Public Service director resigns to take on new role
The director of the Columbus Department of Public Service, which oversees city roads, bridges and traffic lights, plows city streets and picks up trash, is resigning.
Jennifer Gallagher, appointed by Columbus Mayor Andrew J. Ginther at the start of his first term in April 2016, informed the mayor in writing on Dec. 29 that she would step down Jan. 25. Gallagher oversees 859 employees and an annual budget of nearly $200 million.
Emails released by the City Attorney’s Office Friday suggest that Gallagher remains the subject of an investigation by the Ohio Ethics Commission, launched in 2022.
But Gallagher and Public Service Department spokesman Randall Borntrager said that is not why she is stepping down.
“After much consideration, I have decided to move on to new opportunities and challenges,” Gallagher wrote. “It has been an honor serving as the Public Service Director for our city. I am grateful for the opportunity that you have provided me the last eight years.”
The city said Gallagher will take a position with the engineering firm HNTB Corp. in Columbus “to bring transportation and mobility solutions to their customers.”
“Jennifer gave more than a decade of her career to the people of Columbus,” Ginther said in a prepared news release. “She is a smart and talented engineer” whose many initiatives made city roads safer.
In February 2022, Renata Ramsini, chief ethics officer for the city, told The Dispatch that an ethics violation complaint she received about Gallagher from Joe Motil, a longtime candidate for city council and mayor, had been forwarded to the state Ethics Commission, after consultation with Columbus City Attorney Zach Klein’s office.
The allegations concerned a $480,000 engineering contract Gallagher’s department awarded to a firm that employed her husband, John Gallagher.
Ohio law generally prohibits public officials from awarding or influencing contracts in which a family member has an interest.
Following the city’s announcement of Gallagher’s resignation Thursday afternoon, The Dispatch filed public records requests with the Public Service department and the City Attorney’s Office asking for any communications over the last six months with the Ethics Commission. The Public Service department responded that it had no such records, but the City Attorney’s Office released heavily redacted emails it exchanged with the Ethics Commission dated as recently as two months ago.
Between Sept. 18 and Nov. 6, Lara Baker-morrish, chief counsel for the city, and Phillip Langston, special investigator with the Ethics Commission, exchanged a dozen emails concerning the Gallagher investigation. The entire content of the emails is redacted, revealing only the times and dates they were sent. One was marked “Importance: High.” Baker-morrish CC’D her final email to James Hood, general counsel for the commission.
The city said the redactions were made in part because of a state law making confidential a “request for further information as part of an investigation conducted by the Ethics Commission.”
The Dispatch reported in February that the city turned over records to the
Ethics Commission in fall 2022 in response to a subpoena concerning Gallagher’s potential involvement in awarding a city road-design contract for the Little Turtle subdivision to Carpenter Marty Transportation, the Columbus engineering firm that employed her husband.
“It was (John Gallagher’s) plan that was submitted to the city that was approved” by his wife’s department, which provided no evidence that Jennifer Gallagher attempted to recuse herself from the process, Phil Harmon, the attorney in the case and a resident of the subdivision, said in January 2023.
The reason Gallagher is resigning has nothing to do with the Ethics Commission investigation, but rather because she has chosen to take a new private sector position and feels now is the right time to leave so that Ginther can select a new Public Service director as he begins his third term as mayor, said Public Service department spokesman Borntrager.
The City Auditor’s Office couldn’t immediately say Friday afternoon how much total business HNTB, the transportation-infrastructure design firm that hired Gallagher, has done with the city in the past three years. But City Council agendas show that councilmembers authorized Gallagher to sign contracts totaling millions of dollars with the firm during her time heading the office. wbush@gannett.com @Reporterbush