Watchdog Group Eyes Donation to Mayor’s Campaign

Radio manufacturer Motorola donated $1,000 to the re-election campaign of Beech Grove (Ind.) mayor Joe Wright, raising questions about whether the money may led to the company receiving a regional radio contract.

A Marion County agency selected Motorola to provide a new $37 million radio system that will serve the region’s public safety agencies. Wright was chair of that agency, the Metropolitan Emergency Communications Agency.

The Indiana chapter of Common Cause, a political oversight group, said the political donation raised a conflict-of-interest issue in awarding the radio project bid.

“They’re making decisions without complete information. That’s never good,” said Julia Vaughn, policy director of Common Cause.

But Wright said all of the contributions he received were legally reported and were public. The donation in question, he pointed out, was given a year after the MECA board voted in July 2006 to award the contract to Motorola.

According to public documents, Motorola made the $1,000 contribution to Wright’s campaign in August 2007 at a campaign fundraiser hosted by the law firm Barnes and Thornburg.

Local media noted that Wright defended Motorola when a dispute arose over who should pay to fix radio consoles that could not be configured to use headsets. Dispatchers had complained that using radio channels with speakers made transmissions more difficult to hear.

The MECA board eventually voted to spend $270,000 to fund changes to the console. Wright did not vote on the funding proposal.

Vaughn said Wright and other politicians need to clearly disclose contributions that raise the potential for a conflict of interest.

“It’s a fact which may or may not have any impact on his decision-making,” said Vaughn. “One of the ways to try to dispel concerns about that is to be completely open to anything that could be perceived as a conflict.”

In an editorial, the Indianapolis Star newspaper said, “What we have here is more than a failure to communicate.”

Motorola’s contribution to the Wright’s political campaign should be classified as “relevant information,” the newspaper said. “The donation, even if it was delivered a year after Motorola’s initial contract was approved, still raises a potential conflict of interest and Wright should have revealed it,” it wrote.

Even though Wright met all legal reporting requirements, the newspaper said, “Message to Wright: Doing what’s legally required isn’t necessarily admirable; doing what’s ethical, by disclosing Motorola’s contribution, would have been the right thing.”

The editorial opined, “Wright’s lack of forthrightness shakes the foundations of trust between the board and its chairman, and also the public’s trust.”

The newspaper suggested that Wright could start rebuilding trust, “by admitting he failed to lay all his cards on the table with fellow board members and by not hiding behind a statement that he merely met the legal requirements of campaign finance disclosure.”