City Continues to Delay Records Production While Raising New Questions About How Requests Are Handled

By Ashton Seales

After more than six weeks, major portions of a public records request involving the former Rite Aid property and Marion Goodwill lease remain unfulfilled.

More than six weeks after I submitted a public records request concerning the City of Marion’s purchase of the former Rite Aid property and its subsequent lease to Marion Goodwill, significant portions of that request remain unfulfilled.

The request was originally submitted to the City of Marion on May 27, 2026.

It sought records from multiple city offices involved in the property purchase, the proposed conversion of the building into a fire station, and the later decision to lease the property to Goodwill as a processing and sorting facility.

The requested records included communications, appraisals, market-rent information, draft leases, legal reviews, financial analyses, feasibility studies and documents explaining why the lease was considered so urgent that it was passed as emergency legislation.

Although the City acknowledged the request on May 29, the latest correspondence raises questions about when several city offices were actually notified and whether the City believes residents must independently identify and contact every department that might possess responsive records.

City Says Some Offices Were Not Notified Until June

According to correspondence from Marion Law Director Mark Russell, several departments and offices were not notified of the request until approximately the middle of June.

That was roughly two to three weeks after the original request was submitted to the City.

The City has since taken the position that a request submitted to one municipal office does not necessarily bind other departments unless the municipality has formally created a centralized public-records clearinghouse.

Under that interpretation, a resident requesting records involving several city departments may be expected to separately deliver the request to each individual office.

That position is particularly troubling in a case like this one.

The former Rite Aid purchase and Goodwill lease involved the mayor’s office, the safety/service director, the law director, City Council, the clerk of council, the fire department and potentially outside attorneys or consultants.

The public should not be expected to understand the City’s internal organization better than the City itself.

When a request clearly identifies a city project and the offices likely to possess responsive records, forwarding that request to the appropriate custodians should be a basic administrative function—not a procedural trap used weeks later to dispute when the request was received.

Thousands of Files Identified, but Few Answers Provided

The City has stated that an electronic search using the identified keywords returned more than 3,000 files.

Officials have cautioned that many of those files may contain only a single keyword and may not actually be responsive.

That may be true.

However, it also confirms that a substantial body of potentially relevant electronic material exists and must be reviewed.

The City has not provided a clear schedule for completing that review or producing responsive records on a rolling basis.

Instead, I have repeatedly received explanations about the volume of material and the time required to review it.

Public-records requests can certainly require reasonable review and redaction. But the existence of a large number of records does not eliminate the obligation to provide responsive documents within a reasonable period of time.

It should also not prevent the City from producing records in batches as they are identified and reviewed.

A $200 Box of Paper Records

The City also identified a bankers box reportedly containing approximately 4,000 pages of fire-station designs, drawings and other documents.

At five cents per page, the estimated copying cost would be approximately $200.

It remains unclear how much of that material is actually responsive to the request or whether electronic versions of the same plans and documents exist.

For a modern construction and design project, it would be reasonable to expect that at least some architectural plans, communications, estimates and feasibility materials were created or transmitted electronically.

The request was not for thousands of unnecessary paper copies. It was for access to the responsive records, preferably in their existing electronic format when available.

The City should identify which records exist electronically, which exist only on paper and which portions of the box are actually responsive before expecting a requester to pay for every page.

No Legal Analysis of the Property Lease Provided

One of the requested categories involved any legal research, memoranda or analysis concerning Ohio Revised Code 721.03 and whether it applied to the lease of the former Rite Aid property.

The City’s response was that no such records exist because its position is that the statute does not apply.

That answer creates an obvious question.

If the City reached a legal conclusion that the statute did not apply, was that conclusion researched, discussed or communicated anywhere?

A government body may ultimately decide that a law does not apply. But when public property is being leased through emergency legislation, the public has a legitimate interest in understanding how that conclusion was reached.

If there truly are no memoranda, emails, notes or other records documenting the analysis, the public is left with only the City’s final assertion and no meaningful record of the reasoning behind it.

The Deadline Was Extended in Good Faith

I originally gave the City until July 1 to provide the remaining records or a meaningful update.

On June 29, after receiving additional communication and assurances that progress was being made, I extended that deadline until July 7.

I did so because I would genuinely prefer not to take this dispute to court.

Court action costs time, money and public resources. It should not be necessary to obtain records that belong to the public.

However, cooperation requires more than occasional status updates. It requires actual production, clear explanations and reasonable timelines.

The extended deadline passed without the complete production of the requested records.

Before moving forward, I sent another message to the law director, mayor and members of City Council asking whether any additional records could be released or whether there were further updates.

I explained that unless the remaining records or a sufficient response were received by 3 p.m. on July 7, I intended to serve a public-records complaint against the City.

This Is About More Than One Request

This dispute is not simply about a box of documents or several thousand electronic files. It is about whether Marion residents can meaningfully examine how public officials make decisions involving public property and taxpayer money.

The former Rite Aid property was purchased in November 2024 using fire levy funds. The publicly stated purpose was to expand or relocate fire department operations. The project was later placed on hold because of insufficient funding.

Then, in May 2026, the City moved quickly to lease the property to Marion Goodwill for approximately $4,000 per month. The lease was introduced as emergency legislation and described as extremely time-sensitive.

The public has a right to examine the documents behind that rapid change in direction.

What feasibility studies were completed?

What was the estimated cost of converting the building into a fire station?

When did officials begin discussing the lease with Goodwill?

How was the rental amount determined?

Was the property appraised?

Were comparable rental rates reviewed?

Why was emergency legislation necessary?

Those are not unreasonable questions. They are exactly the types of questions Ohio’s public-records law exists to help citizens answer.

Transparency Should Not Require Persistence Without End

I have tried to resolve this matter without litigation. I have clarified the request, narrowed questions, extended deadlines and repeatedly asked whether additional records could be produced.

But transparency cannot depend entirely on whether a resident is persistent enough to continue asking.

Those who know me know that persistence is not something I lack—especially when I believe the public’s right to know is at stake.

Still, no resident should have to spend six weeks following up with multiple officials, debating internal departmental responsibilities and preparing a court complaint simply to learn how public property was evaluated and leased.

The City still has an opportunity to provide the remaining records and resolve this matter without prolonged litigation. But each additional delay makes one thing clearer:

The greatest obstacle to public trust is not scrutiny. It is the continued refusal to provide the information that would allow the public to determine whether that trust is deserved.