A year has passed since the city hired a lobbying firm to represent Toledo’s interests in Columbus and the city finance director says the anniversary marks a success.

Sean Dunn & Associates has enabled Toledo to balance its budget and keep a close eye on discussions that fill the house and senate floors, said Patrick McLean, city finance director.

The three lobbyists, Sean Dunn, Lisa Dodge and Christie Angel, are Columbus-based and represent nearly 25 associations, health care systems and companies. Toledo is the group’s only municipal client.

City council approved the hire for $60,000 a year on April 5, 2011.

“When cities are already struggling and the state has been struggling too trying to balance its budget, there is no more important time to have a lobbying presence in Columbus than right now,” McLean said.

McLean referenced the $48 million deficit that faced Mayor Mike Bell’s administration when he took office, combined with the dwindling amount of money that ekes out of the state each year. Toledo received $25 million from the state in 2007 but by 2013, the city will get about $8 million.

From left, Sean P. Dunn, Lisa Dodge and Christie Angel.

One of the ways that the city has handled the predicament is to go after delinquent taxes. In 2010, the extra effort pulled in $4.1 million in delinquent taxes, followed by $4.5 million in 2011.

Talks in Columbus are threatening to hinder the city’s ability to continue to do so, McLean said. Proposals have began floating around that would centralize tax collection, authorizing the state to collect on behalf of cities. McLean said he doubts that a centralized force collecting taxes from numerous other entities would be able to act as aggressively as the city has.

That’s where Sean Dunn & Associates come in. The lobbyists call McLean at the first sound of talks like these, McLean said. Then, they can take measure to try to stop proposals from further motion.

“Sometimes success is seen in what does not happen rather than what does not happen,”  he said.

He measures a concrete example of success by parking garages. The city needed to sell the garages to balance its budget but wording in a statute forbade the municipality from transferring the property. Basically, the city owned the meters but it did not own the streets where the meters sat. Up to the deadline on the state floors, Sean Dunn & Associates were able to change the law and the city then sold the garages to the Lucas County Port Authority.

The sale brought in $13 million. About $5 million went to resolve debt and about $7.8 fed the general fund. The deal enabled the city to balance its budget, McLean said.

Councilman Tom Waniewski, who opposed hiring the lobbying firm last year, said he would expect the firm do perform its job well but that doesn’t change his original contention.

“We elect state representatives; aren’t they supposed to be lobbying on our behalf down there?”

He also took issue with difficulty in reaching the lobbying firm as well as acquiring basic information about what the group has accomplished. He said he asked for an update from the city in January and hadn’t received anything until just recently. He said he called Sean Dunn & Associates last week and is still waiting for a return call.

McLean said he talks to the lobbyists often — depending on the issue at hand he might converse with them several times a week.

Dunn said legislators are the strongest lobbyists because they have the votes but that these elected officials and their small staffs are inundated with a gamut of issues. Private lobbying firms can narrow their focus to a particular bill or interest, he said.

“Their whole world is a constant kind of drinking from a fire hose so they’re very willing to help the city and their region but the role we often fill is helping the city as our client efficiently deal with them,” Dunn said.

McLean added that representatives and state senators also do not cover just the city; the city might be only a portion of their constituency.

“It would be unfair of us to ask Teresa Fedor, (D-47) to stop representing everyone else and just represent us,” he said. “She couldn’t do it and quite frankly she shouldn’t do it.”

The city has a 3-year contract with Sean Dunn & Associates but the deal will be up for renewal in a couple of months. McLean seeks to renew the contract. Dunn, Dodge and Angel said they’re eyeing a fund for local governments called the Local Government Innovation Fund. The firm aims to help the city apply for a loan or a grant that encourages local governments to collaborate with each other. Whatever projects they might seek are still in the draft stages, the firm said.

Tags: Christie Angel, City of Toledo, Lisa Dodge, Patrick McLean, Sean Dunn, Tom Waniewski

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 5th, 2012 at 2:33 pm and is filed under City of Toledo, Community.
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On April 5, Toledo City Council approved the hiring of a lobbying firm, but some members are just discovering which firm was hired.

Sean P. Dunn and Associates were in talks to become a new lobbyist firm based in Columbus to represent Toledo in mid-May and effectively began to serve for the city June 1. It was selected after submitting an online proposal on the city’s website.

“There are just so many things that go on at the state government level that affect any of your large local government entities like the City of Toledo,” Dunn said. “You really have to pick and choose which issues you are going to weigh in on. If you don’t have an employed person or a consultant who is solving this stuff on a day-to-day basis you are just not going to be aware of opportunities or threats to things that might affect you.”

From left, Sean P. Dunn, Lisa Dodge and Christie Angel.

Dunn and his associates, Lisa Dodge and Christie Angel, were hired at $60,000 for one year. They have never represented a city before but their client list includes AT&T and the University of Akron.

Among those unaware of the new lobbyist firm’s hire included Councilmen George Sarantou and Tom Waniewski.

“I knew they were on the fast track to get somebody hired,” Waniewski said. “I hoped that we would have had at least a committee meeting before they actually hired somebody.”

“The administration recently brought legislation to us to clean up the accounting code where that money is going to come out of,” Sarantou said. “My understanding is that they had gotten requests for proposals that they have not gotten back yet on those but I was pretty sure no decision had been made yet.”

Toledo Mayor Mike Bell is out of town and was unavailable for comment.

Although the approval to hire the lobbyist firm was approved by City Council, Waniewski was not a proponent of the decision.

“It has always been my strong belief that we have these politicians that we pay good money to, they need to be our lobbyists,” Waniewski said. “I don’t care what party [they are], I’ve worked with both parties. I’ve worked with an independent in Mike Bell and a Democrat in [Carty] Finkbeiner. We need our politicians to be our lobbyists.”

Sarantou was in support of Toledo hiring a government affairs service. Sarantou is in his third term as an at-large member of the Council.

“The role of the lobbyists is for Toledo to not get lost in the shuffle,” Sarantou said. “What happens in Columbus especially is that if you are not Columbus, Cleveland or Cincinnati you are at the back of the bus when it comes to programs.

“We are in a really tough situation in this day and age where cities and states have to fight for every nickel they can get their hands on for development and economic development projects in particular. I just think paying $60,000 a year is worth it and can pay off financially.”

During the past month, Dunn and his associates have worked to add language into the state budget bill which would allow the transfer of ownership of the city’s parking meters to the Lucas County Port Authority for an “upfront payment and/or periodic fees,” along with the sale of parking garages.

“The city desired in conjunction with the port authority to streamline control of parking facilities and to give the city some immediate revenue and the potential for an uptick in revenue in the future,” Dunn said. “Having a state budget which was introduced in February and getting an amendment put in with about two weeks to go is not particularly an easy thing to do. We found out we were successful with that and that’s how we are starting our relationship.”

Tags: Christie Angel, City of Toledo, George Sarantou, Lisa Dodge, Mike Bell, Sean Dunn, Toledo City Council, Tom Waniewski

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 2nd, 2011 at 10:07 am and is filed under City of Toledo, Community.
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