43
Group’s sales-tax campaign cost nearly $30,000
By DAVID SKOLNICK
YOUNGSTOWN
The campaign behind the successful five-year renewal of the Mahoning County 0.5 percent sales tax spent $29,789 on the effort.
The Committee for Our Future spent all but $12 of the money it raised for the tax-renewal effort, according to campaign-finance reports filed with the county board of elections by Friday’s post-primary deadline.
The post-primary time frame is between April 15 and June 4.
In the final few weeks leading to the May 4 primary, the sales-tax committee spent $8,286 to air commercials on the Mahoning Valley’s television network affiliates and for production fees from Casey Malone and Associates of Youngstown.
The $29,789 is a relatively small sum to spend on a countywide effort.
In comparison, state Rep. Tom Letson of Warren, D-64th, who faced one primary opponent in a district that takes in about half of Trumbull County, spent $80,515 between Jan. 1 and June 4. Letson won.
J.D. Williams, who lost the Democratic primary for the 65th Ohio House District seat, spent $61,207 on his race.
That district also takes in about half of Trumbull County.
Sean J. O’Brien, who won that primary, spent $54,732.
In the Mahoning County commissioner’s Democratic primary, Youngstown Councilwoman Carol Rimedio-Righetti, who won, outspent incumbent David Ludt nearly 3 to 1.
Ludt, a 12-year incumbent, gave his campaign $35,000 before the primary and said in late April that he was willing to spend $100,000 of his own money to win the primary.
Ludt’s post-primary report shows he didn’t give any additional money to his campaign after the initial $35,000.
He also received $12,925 in contributions.
Instead of breaking the bank, Ludt spent only $20,367 on his campaign — including only $9,177 between April 15 and June 4 — and never gave any money in addition to the $35,000.
Ludt had $16,507 in his campaign account as of June 4.
“I was saving for radio ads in the last week of the campaign, and no time was left to be bought,” he said.
Andy Hamady, Ludt’s media consultant, said the commissioner wouldn’t take his advice for weeks to buy specific radio advertisement time.
Ludt decided a week before the primary to buy the time, and that was too late, Hamady said. The advertising time the campaign wanted was already booked by then, Hamady said.
Rimedio-Righetti spent $57,053 on her campaign.
Rimedio-Righetti lent her campaign $6,000 three days before the primary. She said it was to pay a consulting fee to the Keynote Group, a Youngstown company that handled her advertising campaign.