Wednesday, December 29, 1999
Voinovich aides are cleared
Roles in contract questioned
BY MICHAEL HAWTHORNE
Enquirer Columbus Bureau
COLUMBUS — Ohio's inspector general cleared former Gov. George Voinovich's chief of staff and a top fund-raiser Tuesday of alleged ethical improprieties for their roles in a no-bid, $271.9 million radio-communications contract.
The project, which will link at least 12 state agencies with a network of radio towers across the state, is expected to be the largest contract in state history.
Few dispute the need for a new system. But some state legislators and government watchdog groups have questioned the price tag, as well as the role of Daniel Slane, a Columbus developer and Voinovich fund-raiser.
After reviewing boxes of documents and interviewing 52 people, including Mr. Voinovich, Inspector General Thomas Charles said his office found no evidence to support allegations of contract steering.
Investigators also dismissed allegations that Curt Steiner, Mr. Voinovich's former chief of staff, passed sensitive information about the radio contract to his wife, Jan Allen, a lobbyist whose clients include the project's chief contractor, TRW Inc. of suburban Cleveland.
“I think we've been able to clear the air on all the allegations out there,” Mr. Charles said in an interview. “We don't want this project to be under a cloud every time they do something.”
Known as the Multi-Agency Radio Communications System, or MARCS, the project originally was estimated to cost $175 million. State officials started developing it after a spate of communications problems during floods in 1989 and the 1993 Lucasville prison riot.
Controversy surrounding MARCS grew more intense after the contract was awarded without competitive bidding to a partnership that includes TRW and Motorola Inc. of Illinois. A rival firm, the Swedish radio communications company Ericsson, was disqualified for failing to meet technical specifications. Ericsson bitterly disputed the decision.
Negotiations between the state and the TRW/Motorola group were kept secret until August 1998, a month before the deal went before the state Controlling Board, a panel that reviews large state contracts.
TRW chose Mr. Slane's construction firm, builder of scores of Rite Aid drug stores, as a subcontractor in charge of acquiring land and building radio towers.
State Sen. Rhine McLin, D-Dayton, asked the inspector general to investigate Mr. Slane's role in the deal. She alleged Mr. Slane had a conflict of interest because at the time, he served as chairman of the Ohio Building Authority, an agency handling bonds for the radio project.
In addition to his work for TRW, Mr. Slane also agreed to acquire and lease 121 sites back to the state, at a cost of up to $8.1 million annually — or $160 million over 20 years. But soon after Gov. Bob Taft took office in January, his administration cut any direct ties between the state and Mr. Slane's com pany.
“Our goal from the day we walked in at the beginning of the year was to manage the MARCS implementation in the most cost-effective way possible,” said Brian Hicks, Mr. Taft's chief of staff. “We decided that could be accomplished by doing the towers in house.”
Top aides to Mr. Voinovich insisted the former governor played no role in either the selection of TRW or in TRW's selection of Mr. Slane, who raised money for the Republican Governors Association and Mr. Voinovich's 1990 campaign.
Mr. Slane could not be reached Tuesday for comment. But in an interview with the inspector general, he argued that his stake in the project might not have been as lucrative as it seemed. If the interest rate projected for the radio tower leases over 20 years had been off by a half-percent, he said, his company would go bankrupt.
While the inspector general determined that Mr. Slane did not have a conflict of interest, he recommended that state officials seek bids for tower sites when possible to save costs. He urged state officials to develop a strategic plan to ensure the project is completed on time and publish quarterly reports on the project's status.
The inspector general also said he found no evidence to support allegations that Mr. Steiner ordered an aide to mail MARCS documents to Ms. Allen as the state negotiated with TRW.
“One could, more easily and with less likelihood of raising suspicion, personally remove the information out of the office and take it home,” the report concluded. “There is no evidence to indicate that this occurred.”
Said Mr. Steiner: “From what I understand, the report is very thorough and speaks for itself.”
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