Candidate Carney defends his television commercial

YOUNGSTOWN — John Patrick Carney, the Democratic nominee for state auditor, is defending his television commercial that accuses the Republican incumbent Dave Yost of spending $7 per cup of coffee of tax dollars at a fraud and waste conference.

Speaking today with The Vindicator, Carney said the commercial is based on a request Yost made to the Ohio Controlling Board for the two-day fraud conference in February 2012.

The $7,000 request was for “coffee breaks,” according to Yost’s request to the Controlling Board.

While the final bill from the Hilton Columbus at Easton, where the event was held, doesn’t break out coffee expenses, it lists “bottle(s) of assorted regular, diet and decaffeinated soft drinks” at $3.25 a bottle. It isn’t clear if coffee, which was served at the event, was included in the beverage bill or omitted.

“He got this flat wrong,” said Yost, who added that this “distortion” shows Carney is “not fit for office.”

Carney isn’t backing down saying Yost made the request as part of a larger expense for the conference at one of the most expensive hotels in the Columbus area.

“Agreeing to spend $7 of taxpayer money per cup of coffee is yet another example of my opponent claiming he will do one thing, then doing the exact opposite,” Carney said.

He added: “If we’re looking for waste and abuse [in government], we should start with this conference.”

Yost said payment for the event, which cost about $62,000, came from those who attended. Some of them are government employees and those government entities paid their portion of the bill, and there were people from the private sector at the conference who paid their fees as well.

For the complete story, read Thursday’s Vindicator and Vindy.com