menu Home
Local News

Dover Council planning to override mayor’s veto Thursday

| March 9, 2022
From left, Dover Mayor Rick Homrighausen, Law Director Doug O’Meara and Council President Shane Gunnoe at Monday's meeting.

DOVER (WJER) (March 9, 2022) – Three fired city employees could be closer to getting their jobs back after Thursday.

City Council plans to meet that evening at 7 to override the mayor’s veto of an agreement that would return the employees to work and protect them from any future interference by the mayor.

It was Mayor Rick Homrighausen who in December fired his executive assistant Eva Newsome, Service Director Dave Douglas, and Safety and Human Resources Director Gerry Mroczkowski.

In legal documents, Homrighausen says he lost confidence in them. However, Council members and the employees say he fired them as retaliation for reporting potentially illegal activity.

Council President Shane Gunnoe says it could still be a while before the employees return to work as their appeal is still before the State Personnel Board of Review.

“It still has to go through the process of receiving approval from the administrative judge hearing the case for the State Personnel Board of Review, as well as their full board,” he said. “So that may take some time.”

City Council and the employees agree on a settlement, but the mayor is trying to intervene. Homrighausen is also trying to get the Tuscarawas County Common Pleas Court to force the city to pay for his legal representation in the case.

Homrighausen says he won’t discuss the case publicly.

Gunnoe had initially scheduled the override meeting for Monday, but he says Law Director Doug O’Meara wanted it included in the city’s next submission in the appeal case, which he plans to file Friday.

Written by