Sanctions against Kitchen to be determined in later elections commission hearing

COLUMBUS

The Ohio Elections Commission will schedule a full hearing, likely in September, to determine potential sanctions against a failed Youngstown mayoral candidate who accepted an improper $3,900 cash campaign contribution and neglected to report it in a timely fashion.

DeMaine Kitchen, who served as chief of staff/secretary to former Mayor Charles Sammarone, did not participate in a preliminary review of the complaint against him Thursday in Columbus.

Sammarone gave a $4,000 cash contribution Oct. 27, 2013, to Kitchen’s mayoral campaign. State law doesn’t permit cash contributions to exceed $100.

Kitchen, who couldn’t be reached Thursday by The Vindicator to comment, did not respond to a notice of his alleged violations, leaving the state panel with little information to consider, other than a complaint letter from the Mahoning County elections board and campaign finance filings.

Sammarone, who wasn’t asked to attend the commission hearing, said Kitchen refunded the $3,900 in two payments, and the former mayor, who now serves as city council president, wrote two checks to Kitchen’s campaign fund.

“I don’t know if [writing the checks] resolves anything, but I did what I was supposed to do,” Sammarone said. Kitchen “paid the money back.”

That information wasn’t provided to the commission as Kitchen didn’t attend the meeting. Only a $2,500 refund to Sammarone is on the last campaign finance report filed April 1 by Kitchen with the Mahoning County Board of Elections.

Sammarone has said he should have known the election law better and not given cash.

Read more about the matter in Friday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.