Return to Previous Page 

OpEd/Guest Column by John Mitchel: September 12, 2008

Double standard alive and well in Greene County government

I take full responsibility for underpaying my mid-year property taxes, and allow me to add that the punishment was swift, sure and painful.  Ohio Revised Code Section 323 mandates an immediate 10 percent penalty on the unpaid balance.  Furthermore, the clock starts running on an additional penalty of 8% annual rate of interest.  That’s an eighteen percent hit the first year, and if not paid in a timely manner after that, the County Treasurer will refer your non-payment to the County Prosecutor for a Sheriff’s Sale to recover unpaid taxes, penalties and interest owed.  You could lose your home and many people have.  At first glance this looks as though our Greene County elected officials are responsible stewards of the public treasury, but are they?

For more than a year I have been calling for an investigation into a $900,000 interest-free loan made by Greene County Commissioners to the Dayton Development Coalition, not to mention an outright grant of $100,000.  But for now let’s focus on the interest-free loan that covered the three year BRAC Initiative Agreement contract running from October, 2003 through September, 2006.  For starters, we should be outraged that had our Greene County elected officials charged the same rate of interest to their “good old boy network” as they charge ordinary citizens for delinquent property taxes, the Greene County treasury would be fatter by over $60,000.  To add insult to injury, the Dayton Development Coalition deposited the zero-interest loan from Greene County taxpayers into an interest bearing account, but if you follow the money, that’s not the worst of it.  That loan (and the $100,000 grant) from Greene County taxpayers helped pay the Dayton

Development Coalition’s President and CEO over $285,000 in 2006, the last year of the BRAC Initiative Agreement contract.  That’s more than Vice-President Dick Cheney earns and nearly double Governor Ted Strickland’s salary.  Furthermore, Steve Austria, Kevin DeWine, Chris Widener and others in the Ohio General Assembly matched the Greene County contribution with nearly a million dollars in taxes collected from all 88 Ohio counties, so we unlucky folks in Greene County took a double hit, but there’s more.

With Greene County tax dollars, the Dayton Development Coalition awarded no-bid contracts to the Greentree Group, a Beavercreek government support contractor and Paul Magliochetti and Associates (PMA Group), a Washington lobbying firm with strong ties to Pennsylvania Congressman John Murtha (Dem), who is even more notorious for abusive earmarks than Dave Hobson, who incidentally is the next, but not last stop on the money trail.  The Federal Election Commission website can confirm that shortly before, during, and soon after the three-year BRAC contract, Greentree and PMA associated persons donated over $50,000 to “Dave Hobson for Congress.” In return, Hobson steered millions of dollars in earmarks toward Greentree and PMA directly, and PMA’s clients as well.  Greentree and PMA associates have also donated more than $24,000 to “Steve Austria for Congress,” which brings us full circle on the money trail.  During the 3-year BRAC Initiative

Agreement, “Dave Hobson for Congress” paid Mrs. Austria over $50,000 as a “Political Consultant” (read “fundraiser”).  This was in addition to her six-figure salary as Hobson’s Seventh District Director.  By the way, while all these shenanigans were going down, both Eileen and Steve Austria sat on the Dayton Development Coalition Wright Patt 2010 Committee.  You can draw your own conclusions as to whether or not that puts them in bed with those who awarded the un-bid contracts to Greentree and PMA.

Our Greene County politicians don’t hesitate to bring the full weight of Ohio laws down on “we the people,” but when they break the law themselves, they turn their backs without even defending themselves against serious allegations including money laundering, misappropriation of funds, bid rigging, violation of the Racketeering In Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, and stonewalling investigations that would validate taxpayer funded no-bid, no-work, no-value-added contracts to lobbyists and special interest campaign contributors.  But there’s a good reason they don’t fight back, and that is best explained by Gandhi who wrote of non-violent citizen activists, “First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you and then you win.”  It’s my guess our Greene County politicians are terrified of going past the “ridicule” stage, because once they move forward to defend the indefensible, it’s just a matter of time before the bright sunlight exposes ubiquitous fraud, waste, abuse and corruption.

Contact information:
John Mitchel
Beavercreek, Ohio

(937)427-8442

Paid for by Americans for John Mitchel