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January 16, 2009

GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE 3

Six gays and lesbians passed over for council

by Eric Resnick

Columbus City Council passed over qualified gay and lesbian applicants to fill vacancies this week, for the second time in two years.

The body's January 13 appointments may raise the ire of the LGBT community, as it did two years ago.

Sixty-five people applied for two seats that became vacant when Maryellen O'Shaughnessy was elected Franklin County Clerk of Courts and Kevin Boyce was appointed state treasurer.

Among the applicants were six gays and lesbians: Marc Conte, Jeff Knoll, Shawn Dingus, Terry J. Brown, Karla Rothan and Steve Farrell.

The list was narrowed to 16 finalists, including Conte, Dingus, Rothan and Farrell.

Conte is the research director for the Capital Crossroads Special Improvement District.

Dingus is an attorney who ran for Franklin County Common Pleas Court last year.

Rothan is the director of Stonewall Columbus.

Farrell is a lobbyist for the United Way and Columbus City Schools. He also sought appointment to a vacant council seat in 2007 and was passed over.

This outraged the LGBT community and, later that year, many LGBT Democrats voted for gay Republican Bill Brownson in protest. Lesbian Democratic Party activist Lynn Greer recorded an automated phone "robocall," asking people to support Brownson.

All seven Columbus councilors are elected at large, and all are Democrats. Council has a tradition of using appointments to reach out to minority constituencies for qualified candidates who may not, due to city demographics, have the ability to get elected.

Six of the current members, including the two new ones, first came to council by appointment.

If there is an opening in one of the minority constituency seats, council has, by tradition, attempted to do like-for-like replacement. They did this until 2007 when Mary Jo Hudson, the city's first lesbian councilor, resigned her seat to take a cabinet post in Governor Strickland's administration.

Hudson, who is white, was replaced by Priscilla Tyson, a black woman who is not lesbian.

A few months later, Patsy Thomas left council to become a Municipal Court judge. Thomas is also a non-lesbian black woman.

Farrell was passed over for the seat Thomas vacated, in favor of Hearcel Craig, a non-gay black man.

That year, council began to say that no constituency group can claim a seat, and deny that it did like-for-like replacements.

However, O'Shaughnessy, a non-lesbian white woman, was replaced by attorney Eileen Paley, also a non-lesbian white

woman.

Boyce, a non-gay black man, was replaced by medical software developer A. Troy Miller, also a non-gay black man.

Paley and Miller were selected with three votes, with Tyson and Charleta Tavares abstaining.

Their protest was over how council president Michael Mentel conducted the appointment process, accusing Mentel, Craig and Andrew Ginther of collusion.

Each of the three picked Paley and Miller as their top choices, which Tavares and Tyson found improbable.

The new members were appointed at a special meeting held January 13, a day after council was set to vote on them. Both Tyson and Tavares were absent at the earlier meeting, leaving too few remaining for a quorum.

Tyson said she needed to care for her sick son. Tavares said she had a business conflict.

After the vote, Dingus expressed disappointment that he was not appointed, but said that the two new councilors were well qualified.

Shawn Dingus

"I do sincerely hope, however, that one day members of the GLBT community will once again be included in the leadership of our local government, and I call on all of those in our community to work diligently to make that happen," said Dingus.

The others could not be reached.

Stark jail abused man with AIDS symptoms, he says

Lawsuit claims he was denied treatment and forced to wear a 'hazmat' suit

by Anthony Glassman

Canton-A gay New Orleans man is suing the Stark County sheriff and jail officers for denying him AIDS medication and treatment, keeping him in isolation, and other abuses while he was an inmate in 2005.

Roy Allen Haynes says the jail's response to his symptoms of serious illness were to confine him to a cell with only a concrete slab to sleep on and force him to wear a stifling, full-body suit of the type used by hazardous-materials workers.

He filed his civil rights suit in federal court in 2007, alleging cruel and unusual punishment and dereliction of duty, among other offenses. It is now moving forward, with the first depositions at the end of the month. He is seeking $5.5 million in damages.

Haynes was arrested in mid-2000 for growing medical marijuana. During his trial, he skipped bond and went to New Orleans, so the court issued a warrant for his arrest.

Almost five years later, he was arrested in Louisiana and brought back to Ohio. Before leaving, the head nurse of the Orleans Parish Prison in Louisiana gave the officers who were transporting Haynes a two-week supply of his HIV and other medications, a copy of his medical records and a prescription card.

According to the suit, when Haynes

got to the Stark County Jail, he requested a wheelchair "because I was so weak after the trip from vomiting, but was denied a wheelchair."

