There are two variations on an old saying about the Mahoning Valley and news.

One is “All roads lead to the Mahoning Valley,” and the other is “There’s always a Valley connection.”

While it’s certainly not the case, it does happen considerably more times than you’d expect — and rarely is it good news.

The latest, of course, is the controversial project by President Donald Trump to the iconic Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, which ended up turning it green because of algae blooms.

The federal government gave two no-bid contracts for this project.

The smaller of the two was a $1.7 million contract to Greenwater Services, a Brookfield company owned by J.J. Cafaro through the J.J. Cafaro Investment Trust.

Several people commented to me on a line in the article I wrote last week that reads: “Cafaro’s Greenwater Services lived up to its name as the water in the reflecting pool is green.” One said I should get a Pulitzer Prize for the line. I think Trump will get a Nobel Peace Prize before I get a Pulitzer, but the race is on.

I first met Cafaro about 30 years ago, when he was executive vice president of his family-owned Cafaro Co. retail development company that operates numerous shopping malls and plazas. He left the company about 17 years ago. He also established his investment trust in 2010.

Our relationship has always been cordial — and that includes me writing articles about him twice being convicted of federal felonious crimes as well as him testifying in a separate corruption trial under immunity.

We once had lunch at what was supposed to be a private location of his choosing to discuss the possibility of me interviewing his daughter, Capri, when she was running for a congressional seat in 2004. It turned into a funny situation as we had numerous people come to the table to say hello to both of us — mostly Cafaro, but they definitely recognized me — and our attempt at being incognito failed miserably.

Cafaro did most of the talking, with his trademark cigar wedged between his fingers while we ate. It worked as his daughter agreed to the interview at a time when she was very hesitant to talk to me.

But the last time I talked to J.J. — and I can’t help but laugh at the national media calling him John J. Cafaro when I’ve never heard anyone from around here call him that — until last week was during that 2016 corruption trial when he testified under immunity.

I had a cellphone number for him, called and he picked up right away. We talked for 10 minutes about the no-bid contract, the publicity, Trump, the reflecting pool turning green, the company and the technology.

The pool has turned into a fiasco.

AMERICA250 PROJECT

Trump ordered a repainting project to turn the water “American flag blue” ahead of the nation’s 250th birthday celebration. That project cost $14.7 million, which was way over budget.

Greenwater’s $1.7 million contract was to install a water-purification system to flush out the algae that was in the reflecting pool’s underground pipes for years, which ended up turning the water green.

During our conversation, Cafaro dismissed the international attention as “nothing. It is people who don’t seem to like Trump. I have no idea why this is an issue. I don’t pay much attention to it. The system is working. We weren’t hired to clean the pool but to sell them permanent equipment to clean it forever. It turned green because the technology worked. It killed the algae in the pipes.”

Cafaro said he asked the National Park Service to open up the project to competitive bidding but was told, “No one else does what you do, so we can’t bid it.”

But the Park Service wrote in a public filing that several companies were interested in the purification system for the reflecting pool, and in April, it gave the job to Greenwater, citing an exemption meant for urgent situations, according to The New York Times. That urgent situation was that the system had to be installed in time for events celebrating the nation’s semiquincentennial.

Cafaro has been Trump’s longtime friend and neighbor in Palm Beach, Florida. Cafaro insisted Trump had nothing to do with the no-bid contract.

Cafaro said, “He is my friend, and he doesn’t know a thing about it. I would never talk to him about it. I’d never put him in that position. No deal is worth it to me. He’s a friend, and you don’t do things to put friends in awkward positions.”

Regarding the business, Cafaro said, “I’m nothing officially in the company. They all work for me, but it has its own CEO and COO. I have so many different entities that I can’t keep track of them. That’s what the attorneys and the accountants are for.”

Cafaro had two well-publicized federal convictions related to politics.

The first was in 2002, when he was convicted of conspiracy to commit bribery after admitting he provided nearly $27,000 in repairs to then-U.S. Rep. James A. Traficant Jr.’s house boat and later bought the boat in exchange for Traficant using his influence to lobby the Federal Aviation Administration to certify aircraft laser-guidance technology for a company Cafaro owned. That project went nowhere.

In 2010, Cafaro pleaded guilty to a felony count of making a materially false statement to the government by concealing a $10,000 loan he gave B.J. Schuerger, who was his daughter’s campaign manager during that 2004 unsuccessful congressional race.

Cafaro got probation in both cases.

Cafaro was initially a major Democratic donor when I first met him and then for the past decade-plus, he’s given almost exclusively to Republicans on all levels of government.

Cafaro donated about $350,000 to Trump-affiliated political committees.

Cafaro has also contributed money to the gubernatorial campaign of Republican Vivek Ramaswamy, albeit much smaller amounts.

Cafaro gave $8,000 to Ramaswamy’s campaign; served as co-host of the Trumbull County Republican Party’s Lincoln Day Dinner on April 15, with Ramaswamy as the keynote speaker; has attended at least one other Ramaswamy event, and donated $10,000 to the Ohio Republican Party’s state candidate fund.

David Skolnick covers local, state and national politics for the Tribune Chronicle and The Vindicator.