Eident to File Complaints after Losing Newport Marathon Permit

There’s a new turn in the controversy surrounding who will host the Newport Marathon.

After the Newport City Council voted 5-2 earlier this week to grant a permit for rival Gray Matter Marketing to host the race, the owner of Eident Sports Marketing, which has hosted the marathon since 2008, said on Friday that he will file two complaints in response to the vote.

John Mathews, owner of Eident, alleges that Councilor John Florez, who voted in favor of Gray Matter Marketing’s permit request, violated ethics rules with his vote because he is on the Board of Directors of Boys Town in Portsmouth.

Boys Town is one of the charities named in Gray Matter Marketing’s race proposal to receive a minimum of $10,000 as part of the revenue sharing model proposed by Matthew Gray, owner of Gray Matter Marketing.

Mathews also said he plans on filing an Open Meetings Complaint for what he said was an improper meeting with a quorum “outside and in advance of the [council] meeting on Wednesday night.”

In an interview, Florez said he was disappointed to hear about Eident’s plans to file complaints and said though is is on the Boys Town board, he is not compensated for his service.

“This is a small community and from a philanthropic standpoint and community standpoint, I’m involved in many aspects of it,” Florez said.

Florez said he has been informed by city staff that there should be no conflict if he serves on the board in a volunteer capacity, especially if the vote does not translate to any personal financial gain. And he said that he is not alone in volunteering and serving the community and different organizations. Knowing that, he said, you could connect the dots for almost any vote, a la six degrees of Kevin Bacon.

“If you broke down every single vote by the council, I’m sure you could find a connection to someone for some reason,” Florez said.

In regards to the allegation of an improper quorum, Florez said that the accusation is simply wrong and that he was running late to the meeting Wednesday night. At no time, he said, was there a gathering of council members to hash out a plan before the meeting. By the time he arrived at the Claiborne Pell Elementary School, which is where the meeting was being held, he said he quickly made his way to the dais so the meeting wouldn’t start too late.

Mathews said while Eident has donated to charities at all of its races, it never has used the donations as sweetener for permit applications, which he said is what Gray Matter has done with the $10,000 promises and the revenue sharing model that was proposed.

And he noted that Councilor Justin McLaughlin originally abstained from the vote, leading to a 3-3 council deadlock last week that killed the marathon before the vote reconsiderations Wednesday night. The suggestion is that Florez’s connection to Boys Town is not much different if not more of an apparent conflict than McLaughlin’s.

“Gray Matter’s initial charity list included Clean Ocean Access. Councilman Justin McLaughlin recused himself from the first vote to avoid the appearance of conflict, as his son is the Co-Founder of Clean Ocean Access,” Mathews said. “This charity was sequentially removed from Gray Matter’s charitable partners so that Councilman McLaughlin’s conflict of interest was gone, and he could return and vote in favor of Gray Matter - breaking the initial deadlock that would have ostensibly canceled the Marathon.”

“I am very sorry to see what has occurred in Newport with these apparent violations by some of the Council members, and the divisiveness the vote has caused. Since the council meeting on Wednesday, we have received overwhelming support from runners throughout the region,” Mathews said. “The response from the running community, the hotels and local businesses as well as other race directors has been incredibly humbling. Thank you to everyone for your outpouring of support.”

Florez said that his vote was based on a number of factors, none of which related to charitable donations. He said he was very torn about his vote heading into the meeting and ultimately voted for Gray Matter Marketing because it is a local company and the acting city manager and beach manager recommended the council vote for Gray Matter Marketing over Eident.

Since the vote, Florez said he’s become aware of other issues in the past regarding Eident, including slow payments for police details in Providence and Lincoln and other allegations.

Mathews said those accusations are part of a smear campaign initiated by Gray Matter Marketing in advance of the vote.

Read our prior coverage of this story:

Newport Marathon is Back On after Council Re-Vote

Newport Council to Reconsider Vote that Killed Newport Marathon

Newport Marathon Dies after City Council Fails to Pick Between Rival Vendors