MAUMEE, Ohio — For 24 years, Maumee lied to the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency about discharges of sewage into the Maumee River.
On July 10, 2020, the city self-reported the violations to the state, admitting that for years it had reported 0 discharges when in every one of the years at least some discharges occurred that violated the city's 1996 agreement with the state.
In response, 11 Investigates requested emails from city and private accounts between city leaders in an attempt to determine what was known prior to the city self-reporting. Emails were sought from City Administrator Patrick Burtch, retired water superintendent Doug Riseborough, current superintendent Joe Mikolajczyk, and Mayor Rich Carr.
In the city's response to 11 Investigates' information request, there were more than 90 emails sent to Carr. The emails show that 88 of those emails were forwarded to Carr's private AOL account. Late Thursday afternoon, a city lawyer said that a city employee forwarded the emails to Carr's AOL account because the mayor does not have access to the city server during the day.
There were no water-related emails sent from Carr's AOL account to another address that were turned over to 11 Investigates. The city's lawyer said that the city has turned over all emails and that Carr forwards any public emails onto the city's servers. However, it is impossible for 11 Investigates to say if Carr sent an email from the AOL account to a non-city of Maumee account. Other than one minor response to one of the 88 emails, Carr had no responses related to one of the most expensive issues in the city's history. Maumee is required to fix sewage discharges by 2051. The project could cost as much as $100 million.
When asked if there were any additional emails, including from personal accounts, a city clerk responded by email: "We do not have access to employees' personal emails. You may need to subpoena the individuals for that."
The Ohio Attorney General's "Sunshine Laws Manual" on public records states that "communications of public employees to or from private email accounts that otherwise meet the definition of a record are subject to the Public Records Act." Two separate Ohio Supreme Court cases have agreed. Any communication by Carr from his AOL account about the water issue would be considered a record and the city would be required to turn it over.
On Wednesday night, Carr was approached after the council meeting about his use of private email. He was asked if he could answer a few questions. He did not respond and instead left through a side door into a parking lot.
While being questioned, he was then asked if he was attempting to circumvent Ohio public-records law, if he was using a private email account, and why he forwarded 88 emails to his personal account. Finally, he was reminded that a report that the city paid $90,000 for in 2018 said officials were not to use private accounts. He did not respond and drove away.
The 2018 report was about an investigation completed by law firm Squire Patton Boggs into allegations of wrongdoing by Carr and councilmen Brent Buehrer and Tim Pauken. While the law firm found no clear evidence of wrongdoing, it did tell city officials and employees that they "should exclusively use their Maumee email accounts for official business, and should not use personal email."
After the report's release, council voted to send the allegations to the state's ethics commission. 11 Investigates then found emails from Carr to Councilman Scott Noonan and Commissioner Pete Gerken, asking them to help put a stop to the investigation. As a result of the discovery of those emails, the commission censured Carr for an ethics violation and told him that any potential future violations would be fully investigated.
More on WTOL: