Councilwoman to resign after judge declines to clear her felony record

“Unfortunately because of that and I know to a lot of people it’s just one little technical answer, well to me that’s a big deal,” Stephens said.

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She was indicted for felony theft and forgery in September 2009. She pleaded guilty to forgery and was ordered to pay $473.28 in restitution to Walmart plus a $250 fine and court costs.

Horn ran unopposed in the Nov. 5. election, winning a seat on the seven-member village council, and was sworn in Jan. 2. When Butler County Prosecutor Mike Gmoser learned a convicted felon was about the take office, he asked the 12th District Court of Appeals to stop it. Horn filed a motion to have her record sealed in December, and Gmoser filed an objection.

She said she doesn’t have enough time to continue fighting for the expungement to keep her seat on council. She has 30 days to appeal Stephens’ decision and must respond to the existing action in the 12th District if she wants to keep her council seat.

“I’m not going to get that done fast enough, with my work schedule, it’s just not going to happen,” she told the Journal-News.

With her resignation, new Mayor Stephanie Chandler will be accepting applications to fill the seat. The man she beat, former Mayor Bob Henley, already filed his bid to return to council. Horn encouraged others to apply.

“Come tonight, this seat is going to be open, there is a process to fill that,” she said. “You can’t let someone you have chose to not re-elect for mayor sneak back in there and have control.”

Henley lost the election 63 to 37 percent margin. In the tiny village of about 2,250 residents only 220 people cast ballots. Henley has been on the village council in some capacity since 2008.

“I love my little town, I want to be involved and regardless of what was said about me, you know ‘nothing’s been done in six years,’ this is all being said by people that never come to a council meeting,” Henley told the Journal-News. “They don’t know what gets done. There’s a lot of things that get done that everybody doesn’t see. When you have limited finances there’s only so many things you can do.”