Finally inventorying Patrick O’Malley’s computers
It would appear as though Cuyahoga County Executive Director Colleen Corrigan Day doesn’t have any problems with a fair amount of the staff having received their jobs due to political connections.
Cuyahoga recorder orders inventory of recorder’s office computers
Posted by Joe Guillen May 16, 2008 18:13PM
The Cuyahoga County auditor has ordered an immediate inventory of computer equipment in former Recorder Patrick O’Malley’s office.
The reason: O’Malley barred county workers from conducting an annual state-mandated review of the equipment. The ban goes back at least four years.
“They rudely threw [my staff] right out.” Cuyahoga County Information Services Center Director Dan Weaver recalled on Friday. “It didn’t surprise me, knowing his personality.”
Weaver said no other county office or department refused the inventory.
In a letter sent on Friday, Auditor Frank Russo also asked Weaver to investigate all computer equipment purchases O’Malley’s office made in the last five years.
Russo’s directive came a day after O’Malley pleaded guilty to a federal obscenity charge and resigned from office.
The investigation into O’Malley was fueled when FBI agents seized personal computers from O’Malley’s home in 2004. A search warrant said agents were looking for records of a billboard deal and images of child pornography.
O’Malley will be sentenced in August and could get more than six months in prison.
While the Cuyahoga Democratic Party huddled to pare down the list of potential successors to O’Malley — the party’s choice will be on the ballot in November — Republicans had a field day Friday.
They lumped O’Malley with former Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann, who resigned on Wednesday, and Cleveland City Councilman Joe Santiago, reportedly the subject of an FBI investigation.
“These Democrats, someone like Marc Dann or Pat O’Malley, they can’t even live up to the basic standards of competence and ethics in public office,” county Republican Party Chairman Rob Frost said.
Local Democrats, however, said O’Malley’s crime had nothing to do with his public service.
“The recorder’s office has been run efficiently and effectively,” Cuyahoga County Executive Director Colleen Corrigan Day said in a statement. “The personal issue of the former recorder bears no reflection on the operation of this county office or its staff.”
County commissioners are likely to name an interim recorder on Thursday. They are expecting a recommendation from the Democratic Party, which is headed by Commissioner Jimmy Dimora. It is the party that will make the final decision on who will face Republican Cathy Luks in the November general election for recorder.
Cuyahoga Common Pleas Judge Lillian Greene has joined the lengthy list of possible replacements for O’Malley, which includes members of Cleveland City Council and state representatives.
Luks said, “It doesn’t matter who the Democratic machine comes up with. There can no longer be one-party rule if there is to be accountability.”
Other than judges, there are no elected Republican leaders in county government.
Broad Dann Investigation Promised
Inspector General Tom Charles pledges broad Dann investigation
Posted by Reginald Fields/Plain Dealer Bureau
May 15, 2008 20:57PM
Marc Dann is gone, but the state inspector general on Thursday promised a wide-ranging state investigation into the problems that chased him from office.
Meanwhile, employees of the attorney general’s office tried to come to grips with the drama that unfolded this week behind Dann’s departure and tried to regain focus on their jobs.
Inspector General Tom Charles, whose investigators raided the attorney general’s Columbus and Youngstown offices Wednesday just hours before Dann resigned, has invited nearly a dozen local and state agencies to join his inquiry.
Charles would not comment on what he is specifically looking for but said he is interested in reviewing various allegations that cost Dann his job.
AG Replacements What say You?
Let’s hear from those visiting our site of whom they believe Gov. Strickland should give a temporary appointment to until the November Presidential Elections.
Marc Dann’s resignation sets off a scramble by his fellow Democrats who want to keep control of the attorney general’s office, and by Republicans, who relish the chance to win it back.
So who might be their likely candidates?
Here are some possibilities:
Democrats
State Treasurer Richard Cordray, Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason, Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher, Lucas County Prosecutor Julia Bates, Montgomery County Prosecutor Mat Heck Jr., Columbus City Attorney Richard Pfeiffer.
Republicans
Former U.S. Sen. Mike DeWine, former White House budget director Rob Portman, U.S. Rep. Deborah Pryce, former Attorney General and Auditor Jim Petro, State Sen. Tim Grendell of Chester Township, Delaware County Prosecutor David Yost.
