CINCINNATI — Build Cincinnati’s Future PAC shares more than just a treasurer with Friends of Aftab Pureval. Critics say that contradicts the mayor’s claim that he is “not directly involved” with the campaign to sell Cincinnati’s railroad.
The WCPO 9 I-Team has been looking into the mayor’s comments since Oct. 17, when Pureval defended that Jens Sutmoller is the treasurer of both his 2025 re-election committee and the “Yes on 22” ballot issue campaign. The ballot issue asks voters to approve the $1.6 billion sale of Cincinnati Southern Railway to Norfolk Southern Corp. to raise money for infrastructure improvements.
“I’m not directly involved in the campaign,” Pureval said. “I’m deriving no financial benefit from the campaign, whatsoever.”
The I-Team’s review of campaign finance records shows both campaigns also employed the same media strategist: Washington D.C. -based SKDK.
Although Pureval received no donations from Norfolk Southern, he did accept $18,950 since November 1, 2021 from two law firms where Cincinnati Southern Railway trustees worked. That’s 5.7% of the $330,873 Pureval raised in that period.
Sutmoller issued two statements on the matter; the first, on behalf of Build Cincinnati’s Future and the second, on behalf of the mayor’s re-election campaign.
“The campaign had a competitive bidding process and chose SKDK because of their experience in Ohio, the quality of their work for presidential campaigns, their national reputation, their knowledge of the infrastructure issue, and their ability to highlight the benefits of Issue 22 for every community,” Sutmoller wrote to the I-Team. “The contributions are from longtime supporters of the mayor because they support his leadership. The only connection here is that these individuals are all advocating for what they think is best for the city and Issue 22 because they think it’s the best shot Cincinnati has to fix our infrastructure challenges in every neighborhood without raising taxes.”
Critics of the railroad sale say the new information makes them more suspicious of the rail proposal.
“If you just share a treasurer and they’re across town and you share a candidate but he’s not out, you know, in TV commercials for the issue, I could see where it’s not a big deal. But that’s not what happened here,” said Todd Zinser, founder of Citizens for a Transparent Railroad Vote. “You basically have a marriage between a declared candidate for mayor and the people pushing this referendum.”
The new details probably don’t violate the city charter or campaign finance laws, said David Niven, a political science professor at the University of Cincinnati. But they could keep Issue 22 from passing.
“The word that comes to mind is sloppy. It’s just sloppy,” Niven said. “It’s an unforced error and it gives some people reasons to raise questions. It gives some people reasons for concern.”
Campaign spending details
It isn’t clear how big a role SKDK is playing in the Issue 22 campaign, but more details are expected in a Thursday (Oct. 26) filing that requires disclosure of donations and expenditures through the end of last week.
Campaign finance records show SKDK was paid $33,549 for digital production and consulting services in the mayor’s 2021 election campaign. FCC records show Build Cincinnati’s Future PAC spent more than $600,000 this year to place ads on local TV stations through Assembly, a New York -based agency that is owned by SKDK’s parent company, Stagwell Inc.
The publicly traded holding company emphasizes collaboration among the agencies it owns, founder Mark Penn told the Wall Street Journal in 2016.
SKDK works for corporate and political clients with a roster of services that include media training, speech writing, advertising content and audience targeting.
“We are deeply involved in every campaign because we know that’s the level of commitment that it takes for victory,” the company’s website claims. “And we offer the same level of service to all of our campaigns, meaning the same strategists, writers, and editors are at the table whether you are running your first local campaign or a national effort.”
Niven said it isn’t unusual for politicians to use the same team of consultants in multiple campaigns.
“The issue here isn’t that a political vendor can’t work for more than one campaign. Of course they do,” Niven said. “The issue is – why make this unnecessarily personal? It introduces the question of, ‘What is the mayor getting out of this?’ He may have just perfectly legitimate interests in seeing this help Cincinnati. But it makes it seem like this is some kind of shady campaign practice.”
Campaign investigation sought
Zinser thinks SKDK’s involvement strengthens his complaint to the Ohio Elections Commission.
The Oct. 19 complaint asks the commission to determine if the campaigns failed to file required disclosures for “coordinated electioneering communications,” as defined by Ohio Rev. Code 3517.1011. He’s also asking the commission to investigate whether Sutmoller violated ORC 4599.03, which prohibits “corporate contributions to a candidate’s campaign.”
Zinser thinks Build Cincinnati’s Future may have enabled in-kind contributions from Norfolk Southern by facilitating Pureval’s appearance “in numerous TV advertisements.”
In past responses to I-Team questions, Sutmoller said he has no plans to report Pureval’s TV ads as in-kind contributions to the mayor’s re-election campaign.
