The high cost of keeping Dayton’s Culture of Corruption in power

I’m going to start out telling you the really bad news first: Dayton no longer has a newspaper, or at least a daily one. Now printed in Knoxville, 6 hours away by truck, the deadline is so early for the print edition, you are now reading 2 day old news.

One quick update on the news out of the news – they hired former Wilderness Agency Chief Operating officer, Lisa Barhorst, as their Director of Sales and Marketing. This should pretty much put the final nail in the coffin for the agency that got away with no-bid contracts because they’d secretly embedded their future CEO as Debbie Lieberman’s aide- so he could steer no-bid contracts their way. Former founder Richard Kaiser was forced out- and went a little ballistic for a bit, so this should qualify as an imaginary ad agency at this point.

The reason I bring up the paper, and Wilderness, and the Culture of Corruption to start this post out is because the Dayton Daily news- never really seems to get the story straight, or timely, or give the people of Dayton real insight on how this city works (or doesn’t). Journalists are supposed to be the checks and balances on government gone awry.

The latest on the Montgomery County Clerk of Courts Mike Foley case was a front page story, twice, but- I guess better late than never is ok these days. Reality is why Foley is still in office, despite first pleading “No Contest” and being sentenced to a suspended year – and then reversing his plea, should be crystal clear that we have a felon running the Clerk of Courts for Montgomery County.

Then, there’s the story that hasn’t made it to the paper about the Montgomery County Board of Elections being ordered to release their emails that they were trying to cover up in their attempt to stop Mary McDonald from running (and winning) against the corrupt Debbie Lieberman, who was immediately hired by the corrupt Mike Foley.

Here’s a summary of the ruling: in the case of State ex rel. Platt v. Montgomery County Board of Elections, decided in June 2025, the Ohio Supreme Court considered whether the Board of Elections had violated public records laws by withholding access to an email. Joseph Platt had requested a copy of an email that included a legal memorandum from the county prosecutor’s office. The board refused to provide it, claiming attorney-client privilege and asserting that the record was not subject to public disclosure.

The Court ruled that the email sent from the board’s official email account to a private account was a public record because it documented official business. However, the Court agreed that an email sent from a personal email account, not maintained or kept by the public office, was not a public record and did not need to be disclosed.

As a result, the Court ordered the release of the public email, awarded Platt one thousand dollars in statutory damages, and required the board to pay court costs and attorney fees. This case clarified that public records laws apply to official business conducted through government accounts, even if the content involves confidential legal advice.

Here’s the ruling as a pdf:

Now, this is the same BOE that I tried to sue for issuing what I called a meeting schedule as opposed to an actual agenda– hiding the actions of the board unless you actually show up. This is also the BOE that invalidated a bunch of Vandalia voters signatures on a technicality on a petition given to them by the City of Vandalia. Forget the will of the people, we’re working for the people who want to build things- who pay off our elected officials.

Do you need proof?

We had a primary in May for Dayton City Commission. A waste of an election, 5 candidates for 4 slots on the November ballot. Poor Valerie Duncan, boosted by her belief in the results of the last primary she ran in, where the BOE claimed that she and Marcus Bedinger outperformed Jordan Wortham and me, despite both of us having recently run in elections getting way more votes (at one point, Jordan Wortham had beaten Carolyn Rice until some insane statistically impossible late votes came in for Carolyn- enough for her to not only win, but avoid a recount). I’ve questioned the data integrity of the Montgomery County BOE since I found my father living in two different precincts depending on who’s data you looked at (this was back in 2014).

Valerie spent a lot of her own money. I know, because even after telling her I didn’t want to work for her anymore (because she’s very disorganized and everything goes through a million changes, plus, she doesn’t understand technology at all), my firm put her website back up, and did printing for her. Her final report is almost illegible- and desn’t seem complete.

The real problem with all of these reports is that they are not done through a digital reporting system (not that the Federal Elections System one is any good- see my site www.electionsnotauctions.com).
This means the data isn’t easily searchable, nor is it ADA compliant- since the local BOE posts scans of printed documents. #FAIL

This election is about if the Culture of Corruption, where the demolition contractors, developers, back room deal folks, and rich people, keep the puppets on the Dayton City Commission on their strings. We have the two brave and grossly underfunded challengers, sitting commissioners Darryl Fairchild and Shenise Turner-Sloss, running with their third amigo, attorney Jacob Davis. Only Darryl and Jacob had to file, and they raised $21,702.73. Turner Sloss is running for Mayor against Mayor Jeff Mims in November- and they don’t have to file yet.

The key to understand the Dayton City Commission is that it takes 3 votes to pass anything. Matt Joseph (who’s brother Russ is in the center of the Supreme Court’s spanking of the MCBOE coverup) and Chris Shaw are establishment candidate who toe the line and do as the party and the people in power say. So, in this election, if just one of these three: Darius Beckham (Nan Whaley’s and Jeff Mims former aide), Mayor Mims, or School Board Member Karen Wick win- nothing changes. The Culture of Corruption still owns Dayton, lock stock and barrel.

I went and dug up the campaign finance reports, something the newspaper used to always do, and looked at the disparity.

Beckham is 28- and has been a political protegee his whole life. Wick, has been the party’s person on the school board for 2 terms, where she kept giving the incompetent Libbly Lolli raises and wasting money on “nationwide superintendent searches.” She’s done little to lead and generally goes with the majority. She and Jocelyn Rhynard are like the Hatfields and McCoys- because Karen doesn’t think school board member Will Smith sexually harassed Rhynard. Wick also lied to the Dayton Daily news about her age- and got away with it, until I reminded them.

