The left-leaning group Progress Ohio says 24 million dollars in public money will go from the high-tech job creating Third Frontier program to local chambers of commerce. Brian Rothenberg says many of them support Ohio’s collective bargaining reform law.
“This is now a laundering scheme that allows for public money to flow into organizations that will be compromised in their decision-making over issues like Senate Bill 5 in the future,” says Rothenberg.
But the head of the JobsOhio board says that’s ridiculous. Mark Kvamme says Third Frontier funding is awarded to businesses and organizations on the basis of detailed requests on how they’ll use the money.
“We’ll have an annual report for JobsOhio," says Kvamme. "JobsOhio will spent and/or donate zero to anything like this. It will not happen. 100% of our funds are for job creation. That is it.”
A spokesman for the official pro-Issue 2 group, Building a Better Ohio, says Progress Ohio’s claim is "an absurd reach in logic".