Serving Lucas, Ottawa, Sandusky and Wood Counties
The Jerusalem Township trustees held their latest regular meeting on June 23 in the township’s administration building, which was highlighted by more zoning discussions.
In the previous meeting on May 28, former zoning inspector Jacob Barnes submitted a letter of resignation after the township eliminated the position of his assistant, Rob Gearhart. It was then said that the Lucas County Prosecutor’s Office is investigating the actions of the zoning department.
Following the elimination of his position, Gearhart canceled a public hearing notice for the requested rezoning of 9815 Corduroy Rd. in The Press, which prevented the township from meeting legal requirements for public notices.
The Press can confirm that Gearhart sent an email from his Jerusalem Township address to our newsroom on May 12 at 8:29 p.m. canceling the ad for the public hearing.
“Please cancel this request,” the email said. “We haven’t gotten sufficient direction from two of our trustees, Beau Miller and Alex Lytten, to proceed with this.”
Interestingly, that email came just 12 hours and nine minutes after Gearhart confirmed the accuracy of the ad via email and asked for it to be printed in the May 18 issue, and it was just one day after he initially submitted the request.
Then, on May 28, just prior to that regular meeting, the trustees approved the Corduroy Road zoning change as trustee Beau Miller said the Lucas County Planning Commission told them to proceed.
Township trustee Alex Lytten told The Press that the county’s investigation involves two items, which are how the paperwork for the Corduroy Road zoning change request was processed through the office and about Gearhart canceling the advertisement in The Press.
At the June 23 meeting, trustee Dave Bench read a letter from John Borell, who is Lucas County’s Civil Deputy Chief Prosecutor, in regard to the legal validity of the Corduroy Road zoning change from C2 to agricultural/residential.
“Based on the information that I have, the meeting on the zoning change was not properly noticed,” Bench read from the letter. “Therefore, the zoning change is invalid.”
And that stems from the email that Gearhart sent to The Press canceling the notice.
Bench said they may have to start the whole process over and that they’ll have to run it by Borell.
Lytten was hopeful that the process can have a better solution.
“There’s got to be some way to resolve that short of going through the process all over again,” Lytten said.
Immediately following that part of the meeting, Bench read another letter from Barnes, who said he was speaking on behalf of Borell and the county’s investigation.
“The complaint submitted to the Lucas County Prosecutor’s Office was reviewed by John Borell,” Barnes said. “Mr. Borell did not see anything illegal that Rob or Jacob did. The Lucas County Prosecutor’s Office will issue an official statement soon. Rob and Jacob have nothing against Jerusalem Township and want to move on.”
The reading of that letter, which held no official value, confused Lytten. He even called Miller, who wasn’t able to attend the June 23 meeting, about it.
“It was very confusing when Dave brought up that letter,” Lytten said. “It really threw everything off. I talked to Beau later on about it, and he’s like, ‘That makes no sense. Why are we reading Jacob’s statement about the prosecutor’s office? That makes no sense.’”
Barnes then called the newsroom at The Press on June 24, one day after the latest regular meeting, asking if we were planning on making any more reports on the matter. He was told that we are waiting on the official decision from the Lucas County Prosecutor’s Office.
“I have no idea why in God’s green earth why (Dave) would have presented that if it wasn’t an official ruling from the prosecutor,” Miller said. “That made no sense to me whatsoever, and that was very bad on his part to do because it was from Jacob. I was a little shocked that he did that.”
Barnes confirmed that he did contact the prosecutor’s office, although Borell didn’t respond to a voicemail from The Press before this issue went to print on June 25.
Barnes said the case wasn’t submitted to Borell. It was submitted to someone else at the county office, but Borell was shown the information.
“They showed it to John,” Barnes said. “He looked at it and didn’t see anything wrong with it, but since it wasn’t submitted to him, the statement couldn’t come back from him. He didn’t want to overstep on them. He was just leaving it in their hands.”
Barnes said that he has known a lot of those attorneys for 25 years.
“I know them all pretty well,” he said.
At the same time, with the elimination of Gearhart’s position and the resignation of Barnes, the township is searching for a new zoning inspector with Kevin Chapman currently serving an interim role.
Lytten said the trustees have a tentative date of July 10 to interview applicants, which he said numbers around seven people so far. Should they make a decision before the next regular meeting, they’ll hold a special meeting to approve the selected candidate.
Bench said the township is looking for a couple key skills among the candidates.
“They've got to have good communication with the people and do the zoning book as it's said,” he said. “Don't have, ‘Hey, my buddy wants this or that.’ That's happened sometimes, and I don't want any of that. It's what the book says.”
Meanwhile, with Chapman’s interim role, the township has had five zoning inspectors since May 2024, although Miller said there were different circumstances in each case.
Lytten, when asked if there was any concern among trustees about the department’s turnover, said it is a difficult role to fill.
“It’s unfortunate, certainly,” Lytten said. “I would love to not have to look for a zoning inspector every few months. It's brutal. It's difficult. It would be great if we found somebody that worked out, that could last long term. But it is what it is. It's a difficult job to fill. It's a no-win. You piss somebody off, no matter what you do, and you can't make everybody happy.”
Moratorium statement
During the regular meeting, Lytten shared news from Miller that said there are reports that First Energy brought a tour group of data center investors through Jerusalem Township recently, and they were looking around at options for data centers.
The Press spoke with Miller over the phone on June 25, as he missed the meeting due to illness, and he provided a bit more detail. He said the township’s trustees received a call from the Regional Growth Partnership (RGP), who wanted to drop off some information because there was a group of investors from Dallas, Texas that was coming to look at not just Jerusalem Township, but Jerusalem Township specifically was one of the areas they were checking out because First Energy recommended the township as an area that has easy access for power and water.
The trustees didn’t know anything else other than that, but they made it clear that there is a one-year moratorium in place. The document that the RGP presented described how much money a data center could pump into the economy.
Thus, Miller wanted to be transparent and make sure residents knew that there at least were people in town looking, although there wasn’t much information available other than that.
Considering that situation, in Jerome Township near Columbus, trustees had installed a moratorium on data centers per an article in The Columbus Dispatch titled ‘Data centers approved in Jerome Township despite nine-month moratorium’ on Jan. 31, 2026.
That township’s zoning inspector allegedly “quietly approved zoning certificates for four new data center complexes that he previously rejected,” according to the article. Two of those were approved because they were submitted prior to the moratorium, but the other two came after it was in place.
That story is key because it underscores the importance for Jerusalem Township to find a solution for its zoning department.
“Obviously, I want someone who's fair and balanced and somebody who's customer service oriented, but also someone who can take the heat when the heat is hot,” Lytten said. “Surprisingly, the heat's on a lot. That seems to be a theme in zoning these days in all sorts of towns.”
