Forced out of court clerk job over politicking and bungled cases, Sandusky County GOP chair appointed to commissioner seat

FREMONT, Ohio — The Sandusky County Republican Party Central Committee appointed its own chairman, Justin Smith, to fill a vacant county commissioner seat on April 18, picking him after three rounds of voting at a meeting Smith was barred from chairing because he was on the ballot.

The vote, held at the Sandusky County Engineer’s Office in Fremont, filled the seat held by former commissioner Charlie Schwochow, whose last day was March 31, according to the Fremont News-Messenger. Vice Chairman Ben Decker presided as acting chair to avoid a conflict of interest with Smith’s candidacy. Of 41 voting members, 32 attended.

The central committee was tasked with making two appointments simultaneously: filling the remainder of Schwochow’s term and naming the candidate who would appear on the November 3 general election ballot to fill the final two years of the seat. The committee approved making both appointments to the same candidate by unanimous voice vote.

Of nine original candidates, all but three were eliminated in the first round after a five-way tie for last. Smith advanced past Sandusky Township Trustee Paul Lotycz and Barbara Bristley to win on the third ballot. He was sworn in April 20 by Sandusky County Juvenile and Probate Judge Brad Smith, no relation, in a ceremony at the county commissioners’ office.

“I’m very excited and looking forward to working for the citizens of Sandusky County,” Smith told the News-Messenger after the vote. “We’re going to make a difference and do everything we can to make the county a better place to be.”

Smith resigned from his day job after the appointment and stepped down April 20 from his seat on the Sandusky County Board of Elections.

A 2019 forced resignation from county court

Smith’s appointment comes seven years after he was pushed out of a different county job following documented criticism that he was using county time to conduct political business — the very kind of activity his new role on the county board of commissioners is meant to oversee.

In March 2019, Smith resigned from a deputy clerk position in Sandusky County Court District No. 1 in Clyde after being verbally reprimanded, according to personnel records reviewed by TiffinOhio.net. Smith told the Fremont News-Messenger at the time, “I was forced to resign,” and denied any wrongdoing. “It was the right thing to do. It was a negative work environment. I have done nothing wrong,” Smith said, declining to elaborate.

The political-business findings were the throughline of the supervisor’s complaints. Then-Sandusky County Clerk of Courts Tracy Overmyer reviewed two months of Smith’s outgoing phone calls and concluded that he had repeatedly contacted the county board of elections from work, along with making other calls that appeared related to his political role, the personnel records show. One specific call documented in the file was placed at 4:25 p.m. on Feb. 6, 2019 — the filing deadline for the May 2019 primary — to check which candidates had filed petitions. Smith acknowledged that call but denied making other political calls on work time.

Overmyer’s broader assessment, in a Nov. 30, 2018 memo contained in the file, was that Smith was failing to demonstrate adequate knowledge of the job and was turning in inaccurate work.

The file documented multiple specific case-handling failures. In February 2018, Smith failed to dismiss a temporary protection order against a woman who was later arrested in Ottawa County for allegedly violating it. The order should have been dismissed Feb. 27, 2018, but Smith did not enter the dismissal until May 10 — one day after the woman was arrested. Charges against her were ultimately dropped after the error was discovered. In September 2018, Smith and another clerk restored driving privileges to a defendant whom Judge John Kolesar had not granted privileges; the clerk’s office later sent corrective messages to the Bureau of Motor Vehicles.

An Aug. 31, 2018 letter of reprimand cited Smith for failing to correctly serve eviction paperwork on multiple occasions, illegible handwriting that affected scanned records, continuing to ask questions after training was complete, and leaving cases open. An earlier performance review covering 2016 to March 2017 commended Smith for working hard and staying busy throughout the day, but flagged concerns about his attention to detail and the legibility of his handwriting.

From city council to county commission

Smith has chaired the Sandusky County Republican Party since 2008, when he was elected at age 23 — at the time the youngest political party chairman in Ohio, according to prior News-Messenger reporting. He served on the Fremont City Council representing the First Ward from 2017 until November 2023, when he resigned to take a seat on the Sandusky County Board of Elections following the death of board member Peg Rettig. He had previously served on the elections board from 2010 to 2015.

Smith works as a permanent substitute teacher for Clyde-Green Springs Schools at Clyde High School, and previously substituted at Fremont Middle School. He won his Ward 1 council seat in 2017 by two votes — 328 to 326 — over Don Nalley, and was reelected in 2021 against Cassandrea Tucker.

The other finalists and the road ahead

Lotycz, who finished second in the central committee vote, is on the May 5 Republican primary ballot for the commissioner’s seat held by Russ Zimmerman, according to the Sandusky County Board of Elections candidate list. Zimmerman’s term ends Dec. 31, 2026, and he is leaving office at the end of his second term, the News-Messenger reported. Lotycz is a Sandusky Township trustee who previously ran his family’s floor-covering business and now drives a school bus for Fremont City Schools.

Bristley, the third finalist, is on the May 5 primary ballot for a seat on the central committee in Sandusky Township D, according to the elections office. She is a retired accountant who previously worked at Whirlpool and has led American P.A.G.E., a Sandusky County conservative group focused on government transparency.

Schwochow’s reasons for stepping down have not been publicly disclosed. At the swearing-in ceremony, Smith told Schwochow, “I have very tough shoes to fill, and you have done a great job for the county, Charlie, and we are all praying for you.”

Commissioner Scott Miller, who was out of town for the central committee vote, submitted a letter on the appointment process that was read by Zimmerman, who urged the committee to choose someone “electable, come November.” At Smith’s swearing-in, Miller called Smith “a good leader” and said the county was lucky to have him.

Under Ohio Revised Code, when a partisan county officeholder vacates a seat, the central committee of the same political party fills the vacancy. The seat will appear on the November 3 general election ballot for the final two years of the term.