Group soliciting financial help in area to fight alleged
pollution by AK Steel
By Thomas Gnau
Ohio Citizen Action wants more than your assent in its work
against what members say is pollution from AK Steel's
Middletown Works.
It wants a contribution.
"That's been the case for the 26 years," said Rachael Belz,
a salaried Cincinnati-based Ohio Citizen Action worker.
The group has had paid canvassers going door-to-door in
Middletown two days a week since mid-January, Belz said.
Canvassers tell residents about what they contend is
AK-produced air and water pollution. But they also try to
raise the "minimums we need to maintain the organization,"
Belz said.
That's $140 a day per canvasser, she said.
"In order to do that kind of job, you are asking a lot of
people" for contributions, Belz said.
If canvassers don't perform, "they decide to leave," she
said. She called the job a "self-sustaining position."
Said Belz, "Just like anybody, if you don't do your job,
you can't get paid."
She said that doesn't mean canvassers earn a commission.
On the group's Web site, Ohio Citizen Action intern Sarah
Schnell wrote: "I knew that this could be a most educational,
interesting and fun summer job as long as I could meet the
weekly fundraising quota of $650."
Belz said that if canvassers raise more than a "minimum,"
there's a "possibility" they will be paid more. She declined
to use the word "bonus."
"I see quotas, and I see bonuses," said Alan McCoy, AK's
vice president of public affairs, pointing to the
organization's Web site.
The site says full-time workers get $350 a week, "plus
bonuses." A part-time worker gets $55 a day, "plus bonuses,"
it says.
Belz said she didn't know how much money her group has
raised in Middletown. She said it raised $400,000 in 2001 in
fundraising from Dayton to Northern Kentucky. Ohio Citizen
Action is a 501(C)4 organization, Belz said; contributions are
not tax-deductible. 501(c)(4) organizations are non-profits
that can participate in politics as a secondary activity, but
"must operate primarily to further (in some way) the common
good and general welfare of the people of the community,"
according to the Internal Revenue Service Web site.
"They should be right up front about, No. 1, telling the
people that they're soliciting," McCoy said.
Belz said the organization has written permission, signed
by Teresa Magill, head of Middletown Police Division's records
section, from city government to canvass.
City law requires solicitors to register. The law is meant
to protect citizens from unscrupulous, fly-by-night
operations, Police Chief Bill Becker said.
Becker said he knows of no complaints against Ohio Citizen
Action.
"If there are complaints about any of their activities,
then we have a point person to contact about what they're
doing," he said.
Ohio Citizen Action is allowed to canvass between 4 p.m.
and 9 p.m. Members are expected to carry photo identification.
Canvassers encourage residents to write AK Chairman and
Chief Executive Officer Richard M. Wardrop Jr. As of Feb. 1,
Wardrop has received 7,621 letters, Belz said. McCoy said he
didn't know if that figure is right.
"Let's calculate how many trees were destroyed" for those
letters, McCoy said. He said it "doesn't matter how many
letters they eventually pay to get sent here."
"We're in the midst of litigation on this issue," he said.
Ohio Citizen Action, which claims 100,000 members, has
moved to intervene in a federal and state lawsuit against AK
alleging that the steelmaker has violated environmental laws.
