This story has many legs it seems. Check out The Toledo Blade today:
Gov. Bob Taft said yesterday he knew that his former chief of staff vacationed at local Republican fund-raiser Tom Noe’s Florida home, but was not concerned about it at the time.This scandal just keeps growing and morphing. Ohio is a GOP cesspool. Seems everyone in the Ohio GOP is involved in one way or another. This blurb sums them all up:
“I assumed he would have complied with the state law, so there wasn’t any reason to do anything,” Mr. Taft said. He told The Blade that while his former chief of staff, Brian Hicks, typically held himself to “very high standards of ethical conduct,” it is a “disappointment” to him if Mr. Hicks acted unethically in vacationing at Mr. Noe’s home for less-than-market rates.
The Blade reported yesterday that Mr. Hicks paid Mr. Noe $300 to $500 for a five-night stay at the coin dealer’s Florida Keys home in 2001, and that he vacationed at the Noes’ home again in 2002. Mr. Hicks, who was Mr. Taft’s chief of staff during both visits, paid well below the market rate at the time, estimated by Florida rental agents at $2,000 to $3,500 for a week’s stay in the 3,600 square-foot waterfront home.
Under state campaign-finance laws, members of the executive branch — including the governor’s chief of staff — must disclose the source of gifts if their value exceeds $75. State officials are also prohibited from receiving gifts from those who have matters before their particular agency or the agency’s current or potential business partners.
State Sen. Teresa Fedor, a Toledo Democrat, said of the Hicks’ vacations and rare-coin investment: “It’s outrageous. They are so arrogant and drunk with power that they said [the investment] was OK even though there were red flags everywhere.”