“Expenditures by Build Cincinnati’s Future do not constitute in-kind contributions because these ads are not advocating for any candidate's election,” he said. “We are confident that our practices are in strict compliance with all Ohio campaign finance laws.”
The Ohio Elections Commission has yet to formally accept Zinser’s complaint, so Executive Director Phil Richter was reluctant to comment on its merits. But Richter said coordinated electioneering claims generally require more proof than the sharing of an employee or vendor.
“Is there some sort of shared media responsibility between the two? Is there some sort of shared information? And is the same person working on those multiple accounts? Is there documentation of shared emails going back and forth? I mean there’s a variety of things that could come into play,” Richter said. “But that’s for the complainant to establish that it has occurred.”
Campaign donation details
Zinser did not raise the issue of campaign contributions in his complaint to the Ohio Election Commission, but he thinks donations from railway trustees are a problem.
“One of the unusual aspects of this issue is all the parties involved are on the same side at this point,” he said. “Looking at these donations kind of confirms there’s just a very close relationship between the mayor and the board of trustees.”
In his Oct. 17 interview, Pureval said he first learned about a potential railroad sale “shortly before the election” that made him mayor in November 2021. He asked a lot of questions about the deal but grew convinced it was good for Cincinnati.
“The railroad board hired outside experts and paid money, significant amounts of money, to get the accurate amount of value for the railroad,” Pureval said. “They valued it in three different ways and the ultimate price point of $1.6 billion was well within the range of all of those valuations.”
Based on that explanation, the I-Team reviewed campaign contributions between November 2021 and July 2023, when the mayor’s most recent campaign finance report was filed.
On the day before his Nov. 2 election, Pureval received $6,000 in campaign contributions from six different lawyers at Calfee, Halter & Griswold LLP. Former Cincinnati Mayor Charlie Luken, who serves on the railway’s board of trustees, worked at Calfee until until the summer of 2023. Luken made a $500 donation on December 1, 2022, followed by $1,000 in additional contributions between June and December of last year. The firm’s political action committee contributed $1,500 in August 2022.
At Keating Muething & Klekamp PLL, attorneys and the law firm’s PAC contributed $9,950 between July 2022 and February 27, 2023, when Pureval attended a fundraiser at TQL Stadium. KMK’s Chairman Paul Muething also chairs the Cincinnati Southern Railway board. He was one of seven KMK attorneys who donated $1,100 each at the February fundraiser.
“Our firm’s PAC supports many office holders and those running for office. There was no conflict of interest,” Muething wrote in response to the I-Team’s request for comment.
When Luken was asked whether the donations were a conflict of interest, he told a WCPO reporter to “be careful.” Then, he demanded that his entire response be part of this story:
“Mayor Pureval is one of the most ethical political leaders I have ever met. During my 40 years of public service my ethics have never been questioned. Hundreds of volunteer board members have made thousands of political contributions over decades. Never have they been questioned. I have made political contributions while serving on city boards over the last dozen years: Cranley, Mann and Mayor Pureval. I have made no political contributions to any mayoral candidates since the railroad sale was proposed. WCPO’s efforts to taint this political involvement is shameful.”
When we asked Pureval’s office whether donations from the law firms of railway trustees were a conflict of interest, Sutmoller responded:
“This is an irrelevant accusation and a distortion of the facts. It’s because of distractions like this that voters aren’t getting access to the information they need to be confident of their decision at the ballot.”
Niven questioned the wisdom of those responses.
“I think in Cincinnati with all of our campaign finance rules and our rather checkered history of campaign finance concerns with elected officials, it’s easier to just not take those contributions and not have to deal with the questions,” Niven said. “You know a campaign is not going to live or die on a thousand-dollar contribution or a $1,500 dollar contribution, it’s probably easier to wall yourself off from those kinds of concerns.”
Public skepticism of politics and elected leaders is at a heightened level in Cincinnati after the convictions of three city council members for public corruption since 2020, Niven said.
The FBI sting rocked City Hall for months, since the arrests of former council members Tamaya Dennard, Jeff Pastor and P.G. Sittenfeld were spread out over 10 months in 2020, and led to a slew of negative national attention over bribes. The scandal ultimately led to the creation of new legislation to insulate council members from donations from developers who had business before the city.
“In this atmosphere in Cincinnati in 2023, why not go to the extreme of insulating yourself from these kinds of complaints or concerns or even just unwarranted criticism,” Niven asked. “You could just prevent it. So I do think the mayor missed an opportunity to let some other team - because there are an awful lot of political professionals out there in the world - let some other team really carry this campaign, rather than letting it cross purposes with his own campaign team.”
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