Thursday, July 19, 2012
By Ed Runyan
YOUNGSTOWN
Scott Lynn, chairman of the Western Reserve Port Authority, which runs the Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport, took an extra step Wednesday to avoid an ethical question that has dogged a fellow board member.
Lynn, who flies aircraft for the DeBartolo Corp., announced that he was not only going to abstain from discussing or voting on a proposed lease involving the airport and the DeBartolo Corp., he was going to leave the room while the seven other board members discussed it.
“I want to make it real clear I have no involvement in it, so I can be clear of any ethical concerns, given the board’s past history,” Lynn said after the meeting.
“I’ve been on boards many years, and I know better. It’s clear to me I should leave the room,” he said when asked if he was referring to a specific situation.
Dan Keating, legal counsel for the port authority, who has attended port meetings for many years, said he doesn’t remember anyone leaving the room during public meetings for that reason before.
Keating said he advises board members they should not vote on or participate in discussion of matters involving them personally, but Lynn’s decision is “not a bad way to deal with things. It leaves no question.”
Board member Don Hanni III said Lynn’s leaving the room to avoid a conflict of interest is “exactly what [board member Scott] Lewis should have done” in 2009.
Hanni has said he is the person who asked the Ohio Ethics Commission to look into a real-estate deal involving the port authority and Lewis, vice president of the local real-estate company Edward J. Lewis Inc. Edward J. Lewis Inc. earned fees from selling $2.2 million worth of buildings to Millwood in 2009.
The ethics commission later confirmed that it was looking into the deal, which involved a lease granted by the port authority to Millwood Inc. of Vienna so Millwood could acquire a former air cargo building on the western edge of the airport and another nearby building.
The remaining seven members of the port authority unanimously approved a resolution allowing Dan Dickten, the airport’s director of aviation, to offer a 10-year lease to DeBartolo for the hangar space the company currently uses at the airport.
The lease would involve replacement of a hangar door at a cost of about $75,000.
The company would get repaid for the cost through annual reductions in its rent, Dickten said.
In a related matter, the board authorized Dickten to proceed with negotiations for the port authority to purchase the former cargo building from Millwood at a price of $1,075,000 and to negotiate a lease with Aviation Facilities Company Inc., based in Washington D.C., to occupy and manage the facility for an aviation-related enterprise.
Dickten said AFCO’s lease payments would repay the loan costs associated with acquiring the building.
Dickten has been trying to find a new tenant for the air cargo building since the Federal Aviation Administration objected to the Millwood lease.
The FAA didn’t like the lease because it allowed a nonaviation company to occupy a building adjacent to a cargo apron that the FAA paid $11.5 million to construct. Millwood is in the packaging and shipping business.
The board also approved a one-time $7,500 bonus payment to Dickten for his extra work on a $3.7 million bond project he has headed up at the airport and other work.
Dickten’s base pay this year is $75,000.
The bond project involves an expanded baggage-claim system, improvements to curbs, facade, heating and cooling and parking lot, plus replaced waiting-area seating and a new boarding bridge.