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YOUNGSTOWN — Scandals are supposed to shock.

But here where the Mahoning River flows past abandoned steel mills and polluted "brownfields," the latest scandal involving hometown politicians isn't raising many eyebrows.

So many of the area's elected leaders — scores of them — have been handcuffed, fingerprinted and convicted in the past decade or so that a scandal like the one involving Ohio's attorney general generates little surprise.

Political corruption? "That's normal here," said Jack Colucci, proprietor of a downtown newsstand. "In the history of this valley, scandal is commonplace."

Indeed. One of the most notorious figures is former Rep. James Traficant, the Democrat who represented the area until 2002 — when he was convicted of taking bribes, filing false tax returns and racketeering.

But Traficant has had plenty of hometown company behind bars. During a federal crackdown on corruption in the late 1990s, more than 70 area judges, politicians, attorneys and mobsters were convicted of bribery, conspiracy, extortion and witness tampering.

Latest scandal

The latest scandal involves Youngstown-area men who began serving the state in important capacities last year.

Attorney General Marc Dann, 46, an attorney and former state senator, won election by promising to be a corruption-buster. To help him, he brought along hometown hands, including Anthony Gutierrez, who became his general services director; Leo Jennings III, his communications director; and Edgar Simpson, his chief of staff.

This month, Dann's office issued a 57-page report acknowledging a hostile work environment marked by rule-breaking, sexual harassment and vulgarity. At a news conference, Dann admitted to having an affair with a young female subordinate.

Since taking office, the Youngstown pipeline has developed some serious cracks. Dann had to fire Rick Alli, his chief of law enforcement operations, for keeping his job with the city of Youngstown while on the state payroll. Now Gutierrez and Jennings have been fired, and Simpson resigned under fire. Another staffer in the Youngstown office, Kathleen Walley, was put on administrative leave amid allegations she scrubbed her computer clean to protect her boss — Gutierrez.

Calls for Dann's resignation or impeachment are loud around the state. But in Youngstown, not so much.

While the state's top Democrats, including Gov. Ted Strickland, have called on Dann to resign, leaders of the Mahoning and Trumbull counties' Democratic parties have continued to support him. One exception is state Sen. John Boccieri, a Democrat running for Congress in a Mahoning Valley district, who said he regretted the "embarrassment" of Dann's conduct.

Little voter outrage

Among voters, there's little outrage. Many reactions range from here-we-go-again resignation to outright sympathy.

"People here have put up with it for so long," said Tim Gallagher, who started as a steelworker and ended up an information technology worker. "When are people going to wake up" and stop electing colorful but corrupt leaders, he wondered.

Local attorney Damian Billak said, "It's a shame because it's not Youngstown. Dann is one of 700 Mahoning County lawyers, and the rest of us are very ethical."

"It's somewhat blown out of proportion by the media," said Sam Scott, an inventory clerk at a downtown business. Dann "needs a second chance," he said.

What is it about Youngstown that produces so many scandals and scoundrels?

Sherry Lee Linkon, co-founder of the Center for Working-Class Studies at Youngstown State University, argues that if Youngstown residents seem too willing to tolerate the presence of the Mafia and corrupt leaders, it's because other institutions have so completely failed to help the community.

"Does this area have a history of political corruption? Sure," she said. "It's rooted in the long-term failures of government — local, state and national — and other 'official' institutions to protect the interests of ordinary people."

Economic nightmare

The scope of Youngstown's economic misery is hard for outsiders to grasp. Think how government officials failed New Orleans as the Hurricane Katrina catastrophe was unfolding, and you will start to understand.

This area's nightmare began on "Black Monday," Sept. 19, 1977, when the Youngstown Sheet and Tube Co. steel mill announced it would close its Campbell Works on Youngstown's east side, eliminating 4,100 jobs.

In short order, other mills went cold and dark along the Mahoning River, wiping away 10,000 steel jobs in less than three years. Tens of thousands of additional jobs disappeared for truckers, rail workers, suppliers, fabricators and others.

Mass exodus

As jobs left, so did younger people, especially those with better educations. Youngstown has seen its population plunge from about 140,000 in the early 1970s to about 81,000 today.

The loss of population has driven down property values, making it impossible for many families to sell their homes for enough money to pay off the mortgage. For some, a house fire set by organized criminals might generate an insurance payoff big enough to rent a U-Haul for the move to Houston, or Atlanta or some other place where employment is growing.

"The federal government failed; the unions failed. Every organization failed except the Mob, which was able to do some things to help people," Linkon said.

"I'm not saying: Therefore, organized crime is good," Linkon emphasized. "But in the context of Youngstown, its presence is not surprising."

Traficant a hero

Context also helps explain Traficant. While people in Washington saw a profane, bizarre congressman, people in Youngstown saw a hero. In the early 1980s, Traficant was the sheriff of Mahoning County, which surrounds Youngstown. One of his duties was to serve eviction notices, throwing unemployed steelworkers and their kids into the street.

Traficant refused to evict people whose only crime was losing a job. He went to jail himself for refusing to serve eviction notices.

Of course, Youngstown's history with organized crime started long before the mills closed. But again, there were reasons.

When Youngstown Sheet & Tube was founded in 1900, Youngstown's population was about 45,000. Two decades later, it was triple that. The great majority of people flooding into the area were poorly educated, lonely young men, far from their parents in Italy, Poland, Hungary and other European lands.

That brothels, bars and dice games would proliferate in such an environment is no surprise. Men doing brutal work for little pay needed reasons for hope. Long before the state started a lottery, steelworkers pinned their dreams on "the Bug," a lottery run by the Mafia.

Now that the area has suffered economic devastation, "it hasn't changed," said Gallagher, the former steelworker. Asked if he still perceived a high level of public corruption, he said, "Yes, it's rampant. It pushes good people away."

Still, many people here find themselves torn between feeling sympathy for corrupt leaders and wanting to help put an end to the scandals.

When you live in such an economically depressed economy, "you like to see a fighter," said George Repasky, another former steelworker turned computer geek. "But you need people with integrity."

Marilyn Geewax, who grew up in the Youngstown area and whose parents still live there, is a reporter in the Cox Newspapers Washington Bureau. Her e-mail address is mgeewax@coxnews.com.

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