PERRYSBURG – The city is looking to cut its ties with a governmental lobbying group that it began working
with in February of last year.
City Administrator John Alexander, speaking Wednesday, said that he provided an update to members of
council’s Finance Committee Tuesday night about the matter, stating a recommendation would be made at
Tuesday’s council meeting that an ordinance to continue the contract with Bridge Government Relations
LLC be referred back to city administration, and that they would terminate the relationship at the
conclusion of the current contract this month.
A first reading of the ordinance had been voted by council at its Jan. 18 meeting. The ordinance would
approve an agreement with Bridge for "government relations services" at a cost of $2,500 per
month, a $1,000 per month reduction in the fee currently paid. The city has been working with lobbyist
Andrew Beck from Bridge, who had provided a variety of legislative information to the city.
Alexander said while the relationship with Bridge did lay a good foundation with representatives in
congress for the city, "there was no return as a result of that, and complicating the matters is
the current anti-spending, anti-earmarks philosophy in Washington," which made spending public
funds on the lobbying efforts no longer valuable. In November, Mayor Nelson Evans had commented that,
should earmarks be cut off at the federal level, the contract might not be renewed.
In other business, Tax Commissioner Jean Hilt reported that city income tax collections for January were
up 4 percent, or $56,533.18, over collections for January, 2010.
