Will UA Board reevaluate Arshinkoff's contract?

WEDNESDAY could be a critical day in the life and times of Summit County Republican Chairman Alex Arshinkoff's $120,000 lobbying contract with the University of Akron. I'm told by a couple of sources that UA's Board of Trustees probably will "reevaluate" the controversial contract in executive session. Although the board could be equally divided between Republicans and Democrats, there are plenty of negative feelings around town by the D's and R's that his continued presence in the subcontracted lobbying mix has not won the University any style points.

One thing is certain : if word of the trustees' possible action has reached Arshinkoff, he will be quite busy lobbying his powerful friends to head it off. A deadlock by the board in executive session would leave his job unchanged, and no more would be said about it in the regular session that followed it tomorrow morning.

Meet Atty. Nick York , new UA trustee

THERE WILL BE a new face on the University of Akron Board of Trustees this week with the appointment of Cleveland Atty. Nick York to fill a three-month vacancy. York, a Democrat, succeeds Republican Atty. Jack Morrison, who was removed from the seat by the Ohio Senate after his convictions on two misdemeanor charges involving University land near the newly-built football stadium.

York's appointment by Gov. Strickland is expected to be announced Thursday or Friday, sources familiar with the transition say. York is chair of the Cleveland firm of Tucker Ellis & West Public Law and Finance practice group.

His arrival on the nine-member UA board will give it four Democrats. A fifth Democrat will be named in June.

Was Morrison's ouster a ground breaker?

IN THE WAKE of the Ohio Senate's dismissal of Jack Morrison from the University of Akron Board of Trustees, I don't know of another instance where a trustee has been removed from a campus board by political action. Was this the first time? Tell me if you know.

Ohio Senate: Finally, enough is enough

NOW THAT THE Ohio Senate has persuasively (30-3!) stripped Akron Lawyer Jack Morrison of his seat on the University of Akron Board of Trustees, might he now conclude that there are times to fight and times to go quietly to your room? Ever since his convictions July 29 on two ethics charges that grew out of a real estate deal between his son and UA, his ouster seemed to be inevitable. The only question was how long would he remain on the board as he challenged the court's ruling and state officials, including Gov. Srickland, at every turn. We now know.

Not that he has quite returned to his room. He still is fighting Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner's decision to remove him from the Summit County Board of Elections, where he sits as the chairman. Maybe Morrison is simply the tenacious bulldog as he has been described by others. Or maybe it was a case of political arrogance by an influential Republican activist and a generous contributor to the county party. He is, after all, GOP Chairman Alex Arshinkoff's lawyer.

Although the debacle began with a couple of misdemeanor ethics charges, it fleshed out in a nose count on the UA Board. Morrison's dismissal from the board would give the Democratic governor the windfall of an appointee, and a 5-4 Democratic majority when the next seat opens in 2010.

Political considerations? Elementary, my dear Watson. (Holmes never said that, but you get my point.)

Morrison Saga lingers on and on and on...

THE BEACON JOURNAL'S editorial call on Monday for Jack Morrison to give up his seat on the University of Akron's Board of Trustees was the latest attempt to persuade him to leave short of trussing him up and wheeling him off the campus. Don't count on that happening any time soon, if ever. For months, Morrison, the Akron lawyer whose resume now includes two misdemeanor convictions on ethics charges, has been impervious to any suggestion by high ranking officials that he pack up and leave the UA board as well as the Summit County Board of Elections, where he is the chairman of the often rancorous four- member panel.

His critics have included Gov. Strickland, Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, Ohio Board of Regents Chancellor Eric Fingerhut, some Democrats and Republicans in the Ohio legislature and a silent cadre of trustees who whisper there there's not a damn thing they can do about it.

Morrison, an influential Republican who serves as the lawyer for the Summit County GOP, knows all of this quite well and assumes that so long as his conviction is being appealed, any attacks on his status as a UA trustee are, well...purely academic.

