asks for mediation.
Commissioners approved the switch 2-0 on Tuesday afternoon, according to recordings of the board’s Nov. 10 meetings reviewed by The Lake Erie Inquiry. Board President Lisa Sobecki and Commissioner Anita Lopez voted yes; Commissioner Pete Gerken was absent. The Legal News bid about $55,000 for the work. The Blade bid $230,982.57 — more than four times as much.
State law requires the county to print the list each year to notify owners and the public of delinquent properties that may face foreclosure. This year’s draft names 11,888 parcels and 414 manufactured homes, according to The Lake Erie Inquiry’s review of the meetings. Block Communications says the Legal News does not meet Ohio’s test for a newspaper of general circulation because less than a quarter of what it prints is editorial content, The Blade reported. The lawsuit was filed shortly after the vote and assigned to Lucas County Common Pleas Court Judge Gary Cook, according to The Blade; The Lake Erie Inquiry said it has not yet obtained the filing.
Ohio law, in Revised Code section 7.12, provides a mediation process for disputes over whether a publication qualifies to carry legal notices. The statute includes a 25 percent editorial-content requirement but makes an exception for certain long-established daily law journals — and whether the Toledo Legal News qualifies is the disputed question, The Lake Erie Inquiry reported.
Ford Weber, chief of staff to County Auditor Katie Moline, told the board the county had to take bids this year because the county prosecutor’s office had advised the auditor that both papers meet the legal test for a newspaper of general circulation, and with two qualifying papers the job has to be bid, according to the meeting recordings. “We were not expecting to have to bid it out,” Weber said, according to The Lake Erie Inquiry. His office recommended the cheaper bid, citing “fiscal austerity.”
The award stalled at the board’s 11 a.m. session after a commissioner asked whether the prosecutor had put that advice in writing; Weber said he had it in emails, not in a formal legal opinion, and the board put the item off until its 2 p.m. session, where it met behind closed doors on pending or imminent court action before voting, according to the recordings reviewed by The Lake Erie Inquiry. Weber put the county’s deadline at Nov. 23: state law requires two publications within 60 days after the delinquent land duplicate is delivered to the county treasurer.
After the vote, Block’s general counsel, Mathew Beredo, warned the commissioners that their choice could hand delinquent owners a defense against foreclosure, The Blade reported. Sobecki declined afterward to explain her vote, citing the suit, according to The Blade. What happens next runs through the mediation process and Judge Cook’s court, against the Nov. 23 publication deadline.