Redfern described the Dann scandal as only “collateral damage.”
Nice way to minimize a situation that has blacked the state’s eye Redfern, this should be an election year slogan for any GOP candidate running. Too bad the George Forbes situation has been swept under the rug and that would be until now. Why isn’t his daughter or their firm facing any charges?
That’s right I have to keep reminding myself this is the party which looks out for the little guy, that is when taking his money to make sure their friends are being taken care of. You wouldn’t want to post any of those jobs as they were to be posted for every qualified individual to have a shot at them would you now?
Just as with Mayor Mike “Slick” Coleman, there still hasn’t been any real exposure about the girlfriends of drug dealers receiving jobs while their men do time? Then again that would require the Columbus Dispatch, John Wolfe and his merry little band of info ignorer’s to actually expose the core corruption in Columbus on the local level in the city.
Fallout just beginning for Democrats
Posted by Mark Naymik/Plain Dealer Politics Writer May 14, 2008 22:40PM
The Democrats finally got rid of Marc Dann, but they will have a harder time purging the former attorney general’s legacy from this year’s elections.
Gov. Ted Strickland and Democratic Party Chairman Chris Redfern dismissed the notion Wednesday, but their recent actions speak louder than words.
They kicked him out of the party, filed articles of impeachment against him and refused to head off an Ohio inspector general’s investigation into his office initiated by Republicans.
This only reinforces what a liability he had become to the party that promised in 2006 to clean up state government.
“I don’t know that it damages the Democratic Party,” Strickland insisted during a news conference following Dann’s brief resignation speech. “This was not the failings of the party. I think the party responded strongly and forcefully and has taking steps to clean our own house.”
But Dann didn’t make it easy. He heightened the tension — and the damage — by insisting for five weeks that he had done nothing wrong beyond giving in to personal weakness and displaying some poor judgment.
On May 2, Dann, 46, admitted an affair with a subordinate only after a separate investigation of harassment charges against one of his top managers threatened to expose it. The harassment investigation also exposed Dann’s lax management and blind loyalty to his friends who worked for him.
The scandal, compared to the two-year Republican investment scandal that began in 2005, didn’t need much buildup. It involved sex and patronage, easy concepts for voters to grasp that instantly made newspaper cartoons and editorials.
Redfern described the Dann scandal as only “collateral damage.”
“Our response was appropriate, swift and responsible,” he said.
Both sides were playing politics around the Dann scandal.
The Democrats wanted him out in a hurry out of self-preservation. Republicans wanted to keep the story alive. And they won.
The impeachment is over. But the inspector general’s investigation is just beginning and will continue to generate headlines toward the November elections.
Even if it doesn’t, the Republican Party will.
“This embarrassment is far from over,” GOP Deputy Chairman Kevin DeWine declared Wednesday. “Marc Dann’s resignation is overdue, and the investigation into his mismanagement and corruption must continue.”
Dann left the attorney general’s office totally alone, just 17 months after arriving as the Democratic Party’s surprise star.
No one, not even Dann himself, believed he could topple State Auditor and former Attorney General Betty Montgomery in the 2006 election. He knocked the Republican Party behemoth out by literally bullying his way into office. He campaigned that year with abandon, shouting to anyone who would listen that he would clean up government and champion consumer causes.
Dann quit Wednesday after the inspector general searched his office, hauling out computers and leaving him and his office virtually paralyzed, an image sure to play this fall.
Dann didn’t even tell his staff before delivering his resignation from the governor’s office. When he was done, he walked out a side door, alone.
O’Malley Pleads Guilty
Could Marc Dann be facing the same fate yet different charges joining the long ranks of Valley office holders?
O’Malley pleads guilty
Posted by Damian G. Guevara May 15, 2008 16:31PM
Cuyahoga County Commissioner Patrick J. O’Malley pleaded guilty to one count of obscenity this afternoon in U.S. District Court, a few hours after resigning his position.
The nature of the computer images was not detailed during the hearing, but O’Malley’s attorney stressed afterward that they did not involve children.
“This does not involve child pornography,” said Ian Friedman. “This is material that involved adults.”
The images in question were deemed obscene enough for them to enter the plea of guilty, Friedman said, but declined to further elaborate.
O’Malley smiled at reporters as he walked into the courtroom wearing a dark suit and blue patterned tie.
