Hagan challenges the legality of flier that opposes his election

The six candidates participated in a radio debate Friday.
By DAVID SKOLNICK
VINDICATOR POLITICS WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- A newly formed political organization mailed more than 8,000 fliers to city residents opposing the election of Robert F. Hagan as mayor.
The organization, New Vision Youngstown, also is airing television commercials critical of Hagan, a state senator and the Democratic mayoral nominee in Tuesday's election.
The flier includes only the group's name, something Hagan says violates state law.
State law requires organizations, such as New Vision Youngstown, to also include the name of a committee officer and street address on fliers, said James Lee, spokesman for the Ohio Secretary of State's Office.
Hagan said he is asking state Sen. Marc Dann of Liberty, D-32nd, an attorney, to investigate the legality of the flier.
"It's negative; it's terrible," Hagan said of the fliers. "It's an attempt at the last minute to put out something negative. They hide behind the anonymity of a group to attempt to destroy my credibility."
About the group
The Vindicator discovered that New Vision Youngstown officially formed Oct. 20, and its executive director is Tracey Winbush of Youngstown, a Mahoning County Republican Party consultant who coordinated the Bush-Cheney campaign effort in the county last year.
She unsuccessfully ran in 2003 as the Republican candidate for Youngstown council president.
Winbush said New Vision Youngstown is a bipartisan group with the goal of benefiting the city, and her past political work has nothing to do with the organization. The group is registered with the Internal Revenue Service as an organization created to receive and disburse funds to influence an election.
Winbush said she doesn't support any of the five other candidates in the race but wants city voters to know the truth about Hagan.
The flier asks five questions including which politician takes credit for $240 million in state "program" funding for the area but secures no discretionary dollars, who is facing term limits and is looking to boost his pension and who sponsored "the marijuana bill."
"If you answered Bob Hagan, you win. Unfortunately, the Valley is the loser," it reads.
The group also is airing anti-Hagan TV commercials. The commercials are produced by Mark Munroe, Mahoning County GOP vice chairman and deputy director of the county's elections board.
Munroe, who works for Compco Communications, said he is not a member of the organization, however.
Earlier this week, the self-proclaimed conservative Liberty Committee of Independence, Ohio, paid to print 10,000 fliers in support of Jay Williams, an independent mayoral candidate. The fliers criticize Hagan on "sanctity of life" and "drug policy" issues.
Both the Liberty and New Vision fliers fail to mention that Hagan's marijuana bill was to legalize the drug for medical purposes only.
"These are Republican tricks," Hagan said.
Debate
Hagan, Williams and the four other mayoral candidates -- Republican Robert Korchnak as well as independents Brendan Gilmartin, Maggy Lorenzi and Joe Louis Teague -- participated Friday in a debate at Clear Channel Radio Youngstown's Boardman facility and broadcast live on WKBN-AM.
The candidates exchanged jabs with Williams and Hagan being the two main targets.
When asked if they supported the placement of a permanent 1-percent county income tax on the ballot, all supported the idea except Korchnak and Teague.
WYTV Channel 33, the local ABC TV affiliate, had wanted to have a debate Friday with Lorenzi, Gilmartin and Teague, and a separate debate at 6 p.m. Sunday with Korchnak, Hagan and Williams.
Except Williams, the candidates declined to participate in the split debate plan, saying it wasn't a fair format. Station officials said polling they did showed that people wanted to see Korchnak, Williams and Hagan debate without the other three candidates.
On Friday, WYTV aired a repeat episode of "Friends" instead of the first debate.
On Sunday, the station will give Williams time for an opening statement. He will answer one question each from the station's four-member panel, and then he'll give a closing statement, said David Trabert, the station's general manager. That should take about 15 minutes, he said.
The rest of the time, the panelists and Vince Bevacqua, the moderator and a WYTV news anchor, will discuss the race and key issues, Trabert said.
The TV station released the results of a second telephone poll taken Nov. 1 by Survey USA of New York City of 443 Youngstown registered voters about the candidates. Like the first poll, taken Oct. 11, Williams has the highest favorable rating, 59 percent, and the lowest unfavorable rating, 16 percent.