The city of Columbus is being accused of mounting a pressure campaign on downtown property owners to move control of safety and cleaning services to an organization Mayor Andrew Ginther has influence over.
Marc Conte, executive director of the Capital Crossroads District, told WOSU Michael Stevens, director of Ginther’s Dept. of Development, pressured owners to pull their support. Conte is set to lose his job on Nov. 1 once the two downtown special improvement districts, or SIDs, shut down because property owners pulled their support.
“We had a couple of them say, ‘Look, if I want to keep doing business with a city and doing business with downtown Columbus, Inc., I got to do what they say,'” Conte said…