MIAMI TWP. — The president of the Miami Twp. trustees board said she has returned a $5,000 campaign contribution from the president of a California company that plans to build a high-tech cancer treatment center in the township, because she did not want politics to overshadow the good news.

Deborah Preston, who said she was instrumental in negotiating a deal to bring Optivus Proton Therapy to the Austin Pike interchange area, said she returned the campaign contribution to Jon W. Slater, the company’s president and chief executive officer. She said she sent a check by express courier Tuesday, Oct. 27.

Preston, who is seeking a second, four-year term on Nov. 3, said she wanted to remove concerns raised that the donation was unethical or a political payoff.

Preston defended the $5,000 contribution by Slater, whose privately held, San Bernardino, Calif.-based company specializes in 3D proton beam therapy that attacks tumors without damaging surrounding tissue.

“It’s legal, it’s ethical and it’s appropriate, and he had every right to make a campaign contribution,” Preston said. “I gave it back, because I just didn’t want it to have any impact on this great news about the center coming here. This is great news for our whole region.”

Preston and Greg Hanahan, township administrator, announced Wednesday that Optivus will begin construction in 2010 of a facility in the Austin Centre development at the interchange. The center is slated to open in 2013 or sooner and will bring in 400 permanent jobs after construction and $170 million in economic development to the area, according to township records.

Preston said she did not solicit Slater’s contribution, and that it came after the deal between Miami Twp. and Optivus was agreed.

“We secured (a tentative agreement) in May,” she said. The contribution “had no bearing on this deal.”

Joseph Petrick, executive director of the Institute for Business Integrity at the Raj Soin College of Business at Wright State University, said that in initially accepting Slater’s contribution, Preston “should have been aware of even the appearance of impropriety as something that public leaders, or those who aspire to be, need to be especially sensitive of. But she eventually did the right thing.”

Preston and Hanahan said Slater visited the Dayton area this summer. Receipts for the visit noted the township paid $1,492 to host Slater, which included $920 for a driver, $476 for two dinners and one lunch and $96 for incidental expenses from Dorothy Lane Market.

“It is perfectly appropriate for township officials to take perspective companies out to dinner as part of their trip to the area,” Preston said.

Slater, who was traveling, could not be reached for comment.

Slater’s contribution was dated Sept. 24, according to Preston’s Oct. 22 campaign finance filings report.

Preston is the chief financial officer for Middletown Public Library. She reported receiving $9,700 in campaign contributions, including the $5,000 from Slater and $1,200 from the Committee to elect Darin Preston, her husband who is not seeking re-election on the Miamisburg City Council.

She received also $1,500 from Veronica Grabill, president of GW Land Title in Centerville; $1,000 each from Pastor Wade Gates, of Pennyroyal Baptist Church in Franklin, and Sim Evans of Miamisburg.

Preston reported $4,968.46 in campaign expenses.

Ohio law requires all candidates file a pre-election report if the candidate or the candidate’s campaign committee received $1,000 or more in contributions or had $1,000 or more in expenditures since the last filing period.

Preston is one of three candidates seeking two open seats on the trustees board.

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-9338 or kmcallister@DaytonDailyNews.com.