Trumbull commissioners to ask prosecutor about removing port authority member
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Trumbull County commissioners will ask the county prosecutor’s office about whether they have the authority to remove one of their four representatives to the Western Reserve Port Authority.
The action comes after an Ohio Ethics Commission’s public reprimand of port-authority member Scott Lewis, received April 16, for participating in board matters “directly related to a real-estate transaction” he was involved in. The commission issued Lewis a reprimand “in lieu of a referral of this matter to the local prosecuting attorney.”
Commissioner Paul Helt-zel said it’s not simple to know whether the commissioners have the authority to remove Lewis from the port-authority board. They’ve never had to remove someone before.
Heltzel said his understanding is that a port-authority member can be removed for misfeasance, malfeasance or nonfeasance, but it’s not clear whether the conduct found by the ethics commission qualifies as one of those.
The commissioners have not decided whether they want Lewis to be removed from the board, but they want to know the “parameters” under which that could happen, Helt- zel said.
“All I can say is, there was a better course of conduct that could have been followed,” Heltzel said of the things Lewis did or didn’t do when faced with a potential conflict of interest between his position as a port-authority board member and his role as the broker for a real-estate deal involving airport-owned land on its western edge. The port authority runs the airport.
Heltzel declined to specify the “better course” Lewis might have followed.
Some conflict-of-interest lawyers have suggested that a problem can be avoided in some cases by leaving the room during a discussion that involves a board member’s personal interests, or putting the person’s potential conflict of interest in writing.
Lewis and his company, Edward J. Lewis Inc. of Youngstown and Warren, earned a $97,366 commission for brokering the sale of the building, which depended on the approval of a lease by the port authority, of which Lewis was a member.
Lewis admitted in the settlement agreement that he violated Ohio law regarding conflicts of interest.
The settlement agreement says Lewis, vice president of Edward J. Lewis Inc., “participated in board matters directly related to a real-estate transaction in which he represented Davis International Inc.”
An audio recording of a closed-door meeting involving the port authority and representatives of Millwood Inc. shows that Lewis was closely involved in discussions the day the board gave its aviation director and attorney approval to finalize the lease.
One fellow port authority member, Don Hanni III, told the ethics commission he was new to the board and never was made aware that Lewis was the real-estate agent in the deal until after he had voted for the project. It was unclear whether three other members were aware that Lewis was the broker, and two others said they had been informed, the commission said.
Lewis did abstain from voting on the lease, and he was cooperative with the investigation, the commission said. After the deal was approved, the Federal Aviation Administration said Millwood didn’t do anything wrong, but airport officials were in error by not allowing the FAA to review the lease, which was for 38 years with an option for 25 more.