The Ohio Ethics Commission will review conflict of interest allegations against Columbus’ public service director over a $480,000 engineering contract awarded to the firm that employed her husband for the controversial Little Turtle Way roadway redesign.
Documents also show that the firm, Carpenter Marty Transportation, was working for a developer at Little Turtle on similar traffic-planning issues before the city hired it.
Renata Ramsini, chief ethics officer and campaign finance administrator for the city of Columbus, told The Dispatch that an ethics violation complaint she received from Joe Motil, a former city council candidate, was forwarded to the state Ethics Commission after consultation with Columbus City Attorney Zach Klein’s office.
Ramsini told Motil in an email response to his complaint that the allegations Motil raised are criminal in nature and so the matter was being turned over to the state Ethics Commission.
“The last thing we want to do is interfere with an investigation if they (the Ohio Ethics Commission) decide that’s warranted,” Ramsini said.
Little Turtle Way conflict of interest complaint: What it’s about
Newly released city documents show that John Gallagher — who at the time was employed by Carpenter Marty and is the husband of Public Service Director Jennifer Gallagher — had worked on traffic-planning aspects of the roadway project at the Little Turtle residential development off Route 161 on the city’s Northeast Side before his employer was hired by the city to begin working on planning and design for the $6.3 million roadway replacement.
The city Public Service Department had received three Carpenter Marty studies concerning Little Turtle traffic issues in the 18 months leading up to the firm becoming a city contractor, and two of them were signed by John Gallagher.
The firm mentioned its “insight and historical knowledge of the project area” in attempting to land the city design work from the Public Service Department, according to a cover letter signed by Kevin Carpenter, principal in charge of Carpenter Marty, in February 2018.
“We performed the analysis of this area and have worked with developer Mo Dioun,” Carpenter wrote. “…Our traffic group, led by John Gallagher, performed the analyses for Little Turtle Way,” and his knowledge would help the city save time and money in its similar project.
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.
Another Carpenter Marty study signed by a different engineer showed a realigned Little Turtle Way leading to a new roundabout. It was from January 2018, the month before the city received Carpenter Marty’s proposal to work on an almost-identical project funded by taxpayers.
In an email, Deb Briner, a spokeswoman with the city’s Department of Public Service, said Jennifer Gallagher had no involvement in any of these studies. “She does not review traffic impact or access studies, Traffic Management staff does,” Briner said.
Messages left with Carpenter Marty on Monday seeking comment were not immediately returned.
Lawsuit filed by residents
Some Little Turtle residents claim in a lawsuit that the city is spending millions in tax dollars on a plan drafted for Dioun, founder and president of The Stonehenge Co., designed to benefit his development interests at the site. The Stonehenge Co. is operating a golf course and is building condos at Little Turtle.
Motil, a frequent public critic of city subsidies to private developers, said that he filed the ethics complaint with the city in November after seeing Jennifer Gallagher’s signature on the 2018 city contract with Carpenter Marty. He believed that the contract should be investigated because John Gallagher headed a department at Carpenter Marty that had performed work on that project.
But Public Service spokeswoman Briner said Jennifer Gallagher didn’t sign the Carpenter Marty contract in question. Rather, she authorized another employee who worked for her, Assistant Director Steve Wentzel, to sign her name for her. What appears to be Wentzel’s truncated signature appears to the right of Gallagher’s.
The city couldn’t provide information on how common it was for Wentzel to sign contracts for Gallagher. John Gallagher didn’t return a telephone call left with his office last week seeking comment.
Paul Nick, executive director of the state Ethics Commission, said he is prohibited from commenting on any investigations or complaints unless his staff has referred them for prosecution or they are acted upon by the actual six-member commission, an independent bipartisan commission appointed by the governor.
Public service director asked for Ethics Commission advice
Documents on file at the state Ethics Commission released under the Ohio Public Records Act show that in April 2016, Jennifer Gallagher wrote the commission concerned about the legality of her signing contracts with Carpenter Marty because of her husband’s employment with the firm. She just had been promoted from deputy director to director of the city Public Service Department, making her responsible for approving contracts.
“Do I just need to recuse myself and have a deputy or assistant director involved in those discussions and or decisions?” Jennifer Gallagher asked the commission.
The commission staff responded by spelling out several aspects of Ohio law that Gallagher needed to carefully navigate.
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 had an interest. Violating that provision is a felony.
“Therefore, you cannot participate in any way, formally or informally, in the authorization of a public contract for which your husband has an interest,” the Ethics Commission said in the letter. The only question remaining, the letter stated, was whether John Gallagher had an “interest” in city contacts awarded to Carpenter Marty, and the commission laid out guidelines including:
- He had an ownership interest in his employer’s firm, or acts as a director, trustee or officer.
- He participated in the contract’s negotiations, or in preparing the bids or proposals his firm made to the city.
- His salary was dependent on “or is paid from” the department’s contracts with the firm, or he receives commissions or fees as a result of them.
- And/or if his job responsibilities included participation in or “the responsibility to oversee” the execution or administration of the contract.
If any one of those circumstances applied to her husband, Jennifer Gallagher was advised she must refrain from participating in authorizing the contract.
That same month, Gallagher signed a document allowing Wentzel to sign her name for her on certain documents, including contracts.
The state Ethics Commission has one advisory opinion dealing with an official having someone else sign contracts that would otherwise be ethically problematic under state law. The 2013 opinion involved an Ohio fire chief, and states that a public official could still be deemed to have “used the authority or influence” of his or her post to authorize a contract even if that person “does not sign the contract.” The opinion also cautions that an official “cannot assign this (signing) duty to another person who is subordinate.”
An expert in roundabout design
From March 2013 to August 2020, John Gallagher was the director of Carpenter Marty’s Traffic and Planning Services operation, hired “to develop and manage the traffic & planning group” with six employees, according to his LinkedIn page.
John Gallagher is a renowned expert in designing roundabouts, according to the firm’s website.
“When a firm I’m in submits on something (to the city), my wife has to remove herself from the selection process,” he told The Dispatch in November.
The centerpiece of the city’s Little Turtle Way redesign is merging the separate entrance and exit roadways into one two-way road and adding a large new roundabout where it meets Longrifle Road. Last November, an official in the city Public Service Department testified in the resident lawsuit that the first time he saw the city’s design plans for the road replacement project was in a Carpenter Marty traffic study.
John Gallagher said he oversaw the team that created a traffic study concluding that Little Turtle Way needed fewer lanes, which is a way to get cars to slow down. He did not personally design the new road layout that appeared in the study, but declined to say who had because he had since left Carpenter Marty.
“Everything needs replaced, that’s how this all started,” John Gallagher said. “Little Turtle needs redone, the pavement’s bad, the curbs are shot, what should we do? And that’s how this came about.”
wbush@gannett.com
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mferench@dispatch.com
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