DeWine booted from committee he started

Democratic Hamilton County Commissioners David Pepper and Todd Portune last week kicked their Republican colleague, Pat DeWine to the curb.

OK, not completely.

But they did boot a surprised DeWine off of the Shared Services Committee, which DeWine started last year to explore efforts to save county money.

Pepper initiated the move at the county commission meeting last week. He noted DeWine, in budget hearings a week earlier, had said if the $50,000 for the committee hadn’t already been spent, he would have suggested cutting it in favor of funding a contract to keep overflow inmates in the Butler County jail.

“I don’t see how someone can chair an effort when he has said in a public meeting that it isn’t a priority,” Pepper said.

DeWine called the move “symbolic of how petty things have gotten around here.”

“There’s a process I started that you want to remove me from and that’s fine. You’re the majority. That’s your right,” he told Pepper. “But I think that really says there is no interest in any kind of bipartisanship, diverse opinions or anything other than being petty.”

DeWine agreed that yes, he thinks it’s more important to keep inmates in jail than to spend $50,000 on a committee. But Pepper’s move was all politics, and it all comes back to the controversial jail issue, he said.

“I think we have reached a point where there is … an effort to shut out any dissenting viewpoint and removing people from committees because we don’t like where they stand on the jail sales tax,” DeWine said.

Portune seconded Pepper’s motion, but didn’t add to the discussion except to say “If we want to have a full discussion of personal accusations, that’s fine. But I prefer to spend it on more substantive matters.”

Portune will take DeWine's place representing the commissioners on the committee. Pepper noted later that DeWine is welcome to attend the committee meetings, but should no longer be the commissioners' representative.

And with that they voted DeWine off the committee.

He was in disbelief.

“I feel like I’m in fourth grade,” DeWine said then suggested wryly to his colleagues, “If you’d like, you could bring in a motion to take away my parking spot as well.”