"During my intake process, I went through a nurse's screening with Nurse Jane Doe 1, during which time her and I discussed my AIDS status, went through my medical records, HIV issues, my medication..." the filing continues. "On July 21, 2005, Nurse Jane Doe 1 threw away all of my AIDS and related medications without any explanation."

"When I asked her about this she said, 'She didn't know what one of the pills were,' even though she had a signed prescription card from Dr. French in Louisiana.'

Haynes' lawsuit, which he filed without legal representation, goes on, “No medications were issued as a replacement for any of the medications thrown away by Nurse Jane Doe 1."

Later that day, he was told to bring his mattress to another ward; he was being removed from the infirmary. Again he asked for a wheelchair and told the officer he was too weak to carry the mattress. According to Haynes, the guard denied him a wheelchair and told him if he couldn't carry his mattress, he “could do without one."

He was put in a punitive segregation cell without an explanation—when he asked, he was told, "Shut the fuck up and

Windsong

Cleveland's Feminist Chorus Karen Weaver, Artistic Director

Winter Concert

Peace Offering

Sunday, Jan. 18 at 4:00 p.m.

Church of the Covenant 11205 Euclid Avenue in University Circle (Free parking in church lot and the Ford Avenue lot to the east)

Advance tickets: $12

Available from any Windsong member; or on our website: www.windsongchorus.org or call 216-556-0858; or by mail to P.O. Box 609534, Cleveland, OH 44109-0534

At the door: $15

get into the cell." It wasn't until late that night that another officer brought him mattresses and sheets. She asked him, "Why are you in punitive segregation, and why was an entire ward cleared out for you?"

The bright light in his cell was kept on at all times, Haynes says, and food was shoved through a tray slot at the bottom of the door, which much of it falling off the tray.

Three days after being admitted, he was finally given a new jumpsuit and his cell was cleaned. When he returned to his cell, the bleach fumes were so strong "they burned my eyes and lungs badly. I had to wet my towel (I was finally given

'What you people trying to do, kill

this man?'

one for 'laundry day') and place it over my face."

Later, a doctor came and looked in his ears through the food tray slot in the door. When Haynes told the doctor that his thrush infection was in his throat, he was ignored.

When he was allowed a phone call, he was required to wear "a hazmat-like suit" before he was let out of his cell. He called his sister-in-law, but when he described his denial of proper medical treatment, he was ordered to hang up the phone and return to his cell.

When he was being taken to court on July 27, 2005, he was again forced to put on the "hazmat" suit, despite the high temperatures. Haynes began vomiting and defecating in the suit because of the effects of the heat on his weakened system.

He was given a new jumpsuit and put back in his cell, and a nurse informed him that EMTs were coming to take him to the

hospital. She gave him another "hazmat" suit to put on.

When the paramedics arrived, Haynes writes, they said, "Why is he in that? What you people trying to do, kill this man?"

One of the female guards protested the EMT cutting the suit off of Haynes, but he did so anyway, and took him to Aultman Hospital.

The judge in his case allowed him to go back to New Orleans for a week to get more HIV medications, and when he returned, the Stark County Jail officers again required him to wear the bulky suit for transfer. He was in his new jail for a halfhour before being sent to the Ohio State University Medical Center, then was transferred to Pickaway Correction Camp's Frazier Health Clinic.

Haynes has since completed his sentence and moved back to New Orleans. Attorney Caryn Peterson of Oldham, Kramer, DeSaussure, Oby & Gerney in Akron is now representing him, and they successfully fought a motion to dismiss the case, which names as defendants Stark County Sheriff Timothy Swanson and a number of as-yet-unnamed jail staffers, including Nurse Jane Doe 1 and the jail's medical director.

"At the point when I was almost dead, I was on my way to court, I was throwing up all over the cop car," Haynes said in a telephone call earlier this month.

He said that it was pretty clear to everyone but the jail personnel that he was really ill.

"I got an 'own recognizance' bond that was unsigned after I was on the run for five years," he noted, pointing out that the judge clearly knew he needed proper medical treatment.

At Aultman Hospital, county social workers told him they couldn't do much to help him since he was not a Stark County resident. That was when "Judge Sinclair told me to go back to Louisiana and get more medicine."

Even though the suit was filed a year and a half ago, said Peterson, "We are just in the beginning stages now, having gotten past the motion to dismiss."

The deposition of Sheriff Swanson is scheduled for the last week of January. The case is before Judge John R. Adams of the Ohio Northern District federal court.