The anonymous, type-written letters started showing up at the New Franklin mayor’s office about a year ago.
They weren’t really threats, Mayor Al Bollas said Saturday. They were passionate complaints about what a lousy job he was doing, sometimes dredging up things that happened 50 years earlier.
Bollas didn’t think about the letters much until a resident showed up with an anonymous racist letter he received after a black family moved in next door to him.
When Bollas saw the type and the same lousy spelling and grammar — the letter writer often used “are” instead of “our” — Bollas said he knew they were targeted by the same letter writer.
They went to New Franklin police, who were also contacted by Manchester Local School District officials after receiving letters of their own, letters that contained threats and all sorts of vulgarity, particularly targeting a female school board member, the mayor said.
On Friday, after months of staking out mailboxes, police said they nabbed the poison penman just as he was about to drop another round of anonymous threats and complaints into the mail. Russell Kleckner faces menacing and menacing by stalking charges.
“At first, I just thought it was a harmless crank,” Bollas said, adding many public officials probably receive an anonymous complaint once in awhile. But when one of the letters showed up at his home address, instead of City Hall, he became concerned.
When police called Bollas on Friday and said they had arrested Kleckner, Bollas immediately recognized the name.
Back in the 1960s and 1970s, kids from the area all went to the Kleckners’ Center Road property to sled because it had the best slope. Everyone called it Kleckner’s Hill, Bollas said.
Bollas, however, didn’t know Russell Kleckner, who owns the property now.
When he looked at Kleckner through two-way glass at the police station Friday, Bollas said Kleckner looked vaguely familiar.
Online records show a Russell Kleckner at the same address owns a locksmith shop.
Bollas said Manchester school officials took the brunt of Kleckner’s rage. Letters made threats about things that could happen to them if a school levy passed.
Voters last month rejected Manchester’s 36-year, 8.3-mill bond issue and 0.5-mill levy, which would have raised $30.6 million to construct new elementary and high schools with the Ohio Facilities Construction Commission.
The district could ask voters again to approve the levy in August.
It’s unclear if Kleckner’s criminal case will be resolved by then. Police have seized the computer they said he wrote the letters on as evidence.
“I feel sort of sorry for the guy now, he’s kind of a loner,” Bollas said Saturday.
Amanda Garrett can be reached at 330-996-3725 or agarrett@thebeaconjournal.com.