Federal prosecutors declined to comment after the hearing.
O’Malley resigned his office as part of the plea agreement. He does not plan to ever run again for public office, Friedman said, though that is not part of the plea agreement.
O’Malley remains free on $100,000 bond. His sentencing is scheduled for Aug. 22.
Patrick O’Malley Resigns part II?
Is it me or is there something in the water removing Democrats from office in Ohio this week?
O’Malley resigns as county recorder
Posted by Joe Guillen May 15, 2008 14:59PM
Patrick O’Malley has resigned as Cuyahoga County recorder.
O’Malley submitted a letter of resignation on Thursday afternoon to the Board of County Commissioners. Jimmy Dimora, chairman of the county Democratic party and one of three county commissioners, also was specifically addressed as a recipient of the letter.
County Administrator Dennis Madden said the commissioners formally will accept O’Malley’s resignation at Tuesday’s board meeting but it is effective today. They might appoint O’Malley’s replacement at that time.
Thomas Roche, O’Malley’s chief of staff, will lead the office, which tracks property ownership, until a replacement is named.
O’Malley’s resignation is part of a plea agreement with prosecutors, said Ian Friedman, O’Malley’s attorney. O’Malley was charged with one count of obscenity in a criminal information unsealed in federal court this morning. He is scheduled to appear in court today.
FBI agents raided O’Malley’s Chagrin Falls home in 2004 and seized two personal computers.
Another view
This was interesting as well.
Marc Dann defines ‘compounding mistakes’
Listening apparently to no one but himself, initially Ohio’s attorney general thought he could do stupid things and then plead stupid and that the Democratic Party — and voters — would forgive him. Then, this week, he tried to negotiate the terms under which he would resign, apparently thinking he could dictate if and when the long arm of the law could investigate his office.
It’s tempting to write the man off as stunningly arrogant. But he can’t be that full of himself. Rather, he behaved like a cornered rat, one who can’t think straight when he’s in trouble. (If somebody told you, “I’ll resign if you call off your dogs,” wouldn’t that make you even more worried about what was going on that you didn’t know about? And this guy was the state’s top prosecutor?)
Mr. Dann has been brought down not because he had to admit to an affair with a young staffer, or even because close personal friends he hired stand accused of being brutes and/or abusing their power. Those matters, of course, are important. But the bigger problem is the cumulative list of things that have happened in the less than a year and a half that Mr. Dann has been in office — his hiring choices, the ignorance he has professed and admitted to, the impulsive and reckless judgment he has shown.
Mr. Dann, undoubtedly, can convince himself that he had become sport for Republicans, the media and even Democrats. Unquestionably, Republicans have been plotting how to exploit every miscue that has ever happened in his office from now and until forever. Not shockingly, the media have staked out his every move. Meanwhile, Democrats are so humiliated they’ve been obsessed about making sure they appear even more outraged than Republicans.
There could have come a time when the Democrats would look bad for insisting on rushing toward impeachment, forgoing serious deliberation about how to approach a very big deal in a democratically elected government — even if you think that Marc Dann deserves to be run out of office. After all, they had their political motives.
The investigation goes on
Dann is out, but the investigation marches on
The resignation of Marc Dann is perhaps the best thing the former Attorney General could have done for the people of Ohio at this point.
Dann was elected in a Democratic sweep in 2006 by voters who wanted change in many of their higher-level state offices. They didn’t, however, want someone who refused to accept responsibility for serious problems in his own office.
The problems in Dann’s office were many, including sexual harassment claims, inappropriate use of state vehicles and lying or misleading state investigators. The fact Dann allowed a culture of that magnitude to thrive in the office - the highest law enforcement official of the land - should have been enough to have him resign on the spot.
Instead, Dann at first refused to leave office, which implied the underlings who were fired or resigned were where the buck stopped. In fact, in any elected office, it stops at the officeholder - with Dann himself, who not only allowed such behavior, but patterned it. It seems only fitting he should also be out of the Attorney General’s office.
Though Dann is leaving office, the investigation by the Inspector General should continue. At the base of it all is the fact officeholders are accountable to the taxpayers, and taxpayers deserve the whole truth. Scratching a probe would make Dann’s exit smoother for Dann alone - the taxpayers deserve to know what went on in his office. Dann brought this down on his own head, so it makes little sense for any state lawmakers or officials to make it easier for the entire debacle to be swept under the rug.
