PUT-IN-BAY — The recent raids on village hall, businesses, and homes on South Bass Island are just the latest examples in recent years of state or county officials having to step in and handle disputes or investigate public officials on the island.
Property linked to Mayor Bernard McCann, village legal counsel George Wilber, and ferry service Jet Express owner Todd Blumensaadt were searched this month as part of a public corruption investigation by the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation and the Ohio Ethics Commission.
Mr. McCann and Mr. Blumensaadt have said through attorneys that they have done no wrong, and that the investigations are wastes of money prompted by complaints from a disgruntled brother of Mr. Blumensaadt.
But Put-in-Bay, located in Lake Erie several miles north of Catawba Island, has seen its share of controversy in recent years. Village residents raised repeated concerns — and filed lawsuits — in 2014 about what they considered to be unfair and overly aggressive policing under then Chief Ric Lampela, as well as concerns about female patrons at island bars potentially having drugs put in their drinks.
The citizen complaints led to an investigation of the Put-in-Bay Police Department by the Ottawa County Sheriff's Office. That probe resulted in charges against the former chief. He was found guilty at trial in October, 2015, of disorderly conduct but acquitted of dereliction of duty and falsification. In December, the appellate court threw out the disorderly conduct conviction.
That wave of investigations and complaints was nothing new for the island. In 2002 the mayor, police chief, and an officer assigned a police dog all resigned within months of each other. The mayor had called state liquor control agents, who conducted a raid that led to five dozen citations. Bar owners accused him of slandering them.
The officer’s dog died following a drug bust. Officials believed the dog had been somehow poisoned while working.
Scandals and investigations may not be the image Put-in-Bay wants to put out, but it doesn’t seem to deter business. Island visitors are too busy living it up to care about it, business owners said.
“They could probably give two hoots about the politics,” said Dennis Rectenwald, Harriet’s House guest house owner and retired Port Clinton Schools superintendent.
Business owners are too busy trying to keep up with the summer rush to focus too much on scandals or investigations, unless they affect their own business, Mr. Rectenwald said. But there’s always a divide in the small community between business owners who depend on the influx of tourists to make money, and residents who’d rather enjoy the tranquility found on weekdays and in the winter year round, instead of the rowdiness of the summer weekends.
The headlines about Put-in-Bay in recent years mean the island hasn’t changed much, Mr. Rectenwald said. The town was a popular spot for bootleggers during Prohibition. And during later decades, residents and guests liked the certain amount of anonymity of a vacation spot a boat or plane ride away from the mainland.
“The politicians, city council, the mayor, the business owners kind of felt they could do as they darn well pleased because it was their own little world,” he said.
Instead, those events that would be kept quiet are now exposed because of social media and the 24-hour news cycle, he said, so “what happens in the Bay, stays in the Bay,” no longer exists.
While Ottawa County Sheriff Steve Levorchick said his office hasn’t had to use an extraordinary amount of resources on Put-in-Bay, it probably has spent more time on it than other similar sized governmental agencies in the county.
That’s in part because the isolation of the island community from the rest of the county leads to an independent streak, he said.
“The logistics of the island itself make it susceptible to leaning toward independence and its own rules,” Sheriff Levorchick said. “I think that is just the nature of the beast.”
The community also struggles to afford enough officers to handle the massive influx of people during the summer months. Most officers are seasonal employees, poorly paid, and inexperienced, although the sheriff said his office has always had a good working relationship with the department.
“It is a challenge for them to have the manpower,” he said.
Several years ago, village officials approached the sheriff’s office about potentially taking over patrol duties on the island. But Sheriff Levorchick said the idea was dropped after the village realized it would cost more than expected, because he insisted that patrols be done only by full-time officers.
Dan Tierney, a spokesman for the Ohio attorney general, said state officials haven’t had to spend an inordinate amount of time on the island. They prosecuted Chief Lampela’s case, are investigating now, and also prosecuted another officer in recent years, among other work.
Records also show state officials investigated the town’s water drinking water plant in 2004, and a drug case in 2002.
But a memo written in 2015 by Margaret Tomaro, the special prosecutor appointed by Attorney General Mike DeWine for the investigation into misconduct complaints in Put-in-Bay, suggests how the island’s unique characteristics can cause problems. With a permanent population of about 140, but annual visitors that dwarf the number of residents, the scale of handling so many tourists and the business they bring can lead to conduct that may not be criminal, but still raises concerns.
"...the professionalism of the Put-in-Bay Police Department often fell far short of what should be expected. However, it is not a crime to be unprofessional,” she wrote.
Contact Nolan Rosenkrans at nrosenkrans@theblade.com, 419-724-6086, or on Twitter @NolanRosenkrans.
First Published September 17, 2017, 7:25 p.m.
