“The University of Akron and UA board of trustees member Jack Morrison Jr. filed a letter to the Ohio Ethics Commission regarding the purchase of a property owned by Morrison’s son that the university bought in a blanket property purchase for its stadium. UA purchased the house for $110,000 from Morrison’s son, Jack W.”
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The University of Akron and UA board of trustees member Jack Morrison Jr. filed a letter to the Ohio Ethics Commission regarding the purchase of a property owned by Morrison’s son that the university bought in a blanket property purchase for its stadium.
UA purchased the house for $110,000 from Morrison’s son, Jack W. Morrison. According to the Summit County Auditor Web site? he paid $77,000 for the house a year earlier.
The Akron Beacon Journal reported Morrison made $34,000 in renovations after he purchased the house but a few members on the Ohio controlling board still questioned it. Two of the seven members of the board voted against UA’s purchase.
The university did not originally ask the Ohio Ethics Commission when purchasing the property from the trustee’s son.
While we believe that the process we utilized to acquire properties was appropriate and in compliance with Ohio’s ethics laws, it is clear that some have expressed concerns about the appropriateness of the process, vice president and general counsel Ted Mallo said. In order to better address those concerns, we invited the Ethics Commission, as an independent third party, to review and provide advice regarding our process.
When asked what the university planned to do with the results of the ethics commission’s investigation, Mallo said, we will share them.
Neither Morrison could be reached for comment.
The university released a Special Edition Zipmail on Thursday regarding the purchase of the property. The Zipmail also included the letter sent to the commission from UA and trustee Morrison.
We wanted students, faculty and staff to know what steps we were taking to deal with the controversy.
Both trustee Morrison and his son work at the Amer and Cunningham law firm in Akron.
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