CAMPAIGN FINANCE: STARK AUDITOR RACE - HAROLD V. PEREZ

Former banker Alan Harold (Huntington Bank and FirstMerit Bank) who now works as the chief financial person for Coon Restorations & Sealants, Inc is running as the Republican candidate for Stark County auditor against incumbent Democratic Auditor Kim Perez.

Interesting enough, they raised similar amounts of money.  Perez:  $22,030.00; Harold:  $21010.00

As far as their individual campaign finance reports go (pre-general election), here is the SCPR take:

PEREZ

 

There are a couple notable things about the Perez report.

• the number of contributions coming out of Summit County, but the lack of contributions from Cuyahoga County (Several years ago Perez had numerous contributions on his report from Cuyahoga including contributions from legally troubled Jimmy Dimora (Cuyahoga County commissioner) and Frank Russo (former Cuyahoga County auditor who is now serving prison time for a public corruption conviction in federal court).
• the number of contributions he has received from employees who work for him in the Stark County auditor's office.

As indicated in the graphic above, Sheriff Drew Alexander, a Republican who runs the sheriff's department for Summit County is a Perez contributor as is John Donofrio who is the fiscal officer for Summit County.  Moreover, there are quite a number of contributions from Summit County residents on Perez's report.

Perez says he has 99 employees.   If the SCPR counted them correctly, 42 of them made contributions to Perez.  Such is legal as long as the employees do so on a completely voluntary basis.  A special form is set out by the campaign finance section of the Ohio secretary of state office for reporting such contributions.

Two of the better known employee names from the public's standpoint are those of Gary Zeigler, II (son of former Stark County Treasurer Gary D. Zeigler) and Jimmy Babcock (son of a former Canton mayor and a longtime Canton councilwoman).

HAROLD

Alan Harold has the distinction of have Stark County's most famous (currently) political personality supporting him in his effort to wrestle the auditor's post away from Perez.

Phil Davison, whom the SCPR filmed at the Stark County Republican Party executive committee meeting to select a Republican candidate for county treasurer to replace the commissioner removed Gary D. Zeigler, made a small contribution.  

Another note on the Harold campaign finance report is the fact that Republican county treasurer candidate Alexander Zumbar contributed to Harold.

So?

Not necessarily anything.  However, the Republicans and The Repository Editorial Board did make a big deal about the long term "political" relationship between Auditor Perez and Gary D. Zeigler while he was treasurer.  And the SCPR agree with the Republicans that the county treasurer and county auditor (since the auditor should be working as some sort of a "check and balance" on the treasurer) should keep a political distance.

Won't the same standard be applicable to the Republican tandem of Harold and Zumbar, should they be elected?

Finally, Alan Harold gets the SCPR award for being the most exacting of all the candidates filing campaign finance reports.

How so?

Harold, very meticulously, place in his "in-kind" section of his report that he contributed a self-photo valued at ten cents ($0.10) to the campaign.

Attaboy, Alan!!!