Just wondering about the decision making of the Lake County Commissioners.

The name Brian Durdle showed up on our radar screen on a couple of research projects, so were curious…Here is a letter we received from Mr. Paul Malchesky when we did a records request about the LakeTran sales tax issue.   Since Moreland Consulting is a private company, we could not determine who was doing the actual advertising for LakeTran.   We believed that “two-stepping” was happening, but could not prove it.

Then we heard whispers about the Lake County Commissioners hiring a Brian Durdle for some consulting work.    Brian Durdle consulting agreement

Here are some excerpts from the agreement:

Scope of Work:  Strategic public affairs and communication services to achieve desirable outcomes as defined by the Lake County Commissioners.  Outcomes may include successful economic development project support, regulatory support, and state or federal policy guidelines.

Term of Contract: January 1, 2020 – October 31, 2020

$ Amount of Contract:  $40,000 to Mr. Durdle’s company – Project Finance Solutions (seems to be a company that knows how to get State financing)

The Commissioners awarded two contracts totaling in excess of $103,290 to two consulting firms to help the Commissioners determine how to spend the property tax money generated from the Senior Services levy. This is known as getting “political cover” – you know what has to be done, but you need some justification to give the taxpayers who will be negatively impacted.  The issues are the close proximity of three of  the senior centers, a Painesville senior center receiving funds without having a location, and the non-profit RSVP duplicating the efforts of the Lake County Council on Aging. CONSULTING FIRMS SENIOR LEVY

RSVP, aligned with Willoughby-Eastlake School District, received $50,000 from the Commissioners to study the impact of music on dementia patients. Here is a prior article we wrote.  https://lobbyistsforcitizens.com/2019/04/10/rsvp-music-and-memories-50000/

Now Durdle gets a $40,000 contract for his government expertise.

In light of these outlandish contracts,  we wonder why the Commissioners would deny the $45,000 request to secure additional investigator hours for the Lake County Coroner’s office.  The Coroner may want to think about hiring Durdle or the other consulting firms for advice – they obviously “know where the bodies are buried”.)

Categories: Free Speech Zone, Uncategorized

Tags: FT