The Solid Waste Authority of Central Ohio raised the pay of the lobbyist at the center of Columbus’ red-light camera scandal by more than 70 percent during a three-year period in which he was contracted to advocate for the county landfill.
SWACO hired John Raphael in April 2011 to handle “government advocacy, potential product services and legislation, or any related services” at a rate of $3,500 a month, records show.
By the time his contract expired at the end of 2013, Raphael was collecting $6,000 a month as one of a handful of lobbyists SWACO had hired to deal with federal, state and local public officials.
Raphael began working for SWACO after former City Council President Michael C. Mentel was hired as the authority’s chief legal counsel in 2011. Dispatch sources have confirmed that Mentel was the elected official who court documents say solicited a donation from Redflex, the city’s red-light-camera vendor and a client of Raphael’s , in 2009.
Mentel’s attorney, Sam Shamansky, said his client had nothing to do with Raphael’s hiring at SWACO.
“Unequivocally, Mentel didn’t hire Raphael. He didn’t negotiate the contract. All he did was sign it and approve it to form,” he said.
Raphael was hired to lobby city council members, the mayor’s office and county commissioners on SWACO’s behalf, said Ron Mills, the organization’s former executive director.
“We were doing some very progressive things with recycling. We were doing some progressive things with waste reduction,” he said. “It was important to keep appointed and elected officials in light of that.”
Mills said SWACO wasn’t paying Raphael a higher hourly rate but raised his pay based on past performance and “specific assignments based on what we were dealing with at the time.”
“Some of these efforts were not trivial. They required significant effort, significant investment,” he said.
The authority hired Raphael at a time when it was working on a project to collect natural gas produced at the landfill to be sold for energy, and as it was trying to get plans off the ground for a facility that would sort recyclables from other waste.
At the same time, Columbus was considering a curbside recycling program that SWACO officials suggested in public meetings could become obsolete once its facility was operational.
Mills said SWACO didn’t oppose the curbside recycling plan and that Raphael was not hired to lobby against it.
Raphael did not return a call seeking comment.
In 2009, Mentel was raising money for a slate of three city council members on the ballot. Campaign-finance records show that Raphael gave money to the Franklin County Democratic Party and that the party funded the campaigns.
The Voice of Ohio’s Public Policy Professionals
Translation
Buying Policians and Legistration for their Clients