Summit County Executive Ilene Shapiro’s campaign apologized Wednesday for an “honest mistake” that led to an election email being sent to some county employees’ work accounts.
The email had the subject line “We Need Your Help!” and was distributed from her campaign account.
It was sent by her campaign last week to 11,031 people, including the work emails of 18 employees at the Veterans Service Commission, Summit Metro Parks, Children Services, Developmental Disabilities and Engineer’s Office.
A Veteran Services Commission employee then inadvertently forwarded the message to all her co-workers, leading some to feel they were being pressured to support Shapiro’s campaign.
Shapiro, a Democrat who was appointed to the position in August after County Executive Russ Pry died, is running for a four-year term this fall against Republican Bill Roemer.
The email issue surfaced after Roemer issued a statement Tuesday night accusing Shapiro of using county resources for partisan political activities.
“The apology is appropriate but you can’t unring the bell once it’s rung,” Roemer said Wednesday.
Shapiro didn’t return a call seeking comment, but her campaign issued a lengthy explanation and apology.
County work emails with the “summitoh.net” extension were scrubbed from the email distribution list but the 18 employees who received the campaign material at the county agencies had different extensions, the statement said.
“While campaign staff attempted to prevent this issue, an honest mistake was made and has now been addressed so that the issue does not occur in the future,” the campaign said.
Elected officials in Ohio are prohibited from soliciting campaign contributions from their employees or seeking contributions from public employees while they are working.
The email didn’t seek financial contributions, and none of the county employees who received the email work for or report to Shapiro.
Roemer said commission employees brought the issue to his attention and felt like they were being pressured to support the Shapiro campaign.
The email, forwarded by commission administrative supervisor Gail Warley, included mentions of early voting, an upcoming fundraiser and notices about helping with handing out literature and yard signs being available.
Warley said it’s her job to forward news and updates from the county to the commission workers and she assumed it was a routine email from the county to pass along. The email indicates that it came from “Ilene Shapiro” and Warley said she didn’t notice that it came from the campaign’s gmail account as opposed to a county account.
“As a courtesy, I’m just shifting out these emails,” she said.
“I had no clue what had transpired.”
Warley, who has worked at the commission for 26 years, also noted that she is an independent voter, not affiliated with either major party, and wasn’t trying to drum up support for a candidate. She is upset that the campaign material was sent to her work email and felt personally attacked.
“That’s deceitful to use my work address when in fact it’s my job to distribute the information to our employees,” she said.
“This will never happen again, I can tell you that,” she added.
Commission Executive Director Larry Moore said the agency isn’t pleased that it has been dragged into a political issue.
“It doesn’t make us happy,” Moore said. “We’re apolitical. We know to be that way.”
Rick Armon can be reached at 330-996-3569 or rarmon@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter at @armonrickABJ .