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Attorney general's 13 trips using state aircraft cost Ohio $22,039
Sunday, January 27, 2008
COLUMBUS — Using a taxpayer-funded Beechcraft King Air 90 twin-engine airplane, Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann jetted off to press conferences and meetings three times last week.
In New York, he stood with other state attorneys general at a press conference about MySpace, the social networking site.
Extras
In Lima, he held a press conference and community meeting where he promised his agents would do a full and fair investigation into a police shooting.
And in Hamilton County, he personally filed a lawsuit against a charter school and held a press conference.
Dann has used state aircraft 13 times at a cost of $22,039. Often he's the only passenger, with pilots ferrying him to and from Youngstown, where he lives with his wife and kids.
"Apparently this guy didn't get the governor's memo about the budget being tight," said Ohio GOP Deputy Chairman Kevin DeWine. "It is one thing to use these planes to advance the people's business — and I'm going to assume that's what's going on with many of these trips — but Dann is notorious for using public money to advance his own publicity and ego."
Former Attorney General Jim Petro, a Cleveland native who owned a home in Columbus, did not use the state plane in 2005 or 2006, according to state records.
Dann sees traveling the state as an invaluable part of the job, said Dann spokesman Leo Jennings III. "Marc's philosophy, and it's been this way since he took office, is the state of Ohio consists of more than the two blocks around the Statehouse," Jennings said. "He is just not going to be confined to this office. I don't think that's a negative. I actually think it's a positive."
Dann often flies out of Youngstown — which means the plane must fly from Columbus to pick him up — because he wants to be with his family, Jennings said.
"Marc's kids play sports and he is very committed to his kids and he takes every opportunity he can to get home," Jennings said.
