LISBON — The Wellsville and Columbiana school boards became the latest targets of Mogadore resident Brian Ames, who filed complaints against both entities alleging violations of the Open Meetings Act.

Ames is the same person who filed similar lawsuits in July against Columbiana City Council and the East Liverpool and Crestview school boards which remain pending in Columbiana County Common Pleas Court.

A similar lawsuit filed against the Columbiana County Board of Elections in 2022 ended last year with a $3,500 settlement.

For each lawsuit, Ames requests payment of $500 for each alleged violation and he’s filed similar lawsuits across the state against various governmental entities over what he perceives as violations of the Open Meetings Act, with several cases reaching the Ohio Supreme Court.

At the time of the settlement with the county Board of Elections, Board of Elections Chairman David Johnson called the complaint a nuisance lawsuit and indicated fighting the claim would have cost more money. The agreement was with Open Government Advocates, a non-profit in the care of Ames. The lawsuit had claimed that the board failed to establish a rule for notification of its meetings during its organizational meeting in March 2021 and did not provide notice of the meetings that properly reached the general public, which Johnson and board members said was not the case.

The complaint filed Tuesday against the Wellsville school board made claims of failure to keep full and accurate meeting minutes, failure to provide sufficient notice of a special meeting, holding an executive session for unapproved purpose, holding an executive session without specifically stating an approved purpose listed in the Ohio Revised Code, failure to establish a rule for notification of meetings compliant with the ORC and threatened violations.

The complaint filed Monday against the Columbiana school board made similar claims of failure to keep full and accurate minutes, holding an executive session for an unapproved purpose-licensee, holding an executive session under ORC improperly, failure to make a determination that an executive session is necessary, failure to establish a rule for notification of meetings compliant with ORC and holding a special meeting without having established a rule for notification of meetings.

In each complaint, Ames cited specific dates of meetings where the alleged violations occurred.

Some of these same allegations of improper executive sessions during public meetings and other violations related to public meetings were made against Columbiana City Council and the East Liverpool and Crestview school boards.

The majority of the cases have been assigned to Common Pleas Court Judge Scott Washam, with the exception of the Crestview case which is before Common Pleas Court Judge Megan Bickerton, who has a telephone conference set for Jan. 16 in the case.

In Washam’s courtroom, the Columbiana City Council case has a pretrial set for June 19 and a court trial for July 9, while the East Liverpool school board case also has a pretrial set for June 19, but with a court trial of July 16.

No dates have been set yet in the new cases.