Ethanol plant representatives donate to Mayor Bain's campaign

Newark Mayor Bruce Bain has accepted $1,000 in political donations from a firm connected with the effort to build an ethanol plant in Newark.

T. Donald Pinto of Malcolm Pirnie, Inc. was one of three panel members who met with citizens 2/27/07 to answer questions from citizens and was identified in a news report as "representing E85," the company that wants to build the ethanol plant.

Malcolm Pirnie representatives contributed $1,000 to Mayor Bain's campaign chest, $500 each from William Dee, Stamford Ct, president and CEO, and Richard Herriott, professional engineer who lives in Worthington.


Buying influence is standard procedure in America
but that doesn't mean we have to put up with it here

That the mayor of Newark accepted $1,000 from a company with interests in building a factory in his city is not illegal, but is it fair to the other people he represents, people who contributed less or nothing at all?

Likely there are other vendors with whom the city does business mixed in the mayor's list of contributors. And likely there are lots of others in local government who have vendor money in their campaign jeans. And almost certainly Newark and Licking County are no worse about selling influence than lots of other places, if they are as bad.

That aside, it isn't fair to citizens that companies and wealthy individuals can buy great blocks of influence from the office-holders who are supposed to be acting in the best interests of everyone. There is no way the mayor can be impartial about the ethanol factory question after promoters have slipped a thousand-dollar bill in his political purse. Moreover, the mayor's underlings who so fiercely and with so much determination defend these ethanol outsiders are serving at the pleasure of the mayor, and there is a connection between what the mayor thinks and what these people say and do.

The really sad thing about this is that Newark's mayor is not doing anything illegal. He is not doing anything that other mayors and office holders - from the lowest to the most mighty - are not doing. So ingrained is this system for buying influence that scarcely anyone objects to it. It is, you see, "the system."

There is a slight difference, though, between Mayor Bain's acceptance of this money and all those others: Mayor Bain has been called on it, and if the word spreads about it, and if the ethanol plant promoters are allowed to steam-roller the neighbors to that proposed plant, then maybe all this will wash out on next election day.