Deputy wants to be sheriff

By DAVID SKOLNICK

VINDICATOR POLITICS WRITER

YOUNGSTOWN — Mahoning County Sheriff Randall Wellington is a poor leader and bad manager, said a former deputy who is running in next year’s Democratic primary for the county’s top-cop job.

Wellington said his opponent, David Aey of Boardman, displayed no leadership skills during his nearly 15 years with the department and questioned whether Aey has the experience to effectively hold the job.

Aey, 44, said Wellington is not a “hands-on” administrator and relies too heavily on his top assistants to run the department.

“I don’t believe he knows what’s going on in his department,” Aey said.

That’s a statement that Wellington of Youngstown, 74, disputes.

“I’m out here [at the sheriff’s office] every day,” he said. “I’m very involved with the department. I’ve initiated a number of programs.”

One of those programs has nonviolent offenders serve their sentences by doing community work rather than staying at the jail, something that costs the county $68.84 a day per prisoner, Wellington said. The program saved about $700,000 in the past 12 months or so, and Wellington expects that to double in the next 12 months.

Wellington said he thinks he’s shown strong leadership during tough times, operating the department with a reduced budget and helping to resolve a federal lawsuit won by inmates in March 2005 regarding understaffing and overcrowding at the jail.

But Aey says being the only county jail in Ohio that is run through a federal court consent degree is nothing to be proud of.

“That isn’t something that shows strong leadership,” he said. “That’s nothing to brag about.”

Aey’s position

During his time as a deputy, Aey served on the U.S. Marshal’s Northern Ohio Violent Fugitive Task Force from June 2003 to November 2006. The task force included law enforcement officers from about 15 different agencies and arrested violent fugitives.

The county’s financial crunch forced the sheriff’s department to scale back its involvement in the program with Aey working one day a month on the task force between December 2006 and when he resigned last month.

Aey also worked as a jailer, in the records and warrants division, patrolled Youngstown’s East Side in an effort to reduce crime there, and worked security for the court system.

“He’s only been a deputy,” Wellington said. “He’s never had any leadership. He never took a promotion test or had any authority.”

Aey pointed out that Wellington promoted Michael J. Budd to major from patrolman without giving a promotional exam and made Budd his second in command and Budd is now in federal prison. Budd was found guilty in 2005 of violating the civil rights of three jail inmates and was sentenced to eight years.

Unusual move

Classified civil service employees, such as sheriff’s deputies, cannot run for partisan elected offices while keeping their jobs under federal law. That’s what led to Aey’s resignation.

A deputy resigning from the department to run for sheriff is an unusual move.

“Most people don’t take that chance,” Aey said.

But Aey, a nephew of county Commissioner David Ludt, felt strongly enough to give up his job.

“You don’t know what you can do unless you try,” he said.

James M. Lewandowski, then a captain with the sheriff’s office, considered a run against Wellington in 2004, but didn’t seek the office. In 2003, he filed a grievance saying his assignment to guard the Berlin and Lake Milton dams on the graveyard shift was retaliation because he didn’t support Wellington’s re-election effort. Lewandowski is now a major and the jail warden.

Mahoning Democrats appointed Wellington, Youngstown police chief from 1984 to 1996, as sheriff in August 1999. He replaced Phil Chance, convicted by a federal jury of racketeering crimes.

Wellington won elections for full four-year terms in 2000 and 2004.

The state moved its 2008 primary to March 4, two months earlier than usual because of the presidential party races. Also, the filing deadline of Jan. 4 is two months earlier than other years.

Aey is only the second nonincumbent to announce his intentions to seek a Mahoning County position. The other is Eric Ungaro of Poland, who plans to run for county commissioner.

skolnick@vindy.com