Is this how we respond to Cincinnati City Hall corruption?
In my previous column, I lamented the failure of former Cincinnati Councilmember and wannabe mayor P.G. Sittenfeld to live up to the ethical standards supporters like me expect. The pending federal bribery and extortion charges in his federal indictment were damning: P.G groveling to FBI agents posing as developers, soliciting donations, which he claimed could not be traced to him, funneled through Limited Liability Companies (LLCs), the provenance of which P.G. conceded, “I don’t want to know.”
It seems I was an outlier among many local Democrats, as shown by a letter defending Sittenfeld from more than 100 local Democratic donors, lawyers and elected officials. P.G.’s diehard backers argue he is the victim of a witch hunt by a politically motivated U.S. attorney and rogue FBI agents. They contend it’s perfectly legal for a councilmember to solicit donations from developers seeking lucrative deals from the city, even through mysterious out-of-state LLCs that mask the actual source of the cash. If it’s not a crime, well then, just go for it, P.G.?
Sadly, that’s the model we’ve seen from too many politicians, including current Mayor John Cranley. He was an apparent role model for P.G.’s fundraising tactics, amassing more than $1 million in donations for his re-election campaign, much of it from LLCs controlled by local developers, who feasted on the lucrative tax abatements and development deals he brokered. Many of the same developers also poured checks into the mayor’s federal Cincinnatus PAC, the apparent model for Sittenfeld’s Progress and Growth (P.G.!) PAC . As the Cincinnati Business Courier recently reported, Cranley has gone back to the same developers, and others who do business with the city, to bankroll his planned 2022 campaign for Ohio governor.
Some of P.G.’s supporters suggest the charges against him are politically motivated, brought by Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney David DeVillers. But the same U.S. attorney also filed bribery charges against GOP Cincinnati Councilmember Jeff Pastor. And his office also indicted GOP Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder and prominent GOP lobbyist Neil Clark over shenanigans involving the state’s billion-dollar nuclear plant bail out. Ohio-based FBI agents and career federal prosecutors are straight shooters who follow the facts, not axe-grinding political zealots.
In fairness, not all Democrats remain in P.G.’s corner—Hamilton County Democratic Party Chair Gwen McFarlin and then-Ohio Democratic Chair David Pepper both called for his resignation. But the knee-jerk response of so many prominent local Democrats to back P.G. mirrors the refusal of many Republicans to acknowledge former President Trump’s responsibility for the Jan. 6 ransacking of the U.S. Capitol.
Have we burrowed so deeply into our political silos that we no longer have any common standards of public ethics and decency to apply regardless of political affiliation? Are our tribal allegiances so strong that we now adopt any conspiracy theory that will exonerate “our guys?”
In the meantime, the mayor and City Council have appointed yet another commission to propose remedies in response to the bribery indictments over the last year of three members. But some question how effective the commission can be. Its chair, former Common Pleas Court Judge Ann Marie Tracey, is considered an unimpeachable straight shooter. But members include a prominent Cincinnati developer who has been one of the mayor’s biggest donors, along with several other veteran political operators deeply entrenched in the transactional nature of local campaign cash harvesting. One member, former Hamilton County Democratic Chair Tim Burke, actually signed the pro-Sittenfeld letter, suggesting he has no problem with P.G.’s fundraising tactics.
Commissions like these are typically established to help elected officials kick the controversy du jour down the road until voters and the media get bored and move on. Been there, done that myself, as a member of former Mayor Bobbie Sterne’s 1979 Commission to “solve” police/black community conflict. We sure fixed that one!
My prediction: P.G.’s lawyers might well persuade a judge or jury that he is technically “not guilty” of any crime. But the stench of corruption will linger at City Hall as long as voters tolerate a culture that allows politicians to shower their fat-cat campaign donors with lucrative tax breaks and development deals.
