Whether the county rents or owns is of public interest

Visiting Judge Richard M. Markus has been asked by Mahoning County to restrain the Cafaro Corp. from airing a half-hour television program spliced from eight hours of videotaped depositions of Commissioners Anthony Traficanti and David Ludt. They were deposed in a lawsuit inspired by the county's decision to move the offices of Jobs and Family Services from rented space in the Cafaro-owned Garland Plaza on the East Side to the county-owned Oakhill Renaissance Place.
We haven't seen the edited program, but we've watched a few of the six-disc set (yes, six discs) of the depositions. If given a choice between watching another disc or watching paint dry, our decision would hinge on whether the wall, at least, was an interesting hue.
No real surprises
Watching Ludt or Traficanti look earnestly into the camera's eye as various lawyers attempt to trip them up is neither compelling nor instructive. Here's a quick synopsis: Neither knows everything there is to know about renting office space, buying real estate or rehabilitating old hospitals.
That shouldn't come as a surprise to most people, who also don't know everything there is to know about such things. Traficanti and Ludt were being grilled because they advocate buying Oakhill (the old South Side Hospital) and converting it into office space. On the other hand, it's a fair supposition that Commissioner John A. McNally, Auditor Michael V. Sciortino, former county Treasurer John B. Reardon and current Treasurer Lisa Antonini, who have opposed the purchase, don't have the grasp of, say, Donald Trump, on whether one should buy, sell or rent.
That said, we think it's a bad idea for the county to attempt to block the Cafaro Corp. from sharing its videotape. For one thing, to do so is dangerously close to prior restraint, a kind of censorship that is particularly incompatible with the First Amendment.
And while it is true that there is a 1984 Supreme Court case that found "an order prohibiting dissemination of discovered information before trial is not the kind of classic prior restraint that requires exacting First Amendment scrutiny," that case involved the potential publication of financial contributions made by private individuals to a religious organization. In this case, we have elected public officials answering questions about a matter of clear public interest, the purchase and operation of a building by the county.
Will the half-hour program, edited and paid for by Cafaro, be "fair." Probably not. We're sure that some of the questions Ludt and Traficanti stumbled over can be readily answered by the members of the county building commission, who are working with the commissioners on Oakhill. But in a free society, government's job is not to determine what is fair speech. Government's job is to encourage a free exchange of ideas, opinions and viewpoints and allow the public to sort out the truth.
Let the sun shine
In keeping with that, Judge Markus should allow the public to see the Ludt and Traficanti depositions. He should also allow the public to read the e-mails that were exchanged between Cafaro representatives and the company's supporters at the courthouse: McNally, Sciortino, Reardon and Antonini. Were these public officials being given talking points or marching orders by a company that obviously wants to continue its role as a landlord to the county? Let the sun shine and let the public decide.
The most unfortunate thing about this brouhaha is that it comes less than two weeks before an election that is pivotal to the county's ability to function, and it could obscure the real issues voters should be considering.
Cafaro spokesmen say the timing is coincidental; that they are not playing a particularly hard style of ball aimed at defeating renewal of half the county's sales tax on the May 8 ballot. Their interest, they say, is to protect the poor taxpayer. If you believe that, there's a former plaza/office building on the East Side of Youngstown that someone would like to sell you.