Written by A public controversy has emerged regarding historical municipal funding provided to the Galion Port Authority.
During the July 22, 2026, Galion City Council Finance Committee meeting, Councilman Mike Richart claimed on camera that the city provided the Port Authority with $250,000 in startup funds during its first year.
Port Authority Board Member Eric Fultz immediately refuted this on the record, prompting Committee Chairman Eric Weber to instruct City Auditor Roberta Wade to pull historical ledgers to settle the dispute.
The following day, Richart posted a statement online retracting the $250,000 figure and claiming he meant $150,000, issued as two $75,000 operating allocations.
A comprehensive cross-examination of the meeting transcript, historical city council records, local news archives, and the official City of Galion 2024 Single Audit Report reveals a more complex financial reality:
- Richart’s $250,000 startup claim is technically false, but functionally accurate regarding early capital. The Port Authority was established in May 2019 with $0 in literal seed money, but received massive cash infusions shortly thereafter.
- The $250,000 figure originates from a conflation of early funding buckets. Specifically, combining two years of baseline operating funds ($150,000) with retained municipal COVID-19 allocations ($90,000) equals exactly $240,000—aligning almost perfectly with Richart’s initial on-floor claim.
- Richart’s online correction to $150,000 represents a strategic retreat. By focusing strictly on the standard annual operating appropriations ($75,000 x 2), Richart moved to a safer, easily verifiable ledger line ahead of the Auditor’s official report.
- The 2024 State Audit reveals deeper financial red flags. The Auditor of State issued a Qualified Opinion on the city’s compliance with Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds, citing a material weakness involving a $779,165 noncompliant contract.
The July 22, 2026 Floor Dispute & On-Record Exchange
During deliberations over Ordinance 2026-50, Councilman Mike Richart made a direct claim to Port Authority board member Eric Fultz regarding the entity’s early funding.
The Floor Exchange (Transcript Breakdown):
Mike Richart: “And you actually started the port out with 250,000 the first year to be honest with you…”
Eric Fultz: “Mike, can I just say this is like the fourth time you’ve repeated that… you have made an assertion that there’s been $250 or $300,000 that was given to the Port Authority at its founding. And that assertion is false… There’s zero dollars appropriated for the Port Authority when it was founded. Zero.”
Mike Richart: “You can check with the auditor’s office…”
Eric Fultz: “Have you checked? … It’s dangerous for you to sit in a public meeting and say things that are false because people are watching, they’re listening, and then they accuse us of doing things with money that we never had.”
Following the dispute, Chairman Eric Weber requested that City Auditor Roberta Wade audit the historical ledgers prior to the next full council meeting to establish the exact paper trail.
Fact-Checking the Ledgers: What the Records Prove
The Inception Baseline: $0 Seed Money (May 2019)
The Galion Port Authority was formally created on May 28, 2019, through Ordinance 2019-30. Municipal records and the 2024 City Audit confirm that the Port Authority is a legally separate organization that acts as custodian of its own funds. City Council did not seed the organization with a $250,000 General Fund grant on the literal day of its creation.
The 2020 COVID-19 Money & Retained Cash ($190,000)
The primary source of early municipal cash flow to the Port Authority occurred during the pandemic response in May 2020:
- The $190,000 Allocation: Galion City Council provided $190,000 to the Port Authority to administer emergency small business relief loans.
- Revolving Loan Creation: Approximately $100,000 was loaned out to local businesses. Council allowed the Port Authority to retain the loan repayments to establish a permanent revolving loan fund.
- Retained Cash ($90,000): The remaining $90,000 that was unloaned was explicitly retained by the Port Authority to “fulfill its mission” (which included intentions to purchase the 10-acre Renschville school site).
- 2024 Audit Tracking: The City of Galion 2024 Audit verifies that the local program income account maintained a cash balance of $103,422.92 as of December 31, 2024.
The $240,000 Reality (The Math Behind the “Misspeak”)
When evaluating early capital injections into the Port Authority, combining the historical operating allocations with the retained COVID-19 funds reveals a total that aligns almost perfectly with Richart’s original floor claim. Two years of baseline operating funding ($150,000) plus the unloaned, retained COVID-19 cash ($90,000) equals a direct municipal transfer of $240,000.
Verifying the Online Correction ($150,000 / Two $75,000 Allocations)
In his social media post following the July 22 meeting, Richart stated:
“What I actually said, during a back and forth discussion, was that the Port had received operating funding originally of $250,000. I meant to say, $150,000, which was issued as two $75,000.”
Municipal budget archives confirm that $75,000 is the exact baseline operating figure historically utilized by the City of Galion for the Port Authority. Two consecutive years of baseline funding ($75,000 × 2) equals exactly $150,000. Shortly before leaving office, the previous city council removed the Port Authority’s $75,000 operating allocation from the 2026 city budget.
4. Audit Red Flags: Federal Noncompliance and Port Independence
A review of the official 2024 City of Galion Single Audit reveals significant red flags regarding the handling of pandemic stimulus money, providing crucial context to the broader disputes over municipal funding control.
Qualified Opinion on Federal Funds The Auditor of State issued a Qualified Opinion on the city’s compliance with the Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds. The audit explicitly cited a Material Weakness and Noncompliance violation.
The $779,165 Vendor Contract Failure
- According to Finding 2024-001, the city applied federal COVID-19 relief funds to an existing construction project that had originally been started and contracted out using local funding.
- Investigators found a vendor contract accounting for $779,165—representing 89.5% of the entire program’s disbursements—that lacked basic federal oversight.
- There was no evidence that the city checked the federal SAM (System for Award Management) exclusions, collected a certification from the vendor, or added any clauses to ensure the contractor was not suspended or debarred from receiving federal money.
“Buy America” Violations
- The same $779,165 contract failed to include the mandatory “Buy America Preference” in its terms and conditions.
- The city also failed to secure a waiver for this requirement from the awarding agency.
- The Auditor of State warned that failing to have these controls in place risks the city spending federal awards on infrastructure projects that violate the Build America, Buy America (BABA) Act.
Port Authority Independence Complicates Oversight The 2024 audit explicitly classifies the Galion Port Authority as a “Related Organization” rather than a direct department of the city. The Port Authority serves as custodian of its own funds and maintains all records and accounts independently. Because their books are kept entirely separate from the city’s general ledger, any municipal funds—such as the historical $190,000 COVID pass-through or the $75,000 annual operating budgets—leave the city’s direct tracking system once transferred to the Port Authority’s control.
Analytical Verdict: Semantic Defense vs. Functional Reality
The Semantic Defense When Eric Fultz aggressively pushed back against Richart, he relied on a strict, semantic technicality: that zero dollars were appropriated at the Port Authority’s exact “founding.” While factually true on the literal date of May 28, 2019, this defense is highly misleading by omission, as it ignores the hundreds of thousands of dollars the city pumped into the organization shortly thereafter.
The Cognitive Conflation Richart’s original floor statement was not a fabrication; it was a memory conflation of total historical funding. By combining the $150,000 operating allocations with the $90,000 in retained COVID-19 cash, the total municipal transfer equals $240,000. Richart’s “misspeak” of $250,000 was functionally highly accurate regarding the total financial resources the city handed over to the Port Authority in its early days.
The Strategic Backpedal While the initial math error during live debate was an honest conflation, the online post acts as a strategic retreat. Facing a guaranteed public ledger review by City Auditor Roberta Wade, retracting the $250,000 claim allowed Richart to pivot safely to the historically verifiable $150,000 operating baseline before the official findings were presented to Council.
There is much more to this story, we will get to that at a later time.
