Union and community leaders asked commissioners yesterday to use their weight to force JPMorgan Chase, chosen last month to help the county borrow money for its new Hall of Justice, to change its practices.

Otherwise, the leaders said, taxpayers will be doing business with one of the region's foreclosure kings.

"We hear you, and we are going to take a look at this," Commissioner Marilyn Brown responded.

Commissioners agreed to invite Chase officials in to present their side. But the county deal is struck.

Commissioners voted March 27 to hire the bank's investment and underwriting arm, JPMorgan Securities, as lead manager for a $120 million bond sale to finance the new courthouse.

County Administrator Don L. Brown said the commissioners' questions would not hold up the project.

JPMorgan Securities officials will be given an opportunity to answer concerns, Brown said. But he expects the bond sale to proceed by the end of May.

"The people who do work for the taxpayers of Franklin County need to be held accountable to the high standards you all are championing," said Bruce Colburn, a coordinator with the Service Employees International Union.

That group said JPMorgan Chase accounted for 4.1 percent of Franklin County mortgages but 8.4 percent of foreclosure filings and 10 percent of sheriff's sales on foreclosed properties in 2006.

Chase officials branded the high foreclosure data as misleading.

"We are one of the largest mortgage servicers in the country," said Jeff Lyttle, a spokesman for Chase. "The assumption is that we have the same level of control over 100 percent of those loans, and it's a false assumption."

Chase has 14,000 employees in central Ohio and is one of Ohio's 10 largest employers.

Lyttle questioned whether the four other bond firms will also be scrutinized about their foreclosure rates and invited to speak to the county.

The other four are Seasongood & Mayer, Huntington Investment Co., SBK Brooks Investment Corp. and Fifth-Third Securities.

"You've raised some very troubling issues about foreclosures," Commissioner Mary Jo Kilroy told the group. "They (Chase) should be asked to respond."

bcarmen@dispatch.com