By Sheila McLaughlin
Enquirer Staff Writer

SYMMES TOWNSHIP - A discussion between trustees about a park levy erupted into a confrontation that boiled over into the parking lot after the meeting.

The flap started during the public meeting Tuesday night when Trustee Eric Minamyer accused fellow board members Jodie Leis and Kathy Wagner of discussing their votes beforehand in violation of the Ohio Open Meetings Act.

The vote came minutes after Leis announced that officials with Ralph J. Stolle Countryside YMCA in Lebanon had cut Symmes out of a plan to build a satellite Y with Deerfield Township.

Trustees were expected Tuesday to set a park levy that would help pay for the Y.

Instead, Leis and Wagner voted to reduce an existing 1.85-mill park levy to 1.2-mills, saying they wanted to give taxpayers a break in light of a $1 million surplus in the parks fund.

Minamyer favored a 1.4-mill levy.

"I hope the two of you did not get together outside the sunshine law," Minamyer said, adding that he "strongly suspected" they did.

Leis and Wagner denied the allegation.

After the meeting adjourned, Leis and Minamyer engaged in a heated argument in a hallway that included finger-pointing.

It continued into the parking lot before Leis squeezed past Minamyer, who was standing at her car door, yelling to him that he needed to be sure of his allegations.

"Go to hell. You're going to get yourself in trouble," she told him.

Minamyer then tried to stop Wagner, but she ran past him and got into her car after directing an expletive at him.

Minamyer said later he did not intend to file a complaint against Leis and Wagner regarding his allegations "unless they continue to make an issue about it."

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E-mail smclaughlin@enquirer.com