Mowing contract looked into by FBI
City leaders have called the arrangement unethical.
RAVENNA (AP) -- The son of a former mayor earned nearly $275,000 in less than a decade by contracting out lawn-mowing and snowplowing services to an affordable housing organization, the agency says.
The FBI and U.S. attorney's office have started an investigation into possible corruption in this city about 30 miles southeast of Cleveland, including the unbid contract, according to published reports Friday.
Former Mayor Paul Jones told the Akron Beacon Journal from Florida, where he retired after recently quitting midterm, that he did not know of the investigation.
"No one brought that to my attention," he said.
His son, P.J. Jones, 24, used the money from the landscape and snowplow work to save for college, his father said in defending the arrangement.
"It's a typical American work ethic," Jones said, calling his son an "industrious young man."
P.J. Jones graduated from Harvard and now is attending law school at West Virginia University, his father said.
Called unethical
City leaders have called the arrangement unethical and said it was never divulged publicly.
The younger Jones started cutting grass for Neighborhood Development Services in 1997 and continued through 2004, when NDS terminated the arrangement.
He made $390 in the first year and later added snowplowing services.
In one year, Jones made more than $85,000 for his work, according to NDS documents turned over to City Council on Tuesday.
Former Mayor Don Kainrad, a member of the NDS board of directors, said he told Paul Jones the contract for his son could cause problems.
"Over the course of several years, I discussed with Paul my concern as to how that would be perceived by the public, because as mayor, he had to sign off on (NDS-related) legislation, and it would be construed as a conflict of interest," Kainrad said.
Federal authorities also are investigating a city building inspector and trying to determine why inspection records are missing, newspapers said.