More unanswered questions for Patrick O’Malley
There many unanswered questions, why won’t Patrick O’Malley stick around to answer them?
Cuyahoga County Recorder Patrick O’Malley reviews spending, hiring
Plain Dealer Reporter
The day after widespread patronage was exposed at his office, Cuyahoga County Recorder Patrick O’Malley’s staff set off on a review of the spending and employment numbers of fellow Democratic officeholders.
The inquiry focused on county Auditor Frank Russo, Treasurer Jim Rokakis and Engineer Robert Klaiber, according to e-mail between county workers.
O’Malley wanted annual budgets and staffing levels for the three offices dating to 1997, his first year as recorder.
An O’Malley staffer made the phone request to the county budget office April 28. The day before, a Plain Dealer study of the recorder’s 2007 payroll showed O’Malley handed out nearly three dozen patronage jobs, with combined salaries of $1.4 million, to politicos and their kin. And, the story said, O’Malley employs nearly twice as many people as the Franklin County recorder.
Data obtained by O’Malley showed the number of workers at the auditor’s office was 5 percent higher in 2007 than in 1997, engineer jobs decreased by 35 percent and treasurer jobs dropped 18 percent. In the same period, budget office numbers show, recorder positions climbed 19 percent.
O’Malley’s office did not respond to messages seeking comment.
Connections galore at the Cuyahoga County Recorder’s Office
Just like Marc Dann the one thing that connects these two at the hip is Pat O’Malley is about giving second chances to Democrats who have no business in these positions.
We believe it’s vital the hard working citizens of Ohio have an idea of who these political hacks are who were appointed to non-posted positions within the Cuyahoga County Recorder’s Office.
Click here for graphic on politically connected employees paid $50,000 or less (pdf)
Click here for employees paid more than $50,000 (pdf)
Connections count at Cuyahoga County recorder’s office …
Politicians and their relatives fill dozens of well-paying jobs
Posted by Joseph L. Wagner
April 27, 2008 05:24AM
Even if you have never been to the Cuyahoga County recorder’s office, you will no doubt be familiar with the names of the workers behind the counters.
That’s because some have appeared on your election ballots for mayor and City Council. With others, their spouses or relatives have sent you campaign fliers for congressional races, judgeships or school board seats.
Recorder Patrick O’Malley’s staff directory, you might say, is a Who’s Who of the politically connected, with surnames of Mottl, Russo and Sustarsic.
A Plain Dealer review of the recorder’s 2007 payroll found that O’Malley has given nearly three dozen jobs, with combined salaries of $1.4 million, to politicos and their kin - former mayors, the son and daughter of a judge, the wife of a councilman.
A review of applications also found people whose previous job skills don’t match the work they do for O’Malley. A $16,000-a-year teaching assistant became a $46,000-a-year department head. A $10-an-hour construction worker is now a $40,000-a-year clerk.
O’Malley declined to talk at length about his hiring practices, but he acknowledged that he has a well-connected payroll: “What am I going to do, pretend it doesn’t exist?”
He also said that just because some employees are politically connected, their jobs aren’t guaranteed. The recorder said he fired Roy Jech, a Parma councilman, from an office manager position because he said Jech’s performance was unsatisfactory.
Jech said he was fired over a dispute with O’Malley about a candidate endorsement.
One of O’Malley’s former personnel chiefs said the recorder personally handled hiring. Full-time jobs were seldom posted, said Mark Sullivan, who served as personnel director for six years, and O’Malley supplied the candidates.
Sullivan said he rarely interviewed applicants.
“There were names Pat gave me, and he just said, ‘This is who we’re hiring,’ ” Sullivan recalled. “He didn’t want me questioning him.”
But Sullivan said he did question O’Malley about two disbarred lawyers on the payroll.
William Lavin, a $75,000-a-year assistant supervisor, served prison time for bank fraud a decade ago after being accused of stealing money from clients. Paula Harris, a $37,131-a-year clerk, was accused in 1995 of participating in a telemarketing scam that targeted the elderly. She pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud the federal government . O’Malley’s explanation: “He believed in giving people second chances,” Sullivan said.
Lavin and Harris could not be reached for comment. O’Malley would not let them take calls at the office.
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