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Macejko aims to unseat Gains
By Denise Dick
Youngstown
Saying it’s time to have a prosecutor in the Mahoning County prosecutor’s office, Jay Macejko announced his bid for the county seat.
The city prosecutor will face incumbent Paul J. Gains for the Democratic nomination. Gains has been in office since 1997, and Macejko served as one of his assistants from 1999 to 2006.
“Traditionally, [Mahoning] county prosecutors have come from the defense attorney ranks, but these are changing times,” Macejko said.
He said prosecuting is a specialty, and he’s spent his career in that profession.
Macejko made his announcement Wednesday before a group of about 75 supporters in the atrium of the Commerce Building downtown.
Macekjo said he’s discussed his run with both Mayor Jay Williams, who will leave his post early next month to become the nation’s auto czar, and Charles Sammarone, the city council president who will assume the mayor’s seat upon Williams’ resignation. Macejko said he has no plans to resign as city prosecutor.
Macejko said he’s not running against Gains but for the prosecutor’s office.
But he was critical of what he views as a high number of plea bargains that result in offenders’ being released into the community, where they could commit more crimes, as well as a delay in the disposition of felony cases.
In response, Gains produced a chart from Community Corrections Association Inc. on Market Street showing county felony court activity from fiscal years 1995 to 2011.
It shows 430 convictions, 178 prison commitments and 119 community-based correction facility diversions in 1995, before Gains’ election. For 2011, the chart shows 1,405 convictions, 445 prison commitments and 207 community-based correction facility diversions.
If elected, Macejko said he plans to restore integrity, trust and honesty to the prosecutor’s office, something he says is “severely lacking.”
He said that’s about demonstrating a work ethic and being in the office working daily. “I don’t think he’s there every day,” Macejko said.
Gains said he works at night, sometimes until 1 a.m. or 2 a.m., and sometimes on weekends. “It varies with the workload,” he said.
Gains bristled at the suggestion that he lacks integrity.
“I will let the voters make the decision on my integrity,” he said.
Macejko said he would make the prosecutor’s office more responsive and more accountable and would commit the full resources of the office to the county land bank.
“The countywide land bank will address issues of blight and abandoned property from county line to county line, north to south and east to west,” he said.
Gains said that under his administration, land banks were created in Campbell and Struthers, and Linette Stratford, chief of Gains’ civil division, saw creation of a land bank in Youngstown in 1994.
“We are involved in the county land bank,” Gains said. “We were in lengthy discussions with [former country treasurer] Lisa Antonini before her abrupt departure.”
Antonini resigned as treasurer in May and pleaded guilty last month to honest-services mail fraud and is awaiting sentencing. She was charged with taking and failing to report a $3,000 cash contribution to her primary campaign for county treasurer Jan. 16, 2008, from a local businessman, while reporting only a $200 contribution he gave by check on that day.
Gains said he feels somewhat betrayed by Macejko’s running against him.
“I’ve done nothing but help him in his career,” Gains said. “I do feel somewhat betrayed. It will take time and effort away from the job I was elected to do because now I have to campaign.”