COLUMBUS, Ohio – The Ohio Supreme Court has dismissed a lawyer’s request for records kept by the state’s privatized job-creation agency on procedural grounds.
The decision came Tuesday in a complaint filed by former ProgressOhio attorney Victoria Ullmann. She filed the complaint in August after being dropped as lead lawyer on a more high-profile constitutional challenge to JobsOhio that continues.
In a unanimous, two-paragraph decision, the justices said the state law creating JobsOhio “specifically exempted” the office from Ohio’s public records law.
Ullmann had asked justices to declare JobsOhio a state agency because the privatized economic development entity acts as the “functional equivalent” of one under the law. Such a ruling would have opened JobsOhio to public records requests and other forms of scrutiny that were prevented under its enabling legislation.
Ullmann at one time represented advocacy group ProgressOhio in actions against JobsOhio.
The court held it could not grant Ullmann’s request because, while some of the organization‘s records are subject to public records law, Ullmann did not seek those.