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Inspector General vindicates Valley legislators for move against chamber
COLUMBUS
The Ohio legislative inspector general has issued an opinion supporting the decision by the Mahoning Valley’s state legislators to sever their ties with the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber regarding funding for arts projects.
The IG’s office concurs with the decision that local legislators “will not regard the Chamber as a facilitator or evaluator of capital bill requests going forward,” wrote Tony Bledsoe, the IG with the Joint Legislative Ethics Commission.
“This was considered a necessary step to restore public confidence in the capital bill process in the Mahoning Valley,” Bledsoe added in the opinion submitted at the request of local legislators.
The legislators told Bledsoe the chamber was soliciting and, in some cases, accepting $5,000 from arts organizations in exchange for its advocacy for capital projects funds for fiscal years 2017 and 2018.
The state usually provides money to various capital-improvement projects on even-numbered years. The money is for capital improvements for local governments, economic development and other nonprofits, cultural facilities and institutions of higher learning, with the latter getting most of it.
In 2014, the state shelled out $2.4 billion for improvements. Of that, $17 million went to projects in Mahoning and Trumbull counties.
Bledsoe said he wasn’t aware of any other case where an organization “solicited lobbying clients while simultaneously holding themselves out as acting on behalf of elected officials in an official matter” and as responsible for coordinating submission and prioritization of projects of interest to those from whom the advocacy payments are being solicited.
“Reasonable people can conclude this is an inherent conflict of interest,” Bledsoe wrote.
Guy Coviello, the chamber’s vice president of governmental affairs and economic development, said he hadn’t read the IG’s opinion and couldn’t comment on it.
He said, however, the chamber will issue a refund to any arts organization that requests it.
Stambaugh Auditorium and the Mahoning Valley Historical Society, both in Youngstown, each paid $5,000 to the chamber.
H. William Lawson, MVHS director, said the society hasn’t decided whether to seek a refund.
Eric Ryan, head of JAC Management Group, which manages the Covelli Centre in Youngstown and W.D. Packard Music Hall in Warren, said his company hadn’t committed to the $5,000 fee, but he finds it reasonable as a lobbying expense.
Louis Zona, executive director of the Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown, also said he thinks $5,000 seems like a legitimate lobbying fee.
In a letter Friday to local legislators, Coviello and Thomas Humphries, chamber president, said the chamber “will comply with your request to step aside as the facilitator of the state capital bill process for the Valley.”
They also said the chamber didn’t “ask for or receive permission to control the capital bill prioritization process” nor did it “ask for or receive payment in exchange for participation in that process.”
The chamber said it helped facilitate “a broadly inclusive and completely transparent method of presenting our Valley’s needs for capital funding.”
The chamber added: “We avoided the appearance of bias by having multiple Valley stakeholders equally participate.”
By accepting contributions of only $5,000, the chamber “leveled the playing field” to enable smaller organizations to receive advocacy they couldn’t previously afford, Coviello and Humphries wrote.
“I agree with the legislative inspector general. We were right, and they [chamber officials] were wrong,” said state Rep. Michele Lepore-Hagan of Youngstown, D-58th.
“We will run the legislative process as it should be through the Legislature, vetting every project that’s submitted as a delegation,” she added.
“I just want to make certain that every project proposal is given an opportunity to be put forward in front of all the other legislators so that we can advocate as a whole down in Columbus through the capital budget process,” said Ohio Senate Minority Leader Joseph Schiavoni of Boardman, D-33rd.