Two weeks ago, it was revealed that Karen Finley, former executive for the red light camera company Redflex, pleaded guilty to bribing a number of as-yet unnamed elected officials in Columbus city government. In his initial statement on the matter, City Council President and mayoral candidate Andrew Ginther, who’s come under scrutiny due to his supposed connection with the scheme, denied his involvement in the conspiracy.
“I had absolutely no knowledge of these activities and did not take part in them. While I am not a subject of this inquiry, I have been asked to provide records that may help the investigation into Redflex. I’ve fully cooperated and will continue to assist in bringing these people to justice,” said Ginther on June 19.
In the same statement, Ginther said he asked City Attorney Richard Pfeiffer, “to conduct an investigation into any current contracts between the city and Redflex.”
On Wednesday, Pfeiffer’s office announced that his review of the city’s relationship with Redflex had concluded. In a memo to Ginther, Pfeiffer wrote, “it is my opinion that the process by which the Redflex contract was awarded and subsequently modified was in compliance with the requirements of the City Code.”
Federal court documents say the object of the bribery scheme was to advance Redflex’s business interests “by providing campaign contributions to elected officials in the City of Columbus and the City of Cincinnati in exchange for each elected public official agreeing to take, and thereafter taking, official acts to benefit” Redflex. As such, Pfeiffer’s inquiry focused on the process by which Redflex was awarded the original contract and how that contract was modified over time.
The chronology of events Pfeiffer compiled shows the city did take actions to advance Redflex’s business interests in Columbus, but Pfeiffer’s findings paint the Department of Public Safety, and not any particular elected official or officials, as the main driver behind the subsequent modifications to Redflex’s contract.
City Council did waive the competitive bidding process when giving Redflex a four-year extension in 2010, but this was done after a request from the Public Safety Department saying, “It is necessary to waive City Code bid procedure so continuity of the specialized photo red light services is maintained. The original Contract with Redflex resulted in the construction and installation of Photo Red Light Cameras that will be expensive to replace with a new vendor.”
Ginther’s mayoral campaign issued a statement Wednesday in which the candidate said, “Columbus residents can have confidence that our unprecedented 10-step process of checks and balances worked in awarding contracts for photo red light cameras. While the first contract process began three years before I joined Council, the city attorney reconfirmed city laws were followed and the process was transparent for each contract.”
The candidate also said he would continue to assist the federal investigation and encouraged anyone with information on the bribery scheme to help the investigators.
The alleged link between Ginther and the bribery scandal stems from the fact that he received a $21,000 donation from the Ohio Democratic Party on November 1, 2011 – the same amount, from the same source, on the same date as an unnamed Columbus official mentioned in Finley’s plea agreement as being part of the conspiracy.
Ginther’s office and the office of Mayor Michael Coleman have been subpoenaed as part of the federal government’s investigation into the bribery scheme. Both Ginther and Coleman deny they are subjects of the federal inquiry.
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