In an Ohio village, an 8-year feud between its police chief and mayor goes to court

What started as a clash years ago between a village mayor and police chief erupted this month into a lawsuit in which Police Chief Tom Synan accused the mayor of disparaging him and threatening his nationally renowned work to end the opioid crisis.

The latest revelation came after Newtown Village Mayor Mark Kobasuk said he’s made no such threat or has not criticized Synan’s time spent with the Hamilton County Addiction Response Coalition – despite a recording that shows he did.

“You spend a lot of time outside the village,” Kobasuk said in a Feb. 21 meeting with the police chief and two council members, in which he questioned whether Synan was shirking hours as the police chief.

“I mean, I’m watching the news and I see the county sheriff … then I see (Hamilton County Commissioner) Denise Driehaus that’s talking about opiate deaths, and then there’s Tom Synan popping up there.

“I hope that’s after 5,” Kobasuk says. “But you know I just have the perception, Tom, that you should devote 100% of your time to Newtown.”

The public rift between two top officials in this quiet bedroom community of 2,702 has sparked an outcry from village residents, some of whom have called for the mayor’s resignation.

Here’s how the years-long feud developed.

It all began in September 2016, eight months after Kobasuk was sworn in, when, Synan claims, the mayor privately told him to “go along with” timesheet policy changes intended to set up an employee on a theft in office charge.

Synan felt uncomfortable with the plan, which he claims involved using the threat of a felony prosecution to force the employee from full-time employment, a scheme the chief believed might even be illegal.

Synan reported his concerns to members of the village council and thus began an eight-year cycle of “relentless harassment, bullying, retaliation and defamation” by Kobasuk against the police chief, Synan’s lawyers wrote in a civil complaint.

One of the more peculiar allegations in the lawsuit involves Synan being informed by another police chief in Hamilton County that the mayor was investigating Synan for misuse of funds and of a police cruiser.

The other chief said rumors were circulating among local law enforcement that Synan left a bar drunk and allowed a woman to drive his police cruiser, at which point a village secretary caught the pair.

Synan says the story was untrue but even rumors can harm his credibility and reputation. The chief was later told that he was not under investigation.

The lawsuit also says Kobasuk singled out the chief by requiring him to give a detailed timeline of his daily activities and that the mayor accused of Synan stealing time from the village.

The feud came to a head earlier this year, when Synan came away from the Feb. 21 meeting believing his firing was imminent.

Kobasuk denies that he holds a “personal vendetta” against the chief, saying he simply evaluated Synan’s work just like any other village employee. “First and foremost, I want residents to know that Chief Synan has not been terminated and no disciplinary action has been taken against him,” Kobasuk wrote in a statement. “I have also never expressed a desire to remove him as the village police chief.”

The Enquirer reached out to each village council member for their comments on the situation. Councilmember Sarah Donohue responded in an emailed statement: "As a newly elected council member I am still in the process of learning all of the facts regarding the lawsuit. Right now I am committed to (understanding) the situation so that we can inform the people of Newtown."

She added that she had no problem with Synan's public safety work outside the village, "as long as his commitment to the village of Newtown is fulfilled." No others responded.

Newtown neighbors react

First in line at a packed village council meeting on March 12, days after Synan filed his lawsuit in Hamilton County, was longtime resident Bill DeVore who attended with his wife, Nancy DeVore.

“We were shocked to realize how long this was going on,” DeVore later told The Enquirer.

They weren’t alone, Kobasuk said this week, responding to an Enquirer request for comment.

“I was shocked to learn Chief Synan chose to file a lawsuit without first trying to work through his issues,” he said in a statement.

Documents provided by Synan’s lawyers show a trail of tense encounters between the two relating to their ongoing disagreements over the years.

Outside the municipal hall, residents easily recount stories of a police chief who’s highly accessible – “How many people can say they’ve had coffee with the police chief?” DeVore said – and loyal because he has never vented his issues publicly.

“I’m on his side,” said Barbara Cromer, referring to Synan.

She sat with the Newtown Quilters earlier this month in a firehouse front room, where the group routinely meets. Other quilters nodded as Cromer defended the police chief’s work in the village and his efforts with the Hamilton County Addiction Response Coalition.

“I like what he does in Cincinnati,” Cromer said. “Having him, from the village of Newtown, coordinating for Cincinnati? He’s doing everyone a favor.”

She said police, including the chief, are readily visible in the village.

“I’ve always felt very safe here,” Cromer said. “You always see them around.”

Despite sitting so close to Cincinnati, Newtown is the epitome of a small town, and its crime rate reflects that.

Since 2014, a year before Synan helped found the Hamilton County Heroin Coalition (renamed in 2020 the Addiction Response coalition), there have been no murders in Newtown and only eight violent crimes.

Theft has been the village’s biggest issue, with an average of 21 thefts annually over the last 10 years.

Synan’s addiction coalition work starts at county level, explodes nationally

Synan was among a few police and public health officials who joined in 2015 to create the Hamilton County Heroin Coalition in response to a cascade of heroin overdose deaths and a growing burden on the criminal justice system, which was crowded with people who struggled with addiction.

As overdose deaths escalated across the country with the emergence of the deadly synthetic fentanyl, Synan’s cop-decries-punishment stance for those with addiction catapulted him into a national and sometimes international spotlight.

Synan in 2018: He's a Marine. A cop's cop. A tough guy. But he's willing to break the rules to save lives

He has been quoted in national magazines including Rolling Stone and has spoken on international programs including the BBC.

“Addiction should not be treated as a crime but instead treated as the mental health, medical condition it is,” Synan said.

He has been hands-on in coalition work and is an unofficial spokesman for the region’s efforts.

“He’s had a passion for this that goes back to the beginning,” said Driehaus, executive chair for the coalition. “He’s a crucial part of the work that we are doing towards saving lives, getting people into treatment and long-term recovery.”

The passion started years ago in Newtown, as Synan watched a family's struggles with substance use disorder, which led in one way or another to the deaths of the mother and two sons.

Since his coalition work evolved, Synan has said he attends fewer than a half-dozen meetings a month outside the village. There are also occasional speaking engagements. The mayor seems not to buy that, and says Synan needs to report to him his comings and goings.

Cromer, the quilter, said she's been in Newtown since 1997, (three years after Synan started as a rank-and-file police officer in the village) and she feels proud of the police chief's activities, near and far.

She said she’d brought a basket of food for the firefighters when the village quilters met, and it occurred to her she might want to do the same for the police chief.

“I brought in some jelly and pickles,” she said. “I was going to do the same thing for him because of all this he’s going through.

“I don’t know what the mayor’s beef is.”

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Ohio town's opioid-fighting police chief at odds with mayor for years