Juvenile/Probate Judge Tim Grendell is the only person who makes the appointments to the Geauga County Park District Board of Commissions. Grendell refused to reappoint prominent businessman, Jim Patterson to the Park Board. Then Grendell asked the two remaining members of the board to resign. On January 31, 2014, Grendell appointed two new members to the Board.
Two weeks later, the newly appointed Park Board Commissioners approved a $16,000 non-competitive contract to O’Brien Leadership Systems for Leadership Team evaluations. President of the Board, Mary Ruth Shumway, attends the same church as Linda J. O’Brien.
The contract stipulated for individual two hour interviews for ten Park District Directors. This amounts to being paid $800 an hour. Rather than having payment dispersed to her business, the check was paid directly, to Linda J. O’Brien.
Linda O’Brien filed as write in candidate for the Ohio House of Representatives 76th District on February 7th. The contract was approved February 11th, but made retroactive to February 3rd, which preceded the filing of her candidacy. This was done in Executive Session without any public input or competitive bidding.
The first bullet point on O’Brien’s platform states,
Linda O’Brien will fight to reduce the size of government and government spending.
O’Brien seems to be conflicted on this portion of her platform. She took a plump no-bid contract from her county government at the same time is campaigning against plump no-bid contracts.