The Columbus Dispatch
Emails indicate that the city of Columbus turned over unspecified records to the Ohio Ethics Commission last fall in response to a subpoena concerning city Public Service Director Jennifer Gallagher’s potential involvement in awarding a road-design contract to a firm that employed her husband.
“Included below are the responsive records to the subpoena issued to the city of Columbus” last August, Lara Baker-Morrish, chief counsel and deputy city attorney for the city, emailed the Ethics Commission in September, according to heavily redacted communications between the two entities provided to The Dispatch under the Ohio Public Records Act.
While the city declined to make public the Ethics Commission subpoena itself — which would spell out everything state investigators sought to review — The Dispatch reported last February that the city had forwarded a complaint against Gallagher to the commission that involved a $480,000 engineering contract her department awarded to Carpenter Marty, the firm that had employed her husband, John Gallagher.
That project concerned a new city road design for the entrance to the Little Turtle subdivision on the Northeast Side near Westerville and is also the subject of a lawsuit scheduled for trial April 3. It was filed by residents who claim the city entered into an illegal verbal contract with a developer, Mo Dioun, to swap public and private land at the project site. They have claimed the road’s relocation was really to allow Dioun to consolidate private land at taxpayer expense and pave the way for new private condos.
The city, on the other hand, has said the project is about the “rebuilding of this deteriorating roadway” in a way “that eases congestion, reduces speed and supports safe multimodal transportation for everyone who lives, works and travels in this high-growth area.” It has filed a motion that the lawsuit effectively be dismissed.
Like the Ethics Commission complaint, the trial is expected to put a spotlight on the fact that a married couple were involved — on opposing sides — in the project ultimately coming to fruition, said Phil Harmon, an attorney and Little Turtle resident who filed the lawsuit.
“It was (John Gallagher’s) plan that was submitted to the city that was approved” by his wife’s department, which has provided no evidence that Jennifer Gallagher attempted to recuse herself from the process, Harmon said. Rather, her signature approved Carpenter Marty’s contract, he said.
The Dispatch reported in February that the city Public Service Department had received three studies concerning proposed Little Turtle traffic improvements from Carpenter Marty, where John Gallagher led a traffic-engineering team. Two of those studies were signed by John Gallagher. It later hired the firm to work on the city’s Little Turtle reconstruction project.
“Our traffic group, led by John Gallagher, performed the analyses for Little Turtle Way,” Carpenter Marty wrote in its proposal to the city attempting to win the Little Turtle design — extremely similar to plans it had first created for Dioun, records indicate. John Gallagher’s photograph appeared under the heading “Traffic/Study Lead” on the Carpenter Marty pitch, and noted that he “manages all traffic and planning services” at the firm.
Through a spokesperson, Jennifer Gallagher declined to comment for this story.
The Ohio Revised Code states that no public official can “authorize, or employ the authority or influence” of office to award any contract in which a family member has an interest. Violating that provision is a felony.
“Therefore, you cannot participate in any way, formerly or informally, in the authorization of a public contract for which your husband has an interest,” the Ethics Commission advised Jennifer Gallagher in 2016 after she requested an opinion. Having an “interest” would include participation in or “the responsibility to oversee” the execution or administration of the contract, or participating in negotiations or bids.
Months after his wife got the advisory opinion, John Gallagher submitted a plan to her office first proposing the Little Turtle project.
An email included in the latest batch of city records show the commission in February 2022 had provided the city copy of that advisory opinion.
Under state law, the Ethics Commission — which enforces financial conflict of interest laws that apply to most elected officials and public employees — operates in secret unless it brings charges or reaches a settlement. Paul Nick, executive director of the commission, said this week he had no comment on the emails.
The city records provided this week didn’t include any notification from the commission that it had concluded its investigation into Gallagher without taking any action, suggesting it is ongoing. It also didn’t include the commission’s subpoena, which other municipal officials in Ohio have deemed public records, but the Columbus city attorney’s office believes is not.
Because the Ethics Commission operates in secret, its subpoenas are often the only way the public finds out if an investigation was launched and what information was being reviewed.
The Gallagher case began when Joe Motil, a former city council candidate who says he is planning a future run for mayor, filed an ethics complaint with the city, which then passed it to the commission. Motil said he made the complaint upon learning that Jennifer Gallagher’s signature is on her department’s contract with Carpenter Marty.
A Public Service Department spokesperson said last year that another department employee actually signed Jennifer Gallagher’s name to the contract. However, past Ethics Commission guidance suggests that might not matter if the employee fell under her supervision.
“As the leader of the city’s Department of Public Service, Director Gallagher has an interest in, and it is her job, to know about every infrastructure project the department has a role in,” the department said in a written statement last April, adding that she had abided by the guidance the Ethics Commission gave her. The director doesn’t review traffic impact or access studies, the department has said.
