NEW YORK: State lawmakers are distancing themselves from the Youngstown Warren Regional Chamber of Commerce at least when it comes to the capital budget process.
Six state lawmakers including Senate Minority Leader Joe Schiavoni have received complaints that the Chamber has solicited funds to advocate or speak on behalf of certain groups.
The arts in Youngstown are viewed by many as an economic gold mine, and they’re just one of the areas looking for funding from the state’s capital budget process. A process that’s had state lawmakers and the Youngstown Warren Regional Chamber of Commerce working together to accept applications.
Valley Senator Joe Schiavoni, who is also the Senate Minority Leader says, “Just recently we found out that the Chamber of Commerce was possibly soliciting dollars for advocacy from different art groups. So at that point the legislators took a step back. We had a meeting last night and decided that we did not want to work with the Chamber because we did not want the appearance of any kind of paying for service or paying for advocacy.”
We asked Tom Humphries, the President and CEO of the Chamber of Commerce straight out, did he solicit funds from area art organizations in order to advocate for them in the capital budget process?
Humphries says, “That statement that you just made is quite accurate. We did solicity the arts for some funds to help do some advocacy for them.”
Humphries tells 21 News, the money was raised to showcase the Valley art community to those who make the major decisions on the capital budget. Bringing them here to the Valley and showing them the gem that is the Mahoning Valley. But in order to do that costs money.
Guy Coviello, the Vice-President of Government Affairs for the Chamber of Commerce says, “It’s beyond the scope of anything that we’ve done before. The amount of time that would be involved. The amount of expense that would be involved. Travel to and from Columbus, making arrangements for key policy makers from Columbus to visit this community and get a real good grasp of what we are all about in terms of the arts and culture that cost is enormous and something we were not able to absorb.”
“Our intent was not to decieve or hide anything. It was as this thing matured there were a number of stumbling blocks that we’ve had to take a step back and say we can’t do this. We’ve checked the ethics issues a few times to make sure we weren’t violating anything. Our reputation is worht more than a few thousand dollars,” Humphries said.
