Until now, COAST has refrained from calling for the resignation of Anderson Township Trustee Kevin O'Brien. We were hoping both that Kevin O'Brien would do the right thing, and that the Ohio legislature would empower voters to recall Mr. O'Brien. Unfortunately, neither solution has materialized.
Thus, we ask that Kevin O'Brien resign immediately, and spare us any further embarrassment as Anderson Township Trustee.
Shortly after O'Brien was elected in November of 2009, voters and the media learned that O'Brien had surrendered his securities license permanently and gave up his job with Baird Securities due to the questionable, and seemingly illegal, handling of the monies of a client. Later, that client committed suicide, seemingly at least in part as a result of O'Brien's breach of trust with him.
Then, today O'Brien was arrested for engaging in unwanted conduct of a sexual nature with one of his constituents in Anderson Township. It's really too icky to get into the details on this blog.
O'Brien's problems have become a lot like the Jean Schmidt situation, wherein O'Brien's behavior has become repeatedly so boorish, so unethical, and apparently illegal, that it has become obvious that he is not qualified to serve.
Ever since the 2009 revelations, Anderson Township citizens have asked the Ohio legislature to add a recall provision for Township Trustees, a power that would allow them by a vote of the people to remove O'Brien from office. Peter Stautberg, the east side's representative in the legislature, has refused to sponsor that legislation. When he ran against him in the primary election in March, COAST founder Tom Brinkman made this one of his platforms. Stautberg still refuses to act on this common sense initiative. This is one of the many reasons COAST endorsed Brinkman over Stautberg.
Thus, because Mr. O'Brien apparently can't come to the correct conclusion of what he must do on his own, and because our State Representative refuses to work to empower the people to remove O'Brien from office before the end of his term, COAST asks -- and does so publicly -- that Kevin O'Brien resign from office immediately.
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