Land deal sparks ethics debate

Public money was used to buy the land for the athletic fields.

COLUMBUS (AP) — Then-state Sen. Lou Blessing was steamed. After years of struggling to get civic association leaders in his hometown to build a complex of youth ball fields beside his church, the Cincinnati Republican took matters into his own hands in 2002.

“This one is personal,” he told Brian Perera, the Ohio Senate’s finance director, in a memo seeking $1.25 million in state funds for the project.

To his legislative aide, Dan Reinhard, he wrote: “I’ve voted for the budgets as requested by the Governor and Senator [and then-Senate President Richard] Finan. I also carry anything they ask, and I’ll gladly take the heat, but I’ll be d----- if some of these other people get community projects in this budget and mine doesn’t go in.”

What followed were five years of Blessing, now a state representative, prodding federal, state and local agencies, landing critical extensions and sign-offs, and pushing for public cash. The odyssey of activity on behalf of a personal cause has caught the veteran lawmaker in an ethical debate.

Crying foul

The contortions Blessing underwent to help seal the land deal — struck between a nonprofit civic association he created, his local township, and the church he’s attended since childhood — were enough to cause a fellow St. Ann’s parishioner, Carrie Davis, to refer the matter to Legislative Inspector General Tony Bledsoe.

Davis said the Groesbeck Athletic Complex was paid for with public money — $900,000 in capital dollars pushed by Blessing — but is tightly controlled by a small group of private citizens.

Until she complained recently, the property had been padlocked behind a “Do Not Enter” sign, Davis said. The complex, with a football field and three baseball diamonds, is not listed among the public parks on Colerain Township’s Web site.

“What I believe is that his purpose in this was to acquire an asset to be used by his parish and his fellow parishioners,” she said. “The land was donated for the ’betterment of the Groesbeck community,’ but he [Blessing] has put himself in a position where St. Ann Parish is going to receive preferential access to this field.”

Blessing argues that it was the former Colerain Civic Association, which his nonprofit ultimately muscled out, that was keeping a precious piece of green space from the public. He said the estimated 2,000 hours he has spent on the project over the past five years have all been to return the field he played on as a child to the community.

“The church obviously has an interest. They’d love to see a park next to their church — who wouldn’t?” said Blessing, who has served in the General Assembly since 1983. “Here’s the thing: This is the most densely populated area of the township. People around here have to
drive their kids miles to find a place to play ball. I’ve gained nothing from this, not a penny.”

Blessing said Bledsoe told him there was no substance to Davis’ complaint. Bledsoe declined public comment on the matter.

What’s in law

Under Ohio ethics law, a lawmaker has not crossed the line unless he receives something of value for his efforts or serves a fiduciary role in a corporation that benefits from public dollars he or she has influenced.

Blessing, a lawyer, said he is well aware of the restrictions he faces. Blessing served as a founding trustee to the Groesbeck Civic Association, but resigned when he thought he might have a role in landing state money for the project because he “thought there might be an entanglement there,” he said.

He was reappointed to the group’s board two weeks ago — a move Davis said raises new questions.

“There are people closely involved in what’s going on who just aren’t showing up on the paperwork when it isn’t convenient,” she said. She noted that Blessing’s name consistently appeared on meeting agendas related to the project during the period he was off the board, and state employees treated him as a representative of the group in e-mails.

The Ohio Department of Natural Resources recently audited the project, Blessing said, and determined that all the money has been appropriately handled. “We are well aware of the separation of the public dollars and the private dollars,” he said.

ODNR records

Blessing had used his influence inside ODNR earlier in the process, however, according to state records.

“I hope the Director will see fit to approve the project no matter what the actual appraisal is,” Blessing wrote in a February 2004 e-mail to Ohio Department of Natural Resources staffer Mindy Bankey.

He later wrote Bankey, “I noticed my old buddy, Paul Baldridge, is the one who’s to sign for ODNR on the above mentioned project. Tell Paul if we can get this expedited so we can get this out for bid, I’ll ‘go overboard’ to help ODNR with the Lake Erie shoreline.”

(Amid Blessing’s onslaught of e-mails to the department, Bankey lamented in a side e-mail to a colleague: “this is never going to go away.”)

To Jim Reuter, a fellow parishioner who also served as a lawyer for the township on the deal, Blessing wrote in 2005: “It certainly pays to help out folks over the course of one’s career. Because, as you see in the e-mail, ODNR is willing to extend this once again.”

Messages were left seeking comment from the Natural Resources Department.

“Yeh, I might have showed a bit of enthusiasm there [in the e-mails],” Blessing said. “But there’s nothing in Ohio law that says I can’t do what I can for a project in my district. If that’s wrong, you better write about every member of the Legislature.”