How much money do you think these two raised? $89,390.

Here’s the thing, the job pays $50K a year. We have a “City Manager form of Government” where these folks aren’t even supposed to really be involved in the day to day operations, just oversight and hiring of a City Manager (who is grossly incompetent and has more bad real estate deals in her portfolio than Donald Trump- only they cost the taxpayers millions: Demolition of Dayton Daily News and Schwind Buildings, the Wayne Avenue Kroger deal, the Paru tower on N. Main, the new police station boondoggle with the old diner and steam plant). Why are you raising that much- and spending it to beat Valerie Duncan in a primary? They spent $73,634.11. And they spent it with firms outside of Dayton- way outside:

Battleaxe Digital of Beverly Hills did their digital. Apparently, buy Dayton isn’t a thing with Gen Murphy their campaign manager. They got about $16K from both Karen and Darius in the post election filings.
JM2 in Ravenel SC got $3200 for literature – as if there isn’t anyone in Dayton that can do it.

But what’s more interesting is in a city where most residents have a hard time giving $100 to a candidate, the number of people who gave $250 or more to them. Who they are, where they live are really relevant. Here’s just the big money backers of Wick and Beckham (and ostensibly the Mayor. This is just the list of donors who gave to both, in excess of $250 (which should leave out family friends- etc).

50 people, $73,600

That’s a lot of scratch for a commission race, that hasn’t even headed down the home stretch.

I don’t want to take my time doing a guided tour of who all these people are, feel free to tell us in comments.

My general rule of thumb in voting is to always look where the money is coming from- and vote for the campaign with the most small dollar donations.

Here are Darius Beckham’s pre and post primary reports:

Here are Karen Wick’s pre and post primary reports:

If you don’t understand how this all ties back to the Culture of Corruption, you’ve got a lot of reading to do on this blog. But, way, way. way back, I did the same kind of report about how a landfill operator, who lived in Columbus was backing Rhine McLin with $10K and her girl, Nan Whaley with $5K, his name was Kitt Cooper, and if you want to look at Dayton’s biggest building project- it’s our landfill (not Kitt’s- he must not have greased the wheels well enough).

And, because I’m tired, and don’t want to do a separate post, here’s a quick hitter of something to think about:

Why do so many people want to be Dr. David Lawrence’s new bosses?

Now, I never count candidates until the petitions are in and certified by the Board of Elections (and if any candidates want tips on how to guarantee your signatures are good- find me).

We have the following candidates running for the four seats coming up this fall (a majority- and one seat will not have an incumbent since Wick is running for Commission).

The Incumbents:
Jocelyn Rhynard, finishing her second term. Very involved in state policy discussions. Upset the party slate, coming in second when she ran the first time- when Rev. Harris, Karen Wick, Mohamed Al-Hamdani and Paul Bradley thought they were shoeins. Bradley, a former aide to Sherrod Brown has had his ticket punched in the county building with patronage jobs ever since, and is currently the Land Bank owner of the Paru Tower money pit.

Joe Lacey, who was on the board long ago- running on the single issue of the bad deal the board made to buy Reynolds and Reynolds out of their downtown HQ. He later got un-elected, as people were sick of his BS- including this famous moment:

BTW- this is one of my most popular videos, 27K views. Lacey only got re-elected last time because there weren’t many candidates.

And then there is Chrisondra Goodwine, the new bully on the board. You can read about her here (including when she threatened to sue me). All I’m going to say is I that I have to believe most of these people are running- just to get her off the board. I wouldn’t ever vote for her for anything. Here’s a little secret, she recently hired (Mar 10, 2025) another board member, William Bailey, to work for Jefferson Township where she is the Township administrator.

Literally, it would be almost impossible to make all these political entanglements any tighter than this.

With 3 incumbents on the ballot, here comes the fun part- the challengers:

• Dajza Demmings 4654 Owens Dr. Dayton 45406
• Ann Marie “Mario” Gallin, 40 Gebhart St. Dayton 45410
• Jamica Garrison 531 N Belmonte Park Apt 409 Dayton 45405
• Steven C. Gregory 1232 Dennison Ave Dayton 45417
• Twila D. Grigsby 18 Reisinger Ave. Dayton 45417
• Ken Hayes 728 Wellmeier Ave. Dayton 45410 (the only one who has turned in petitions already)
• Chloe Louisa Morgan 22 Missouri Ave. Dayton 45410

That makes 10 candidates for 4 seats, if everyone collects the required 300+ good voter signatures, which aren’t due until August. I also heard a rumor about someone running their brother, but, we’ll wait and see. Did I miss anyone?

For once, voters may actually get to have real choices, and maybe, we can even set up a real debate through DaytonDebates.

In Summary

There is no question that there is a culture of corruption in Dayton and that Dayton voters continue to vote for people who just don’t work for them. Things happen in backrooms, laws are broken openly, and it’s increasingly hard to report on all this. I’d like to thank my recent new monthly donors to this effort. I am deeply grateful.

Telling the truth in Dayton has real costs. One of these candidates was a long time friend and client. Once they got into politics, no more. It doesn’t matter how good my firms ideas and bids are, they go to the insiders,

And, while I try to go to court sometimes to stop corruption, it just costs me. And as a final reminder of why Jeff Mims shouldn’t be re-elected, I share this video I made a while back. He knew the meeting was illegal, that’s why he didn’t go in, but did he stop it? No.

No song for this post. I’m tired. And, none of you seem to like them enough to mention in the comments. I have a great one for this, but, I’d need to see at least 25 people ask for it in the comments.