Dem chief skewers Chamber president over fees to arts groups

Imagine this scenario: Mahoning Valley’s legislative delegation sends a letter to organizations seeking state capital bill funding. The letter directs them to submit their requests to a specific lobbying firm that would then charge them a fee for pushing their requests through the Legislature.

If that happened, the Ethics Commission would immediately launch an investigation of the members and the lobbying firm, the public would be outraged, and The Vindicator would call for resignations and prosecutions.

Shockingly, the recently revealed scheme Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber President Tom Humphries was running when he asked area legislators to sign a letter directing local arts and culture organizations to submit capital bill requests to the Chamber mirrors my scenario with one major difference: Humphries purposely concealed the fact that the Chamber was charging the organizations $5,000 each to lobby on their behalf. He should be doing this for free, not charging anyone a penny.

From attempting to hurt working families by supporting Senate Bill 5, to secretly conspiring with Gov. John Kasich to destroy Youngstown’s public schools, to misleading legislators in order to obtain their tacit endorsement of his lobbying scheme, Humphries continually works against the Valley’s interests.

Like Donald Trump, when Humphries is caught lying he doesn’t apologize; he keeps lying. That’s what he did when he uttered this whopper to Vindicator Reporter David Skolnick: “We didn’t deceive anyone. Everything we did; we tried to communicate with the legislators.” The truth is Humphries never disclosed that the Chamber was charging the arts organizations. But Humphries seldom lets the truth get in his way.

I commend our state senators and representatives for acting swiftly when leaders of our arts and culture organizations expressed their concerns about the chamber’s actions. They deserve applause for exposing Humphries’ duplicitous attempt to involve them in his unethical scheme.

Atty. David J. Betras, Canfield

Betras is chairman of the Mahoning County Democratic Party.