BELLAIRE, Ohio – The Bellaire Village Council meeting Thursday evening erupted into a prolonged on-the-record confrontation between Mayor Robert Dodrill and Council President Janet Richardson, with both officials clashing over the village’s mounting fiscal problems, road conditions, and the fallout from the alleged forced resignation of the village’s fiscal officer — all while Dodrill announced he has scheduled interviews for both the fiscal officer and village administrator positions for next week.
You can watch the full council meeting on the River News Facebook page here.
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Bellaire Council President Fires Back at Mayor Over Village’s Fiscal Crisis and Staff Exodus
The meeting, held in council chambers at 5 p.m., opened with Dodrill reporting progress on the village’s billing and payroll operations.
“We’re getting them paid, which is good, because we have to put a whole bunch of the bills into the system and we’re getting them taken care of,” he said.
He added that direct deposit for village employees is expected to be available by the next pay period, crediting traveling clerk Melanie Smith for the effort. “She’s working on it really hard — our traveling clerk,” Dodrill said.
The mayor also disclosed he has arranged interviews for candidates to fill the vacant fiscal officer and village administrator positions. “I have people that I’m interviewing on Monday, and also on Wednesday, for the village administrator position and the fiscal officer’s position,” he told council. “I set up interviews with them, so I’m going to have them come down here and hopefully we’ll have somebody to fill this out.”
Following the mayor’s report, Richardson confronted the mayor over the April 14 council fact sheet and his subsequent media rebuttal, which she said amounted to an effort to “defame the truth and defame my character.”
“The facts that were posted on the website under the council notes were done so only after there were a series of public broadcasts by yourself that provided disinformation,” Richardson said directly to Dodrill. “Recently you put out your last public announcement, pretty much attacking me and trying to discredit those facts.”
“You have been voted in here to service and run this village. You need to start doing the work for the people.” Richardson added.
Richardson said the council made a decision to ask former fiscal officer Ginny Favede to resign, a choice she said was difficult but necessary. Richardson pressed Dodrill on his public statements suggesting Favede left due to a hostile work environment.
“Why are you saying that she resigned due to a hostile work environment? We’re not sure of which is true,” Richardson said. “This council had to make a very difficult decision. It wasn’t easy, and it was heart-wrenching.”
She also revised upward the number of employees who have left under the current administration to nine including the clerk of council. Richardson said, “You don’t have a team to work with right now. I don’t know why nine people left in three months, but they did. The village is unstable.”
Dodrill pushed back against Richardson’s characterization that he had been spending time attacking council rather than governing. “You’ve been spending a lot of time working to discredit me,” Richardson charged at one point.
“Not at all — not at all,” Dodrill responded repeatedly.
The mayor acknowledged the village is operating shorthanded but argued he had been actively working on solutions, including interviewing candidates and coordinating with road contractors. On the pothole repair issue, Dodrill said he has been in contact with Wilson’s Blacktop and is working to address Pelkey’s Turn before an imminent road closure — though he had not yet reported those details to council. “I was going to tell you that was going to be one of my next things I was about to talk about,” he said.
On the broader staffing crisis, Dodrill noted that had Favede still been in place, he would have been interviewing laborers and street crew candidates this week.
When Richardson pressed him on why the council candidates she and other members had provided were never contacted, Dodrill acknowledged it, saying, “I have reached out to them. I’m talking to two of them Monday.”
Richardson replied, “That’s great. I’m really glad to hear that.”
Richardson raised the issue of vendor invoices going unpaid for 30 to 60 days, resulting in penalties the village will now have to absorb. She told Dodrill she had documentation — including emails from the police department and the OPWC system — showing vendors repeatedly reaching out for payment. “There is a huge penalty that this village now has to pay because they were paid 30 to 60 days late,” she said. “You don’t have money to pay penalties.”
Dodrill responded that he inherited a difficult financial situation. “You also understand that I came into a mess — all of us came into a mess — and we were trying to climb out of that mess,” he said. Richardson countered that Dodrill’s claims to media about discovering problems in the water and police departments were misleading, noting that the audit in question was ordered in 2020 by the previous council and was already underway when the new administration took office.
Richardson prepared a document with detailed information on council’s response to Dodrill’s rebuttal.
Both Dodrill and Richardson ultimately expressed a desire to move past the public dispute.
On a more positive note, Mayor Dodrill announced a groundbreaking ceremony for Bellaire’s recreation and entertainment complex has been set for May 4, with actual construction scheduled to begin June 15. “It’s finally happening,” he said. “We hope that the citizens of Bellaire can come to participate in that.”
Council voted unanimously to amend the 2013 Historic Landmarks Commission ordinance, updating residency requirements to include the Bellaire School District rather than only village residents, and replacing a reference to the Chamber of Commerce with the Bellaire Business Alliance.
Two Bellaire natives who are campaigning for political office, Kevin Flanagan and Josh Meyers, spoke before council about their platforms. Flanagan is the current Belmont County prosecutor and is running for Belmont County Court of Common Pleas judge, while Meyer, a former Belmont County commissioner and Republican is running for county auditor.
The next regular council meeting is scheduled for May 7, 2026, at 5 p.m. in council chambers.
Follow River News online and on Facebook for updates on Bellaire’s fiscal and personnel issues and responses from the mayor and council.
