Aberdeen Councilman Agrees: Mayor Schaunaman’s Bid for City Marketing Contract Is Improper

Aberdeen City Councilman Rob Ronayne, who is a lawyer, says Mayor Travis Schaunaman has a conflict of interest in bidding for an advertising contract that will be paid for by city tax dollars through the city-funded Convention and Visitors Bureau and Chamber of Commerce:

Ronayne explained that the two entities that Schaunaman would be doing business with are directly funded by the city, which creates a conflict of interest.

“The CVB was adopted, was created by this City Council. We passed an ordinance to create it. We fully fund it. We can dissolve it. It is an arm of the city of Aberdeen. The chamber of commerce maintains a separate fund that we replenish every year under the promotional fund. They administer and fund city marketing and that’s the only thing in that fund is our money. That is the money that is being proposed to fund this activity,” Ronayne said.

Ronayne added that the mayor’s conduct violates the city’s conflict-of-interest policy, which prohibits elected officials from using their position to secure special advantages for themselves.

…”We can govern or we can contract with the government—we can’t do both. Citizens have a right to know that members of their government are not enriching themselves as a result of their positions,” Ronayne added [emphasis mine; Shannon Marvel, “Councilman Levels Accusations Against Mayor,” Aberdeen American News, 2019.08.27, p. 9A].

Mayor Schaunaman, who is not a lawyer, says he doesn’t have a conflict of interest; Ronayne does!

He also noted that over the last 12 years, his company, Production Monkeys, has done business with 12 entities that have received promotional funds from the city.

“I don’t expect that we can say those people would be choosing to do business with me because of a title when they’ve got a 12-year track record of doing so,” Schaunaman said.

“The purpose of conflict-of-interest laws, which I’m not breaking, is to protect citizens and the city from unfair business and from paying too much for things from people they shouldn’t be doing business with,” Schaunaman said.

He also said that the one competitor in the market that would receive the city’s business if Production Monkeys was prohibited from doing so is also a client of Ronayne’s—Troy McQuillen, of McQuillen Creative Group.

“I would also like to point out that the one competitor in the market that would get all this business is a client of yours and so I don’t believe that you could fairly vote on such a thing without a conflict of business” [Marvel, 2019.08.27].

Mayor Schaunaman appears to be adopting Trumpist obtusity to avoid acknowledging his conflict of interest.

1. He fails to rebut the central charge, that an elected official with power over funding for certain entities should not be using his mayoral office and privilege to publicly pressure those entities to contract with his private company.
2. He pretends that there is only one other advertiser anywhere who could perform the city marketing work in question, when neither his firm nor McQuillen’s provided the current marketing logo and slogan.
3. He’s shouting, “No I’m not, you are!” in a situation which, if a conflict of interest can be argued to exist, only underscores the fact that Mayor Schaunaman himself has an intense, direct conflict of interest. Ronayne isn’t bidding for a taxpayer-funded marketing contract. If McQuillen Creative Group gets the contract, that contract may not result in a single extra penny in Ronayne’s pocket. If Production Monkeys gets the contract, money goes directly to CEO Schaunaman’s pocket. If Schaunaman really believes Ronayne’s elsewise business acquaintance with McQuillen renders him conflicted, then his defense of his own conflict of interest is toast.

Councilman Ronayne is right: Mayor Schaunaman needs to stop monkeying around and withdraw his conflicted bid for the taxpayer-funded city marketing contract.