As everyone surely knows, his legal problems evolve from his son's purchase of a derelict home near the University's new football field and Father Morrison's interest- bearing loan to his son to underwrite the transaction for a house that has since been torn down after it was resold for a profit. The Ohio Ehtics Commission insisted that the elder Morrison was less than candid about these details.

Since July, when the court ruled against him, Morrison has drawn more attention in political and academic circles than one would expect of Sarah Palin, the newly arrived literary sensation who has been known to draw a crowd or two in Ohio, as elsewhere - in a losing cause.

Morrison is not really the only issue anymore. It's the negatives that he's heaped on the University simply by stonewalling. He probably correctly concludes that if the University can live with it, so can he.

Two veeps better than one?

THANKS TO some responses to  my previous blog on the University of Akron Board of Trustees and its "two-veep" pecking order,  here is how it was explained:

At some point in his position as assistant secretary of the board, Russell Sibert prevailed upon then-trustee Rainy Stitzlein to have the board add  vice president to his title.  He thought it would add lustre to his resume if  he went job hunting, which he did from time to time before arriving at the Board of Trustees.   She managed to make it happen, which put him on a higher salary track.  Not much was made of it for public consumption at the time, although Sibert's rapid rise at the board raised some eyebrows within the UA family. Bizarre, for a public university,  but true.    For more details, read the earlier blog. 

 

They're playing Monopoly around UA stadium

"THE BOARD IS FRUSTRATED. There's real concern over this.  But the only person who can take him out is the governor."

And so it is with the University of Akron Trustees who are now uncomfortably stranded on an academic island with board member Atty. Jack Morrison.  "It's a real conundrum," a trustee told me, sort of apologetically, "not only for the board but for the University's reputation as well."

Well, at this point my advice to the trustees is, Get used to it.  Jack Morrison isn't listening to appeals that  he step down  from the board.   However, he did give up his chairmanship of the finance, fiscal policy and investment committee.   

Should you need a little more information on this fellow, whose case  has been rehashed in the media more than once, he is under indictment for seven misdemeanors on ethics charges  involving his alleged interest in his son's purchase of property on land the University had intended to buy around a new football stadium.  Let's get more specific:

According to a response to Morrison's lawyer for continuances on pretrial and trial dates, the bipartisan Ohio Ethics  Commission investigation  has advised the court of the paper trail turned up by its lawyers that revealed much more than Morrison has been willing to admit. 

"Since 2005," the Commission lawyers wrote, "defendant has provided his son and/or Braymor Development (his son's development company) with a total investment of at least $156,400 to support his son's real estate ventures   in the University area..."

There's more in the same document:

• The son, Jack, Jr. "began buying property in the University of Akron area on Dec. 29, 2005."
• By June 2007, he owned 19 properties in the University area. By February 2008, he owned "24 worth nearly $1 million."
•  Finally, Dad never revealed that he had "an overall and continuing series of investments in his son's property acquisition and rehabilitation business over more than two years."
• Had enough?   And so there is an old  house still standing near the new stadium that UA had offered to buy for $75,000 but is frozen in place as the five- month-old case drags on. The least that Morrison could do is to respect the sensitivities of the University and his fellow-trustees and find some investments elsewhere  to keep  him busy in the meantime. 

And while we're on the subject of the Board of Trustees, I do find it curious that the board's work is managed by two vice presidents, one reporting to the other.   I refer to Ted Mallo, vice president and general counsel  and board secretary....and Russell D. Sibert, another vice president,  of board operations,  and assistant secretary to Mallo.  Sibert clocks in at $150,748, Mallo at $194, 123.   In these lean economic times, particularly for higher education,  I'm sure there's someone who can justify having two vice presidents elbow to elbow for nearly $345,000.  But until somebody tells me, I won't know, will I?  

   

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Don't wait for the Morrison trial, et al...

