CHILLICOTHE, Ohio — While the mayor of Chillicothe is slated to announce his bid for reelection this week, he has been hit with another federal lawsuit. The suit, which was filed earlier this month by the city’s former zoning officer alleges a host of claims, including political retaliation by Mayor Luke Feeney, and is the third such lawsuit filed in recent weeks.
Feeney, 42, is seeking his third term as mayor of the state’s first capital. He is the defendant of nearly a dozen lawsuits by former city employees and residents alleging claims of racism, retaliation, and abuse of power among other things spread throughout various courts across the state.
In the latest suit, former city zoning officer Jeffrey Taborn is suing Feeney, along with the city’s safety director, Jeff Carman, and city engineer, David Fishel. Taborn, who had worked for the city since 2001, says that last year he was retaliated against, reprimanded, and fired when he tried to enforce zoning laws against a county elected official who belongs to the same political party as the mayor.
It all stems from a debacle that started around the COVID-19 outbreak in which a county elected official who is a democrat wanted to build a large barn on his property within the city limits. According to the lawsuit, the issue was not the barn, itself, but rather, what it would be used for. According to the paperwork, the barn would house farm machinery that would be used for commercial purposes, and the neighborhood around the democratic elected official’s multi-million dollar property was not zoned for business. The lawsuit says that when the elected official was given applications to request a consideration that the property be rezoned to allow the build, the paperwork was never sent back to the city. Instead, the democrat continued to build the barn in violation of city laws. When Taborn placed a “stop work order” on the project, construction continued. Fines started to rack up, but the office holder who was building the barn went over the inspector’s head and went to Feeney, who belongs to the same political party, the lawsuit reads.
The federal complaint says that the zoning officer was called into the office by his bosses and told that the mayor was personally taking over the issue and that Taborn would no longer step foot on the land or pay any attention to the matter. When Taborn continued to enforce the city laws and went as far as attending a city council zoning meeting to tell council members about what was going on, the mayor’s office launched three internal affairs investigations into him, placing him on paid leave, and eventually firing him for “insubordination” in November 2022.
The lawsuit seeks an unspecified amount in damages not lower than the federally mandated $25,000, as well as lawyer fees. A request for comment from the mayor’s office for this story went unreturned. Feeney, who has the backing of the Ohio Democratic Party and has had his name floated as a potential gubernatorial candidate, will hold his reelection party for mayor Tuesday night at a local brewery.
First elected in 2015 in a three-way race, Feeney ran unopposed four years later. This November, so far, two people have filed to challenge him on the ballot, including current city councilwoman and retired police officer Julie Preston, along with local businesswoman Jade Berry. Preston is running as a republican and Berry as an independent, respectively. Feeney, of course, is a democrat who has seen his county’s party go from a stronghold on local offices to a small minority with himself, the city auditor, and three council members being the last democrats holding elective office in the municipality once dominated by liberals.
