DaytonDailyNews.com

U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown says the Dayton Development Coalition is in his office so frequently that one of his staff members has taken to announcing at the beginning of the week if somebody from the group isn't scheduled to come by.

The senator's joke and point — which he insists he can prove with meeting logs — is that the coalition is aggressive about advocating for Dayton's interests.

Good for it. That's as it should be.

But the group has messed up, and its insistence on defending the indefensible diminishes it. An organization that's dedicated, among other things, to selling Dayton to the politicians should itself have decent political instincts. It's in a hole, and it should stop digging.

The decision to give a company owned by Lori Turner, wife of U.S. Rep. Mike Turner, a major no-bid contract was wrong. Mrs. Turner's company, Turner Effect, may be perfectly well-suited to help create a regional branding campaign. But the contract looks and smells bad.

The project is inherently creative, and thus inherently risky for any firm. Sometimes these initiatives fly and sometimes they flop. If Mrs. Turner's company is $300,000-plus richer after an effort that she provided the research for isn't embraced or doesn't produce tangible results, reasonable people are going to ask if someone else couldn't have done better.

(Full disclosure: Doug Franklin, publisher of this newspaper, was co-chair of the Dayton Development Coalition committee that oversaw the branding initiative that produced the "Get Midwest" slogan.)

The coalition, though private, is very much a public entity. It receives substantial taxpayer money from a multitude of local governments, and it has to conduct itself and spend its money in ways the public finds credible. Employing the wife of the congressman, whom the coalition has to work with at every turn to be successful, isn't smart.

That the financing for the branding effort was from mostly private sources doesn't fix the problem. Money is fungible.

The coalition has gotten itself in appearance trouble before. A former chief executive got called out for soliciting political contributions for Republican candidates and for co-hosting a $2,000-a-person fundraiser for a Republican Montgomery County commission candidate. That's inappropriate behavior for the leader of what's supposed to be a nonpartisan community organization that depends on the support of politicians from both political parties.

The group also took heat for having a closed process for picking what kinds of federal grants and money for social programs it would go to bat for in Washington. After some do-good agencies complained that political connections mattered more than merit, the coalition revamped that effort.

This history is important in that it shows the coalition's blind spot when it comes to judging how others see it.

The Turners themselves aren't blameless. Rep. Turner says his wife is entitled to her career, which, of course, she is. But doing business with entities that depend on Mr. Turner's support is dicey for both of them. She opens herself to being accused of cashing in, and he to selling his influence.

If that seems harsh, imagine if the politically aggressive, easily offended and often combative Rep. Turner were facing an opponent who had this sort of gig going. He would be all over him or her, and there wouldn't be an explanation in the world that he would accept. He would not be able to contain his moral outrage, and he would gleefully seize on the offense as a political opportunity for himself.

The development coalition needs to protect and build on its reputation for diligence and assertiveness that Sen. Brown points to. The group compromises its influence and integrity — and, most important, this community's best interests — when it rationalizes that which can't be rationalized.