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Councilman, businessman Vince Flask takes over as Warren auditor
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Vince Flask, 5th Ward councilman since 2004, was selected Friday by Warren’s Democratic Party Central Committee members to serve as Warren auditor for 18 months – through the end of 2017.
If Flask wants to finish out the last two years of the term, he will have to run for it in 2017.
It took two ballots, but Flask received 15 votes, compared with political newcomer Valdeoso Patterson’s 10. In the first round of voting, Flask had 11 votes, Patterson had eight and Councilman Eddie Colbert had 6.
A second ballot was required because a majority of the 25 voters had to vote in favor of the eventual winner.
In Flask’s three-minute presentation to committee members, he explained he had been a Delphi Packard Electric worker who is now a business owner and real-estate investor with “over a decade of dealing with the city’s finances” as a council member.
Flask owns Liberty Tax Service outlets in the area.
He said he’s also familiar with the personnel at the auditor’s office, which will help him to make good decisions about replacing people as impending retirements occur.
“There will be no greater responsibility than keeping the city’s finances transparent and accountable,” he said.
Patterson was the only one of the three candidates to mention he has a college education, saying he has bachelor’s degrees in business administration and accounting from Kent State University.
Since 2011, he has been director of financial services for North East Ohio Network, a regional council of governments for 14 county boards of development disabilities, according to his resume.
As more of a government outsider than Flask or Colbert, Patterson noted the Cleveland Cavaliers brought in an “outside” coach this year and won the NBA championship, and Youngstown City Schools has brought in an outsider to run the district.
Colbert noted he has been council’s finance chairman for a couple years.
“I felt it was in the best interests of the city to have someone who knows the budget in the city that isn’t strong right now,” he said.
Flask will take over for Nancy Ruggieri, who Mayor Doug Franklin appointed as interim auditor after the elected auditor, Anthony Natale, resigned recently after pleading guilty in federal court to conveying false information related to use of a weapon of mass destruction for sending a white powder in an envelope to a former employer, causing an evacuation in November 2014.
Natale was elected auditor last year and took over Jan. 1.