Fight for GOP chair getting bloody

Before this year's battle for chairman of the Mahoning County Republican Party is over, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Ohio Attorney General's Office, the Ohio Auditor's Office and the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles may all be part of a grand investigation that could rival the federal government's crackdown on organized crime and government corruption in the Mahoning Valley. Why?
Consider what occurred last week on the Dan Ryan talk show (WKBN Radio) when Clarence Smith, the GOP chairman, and his possible challenger, Mark A. Hanni, had a chance to discuss the race.
Smith, a prominent businessman with close ties to the state and national Republican parties, drew first blood when he suggested that Hanni, a former deputy director of the Mahoning County Board of Elections and now a law student, owns several motor vehicle license bureaus in this region.
Smith told Ryan that he intends to contact the governor's office to make sure that Hanni's businesses are not granted renewals to the contracts they have with the bureau of motors vehicles. The OBMV signs three-year contracts with deputy registrars around the state who supposedly own the bureaus. Hanni isn't listed as a deputy registrar and therein lies the problem. The contracts are entered into following a competitive bidding process in which each bidder is evaluated according to a point system. The location of the bureau, the services to be provided and the financial wherewithal of the bidder are some of the factors considered.
In 1993, the Ohio State Highway Patrol investigated whether Hanni was involved in a prohibited business relationship with two deputy registrars in the city of Youngstown, but he was cleared of the allegations.
Implications: Now, however, GOP Chairman Smith has resurrected the issue and gone so far as to claim that Hanni, the son of former county Democratic Party Chairman Don L. Hanni Jr., is the actual owner of several bureaus. The implications are enormous. Here are some questions investigators would undoubtedly ask: Which are the outlets owned by Hanni? What is the relationship between him and the deputy registrars? How much money is he paying them for fronting for him? And, where did he get the money to make the initial investments in the bureaus?
After Smith dropped that bombshell on the Ryan show, Hanni showed up at the radio station and launched an attack on the party chairman and the talk show host, bringing to mind the slash-and-burn politics that was his father's trademark.
Hanni, who hosted his own talk show on a one-lung AM radio station after he was fired from his board of elections job, once again brought up Smith's close ties to Michael Morley and his Democrats for Change organization that orchestrated the political demise of the elder Hanni. In 1994, Morley led a coup against the Hanni machine and won. He did so by running a complete slate of candidates for precinct committee positions. At the party's reorganization meeting, the Morley Democrats crushed the Hanni cabal.
Mark Hanni has long accused Smith of funneling money to the Democrats for Change through a lawyer who worked in Morley's law office, Holland Greene. Greene's father worked for one of Smith's companies.
It is a safe bet that if Smith keeps harping about the OBMV deputy registrar contracts, which his advisors are urging him to do, Hanni will turn up the volume on his allegations of the businessman's financial dealings.
Greene, who is no longer in the region, was questioned by the FBI about a $65,000 payment she received from McDonald & amp; Co. Securities Inc. of Cleveland purportedly for legal work pertaining to a major capital improvements project at the Mahoning Valley Sanitary District's water purification plant in Mineral Ridge.
McDonald was hired by then MVSD directors Edward A. Flask and Frank DeJute to handle the sale of millions of dollars in bonds. Flask had ties to Morley and the Democrats for Change and helped raise money for the Democratic Party takeover fight.
Questionable fee: A special state audit of the MVSD capital improvements project found that Greene never did any work for the $65,000 fee. However, she was not required to give back the money, which ultimately ended up in Morley's corporate account.
Morley, no longer county Democratic Party chairman, has denied any wrongdoing.
For Mark Hanni, who is attempting to oust Smith in much the same way his father was ousted, it's payback time -- with blood.