WEEKEND LEFTOVERS:  Take a deep breath but don't hold it.  Once again the pretrial  (May 11, today) hearing and trial date (May 26) for Atty.  Jack Morrison Jr. have been been delayed on motions by  Morrison's lawyer, Paul Adamson.  New dates were not set at this writing.  Morrison, a University of Akron Trustee and advisor to the Summit County Republican Party, was indicted on seven misdemeanor charges arising from his son's purchase and profitable sale of a house on University property that was designated for use in the area that was being cleared for a new football stadium. The case is five months old.   Morrison has ignored calls for him to step down from the Board of Trustees, including one from Ohio Board of Regents Chancellor Eric Fingerhut and the Beacon Journal.  Watch for an update around  Christmas.....

Dick Cheney has made it official:  He prefers Rush Limbaugh over Colin Powell as the inspiration for the Republican Party.   Have you noticed that Cheney is much more visible today as the GOP's spiritual leader on talk shows than he was as a  shadowy veep who spent some of his time in a real cave?  He's an old non-soldier who won't fade away...But something else appears to have faded away:  the aggressive PR effort to rehab George Bush's image has fallen silent.  One practical explanation:  It wasn't working.... 

Let's hope that the recall election for Mayor Plusquellic is set for the earliest possible date so that the city can get on with the important business at hand.  The effort by Warner Mendenhall and his pickup army to throw out the mayor will be one of the darker moments in the city's history, Warner's defense of "democracy in action" notwithstanding.  win or lose (he will lose this one) he will have gained some strategic information on the city's demographics should he decide to run for mayor himself.  But at what price to the city itself?

It is amusing to hear the right-wing "profiling" of an imaginary Supreme Court nominee that President Obama has yet to select.  I'm waiting to see protesting GOP  billboards rise with fill-in-the-blank nominees to be named later. 

Finally, does anybody besides Sean Hannity and  his ding-a-ling disciples care that Obama ordered a hamburger with  "elitist" mustard  instead of catsup?  There are days when I wish I could be president for eight hours.  I would  give Hannity an eternity of eyebrow raisers with my exotic Middle Eastern  palate. 

A flipped house divided?

AND A MERRY CHRISTMAS to the University of Akron , which could use a little extra cheer these days in the wake of  the indictment on ethics charges  of a member of UA's Board of Trustees.  We're talking, of course, about Atty. Jack Morrison. a political powerhouse in the realm of the Summit County Republican Party who now faces seven counts, all misdemeanors, of  trespassing on the state's ethics laws.  Since the Summit Count Grand Jury returned the indictment, the University has been officially silent in what UA spokesman Ken Torisky described to me as "a kind of waiting game" until the case plays out. But it can't be all that pleased with this kind of attention.

In short, Morrison  is accused of profiting from the sale of a  house to the University in the neighborhood where a new athletic stadium is being built,  a transaction involving his lawyer son that netted about $33,000, or 40 pct. profit during the short flipping  period that it was in the family.    Ethical or unethical, I'll let the court decide.  But if you want to raise suspicion of a conflict of interest, there's no easier way to do it than to sit on a university board while the family is turning a dollar.  Morrison, you should know, denies that any of this was off the books.  But the indictment says he engaged in "an unlawful interest in a public contract" and filed a "false" financial statement with the Ohio Ethics Commission.

 Morrison is the lawyer for the County GOP and sits on the State Republican Committee.  You can be sure that the two sides will have a lot more to say about this when it goes to trial.  The arraignment was set for 8 a.m. Dec. 31. in the courthouse annex at which time a trial date will be set.

Meantime,  there may be a subtext on another sticky  matter involving Morrison, who is the law director of Munroe Falls.  A former Munroe Falls Councilman, Bentley Hudson, will take up the question before the council on how Morrison managed to import tons of landscaping granite rocks and sandstone from city property to the lawyer's new home that was under construction on Silver Lake last summer.  "I'm going to be asking a lot of questions about that at the council meeting Monday,  Hudson says.  You'd have to assume that with Jack Morrison, life must never be dull.