Just Who is Getting Screwed and Who is Doing the Screwing?

Mayor-unelect Malone, perhaps trying to figure who he can screw next, having 

already screwed his creditors by filing for personal bankruptcy

     Screwing the Sanitation Workers

     Unelected Mayor David Malone is quoted in the Portsmouth Daily Times (7 Jan 2012): “The unions are being protected while their non-union counterparts are, quite honestly, being screwed because of budget cuts.” “Quite honestly!” Malone is incapable of honesty. In my view, it is not the non-union city employees, it is the union employees who are being screwed. They are the ones who pay dues and are denounced by much of the public as trouble makers. They are the ones who struggle to improve wages and working conditions. And then whatever gains they make in negotiations are given to non-union members. Non-union employees may be opposed to unions on principle or simply because they don’t want to pay union dues. It is their right to be non-union, but they have no right to expect to be rewarded for not belonging to a union. In financial crises like the current one in Portsmouth, non-union members are being rewarded by the city employers for not belonging to unions. They are, of course, being paid off. If they find themselves, during a fiscal crisis, losing out on their customary payoff, they have no reason to complain. They can’t have it both ways: they do not deserve to have the rewards of being in a union when they are not in a union. If they want union pay and benefits they should join a union, and if a union doesn’t exist, they should try to organize one. Of course, if they succeed in becoming unionized, Malone will screw them too,  like he screws the sanitation workers. But when it comes to the politically powerful police and fire unions, Malone grovels. He contributed $1000 to the Committee in Support of Police and Fire, a political action committee that supported the measure on last November’s ballot that increased the city income tax. Note that the committee was in support of police and fire personnel, not city sanitation workers. The passage of the income tax measure  did not improve the lot of the sanitation workers as Malone’s recent attempts to screw them by ignoring the contract they had negotiated with the city made clear. 

Bankruptee and Mayor-unelect Malone contributed $1000 to campaign to support the police and fire unions 

Screwing the Citizens of Portsmouth 

     Speaking of being screwed. It is the citizens of Portsmouth who are being screwed by having the mathematically and administratively challenged Malone as mayor. He wasn’t elected. He became mayor by default when Jane Murray was recalled. Malone was next in line in the long line of corrupt officials who became mayor when the elected mayor was recalled or left office for other reasons. The reason Malone was next in line was because he had demonstrated his subservience to the rich unelected individuals who decide who should be next in line. Malone is beholden especially to Neal Hatcher. Malone does what Hatcher and others expect of him—which is serve their interests. Granted he had a lot of competition, but there was no one on council who was more willing to sell out the citizens of Portsmouth than Malone. That’s why he is mayor. That’s why he rehired Weghorst and appointed her to a position for which she is not qualified, which is what he did for another unqualified city employee, Rick Duncan. Both Weghorst and Duncan were cogs in the corrupt administration of Mayor Jim Kalb.

The Marting Building Screwing

   
        Malone will do whatever he can to make the Marting building the place that the city government will move to, in spite of it having been rejected by voters as unworthy of being anything but torn down. The Marting building is another way Malone is trying to screw the tax payers. If the Municipal Building were not sitting on prime real estate, it would not have been neglected, and would have probably been renovated by now, and Malone wouldn’t have created yet another building committee that will attempt to get the city to spend many millions to renovate the worthless Marting building. 

     To return to the previous point, it is not the non-union members who are being screwed. It is the people of Portsmouth who are being screwed by having as mayor somebody whom the voters have more than once rejected soundly at the polls just as they have soundly rejected the Marting building. Why do you think SOLACE was pressured to leave the Marting building by Malone and the city? It is because Malone is following the wishes of those who have not given up the scheme to have the city government move there once it is renovated, making the site of the Municipal building available for developers, who have long had designs on that property. Getting SOLACE out of the Marting building will make it easier to get city offices in. Solace is just one of the parties being screwed by Malone.

  

The Prosperity Screwing

Malone ’ s Prayermobile, with City of 

of Prosperity bumper sticker

    Malone also screwed the public by preaching that prayer could lead to prosperity. Look at how successful prayers were, both for himself and the city of Portsmouth! If he had prayed less and paid his bills more, maybe he wouldn’t have had to file for bankruptcy. Prayer doesn’t produce prosperity— hard working people do, and Malone has apparently never been one of those. Wasn’t that the reason he got into politics in the first place? He is the handy tool of the unelected clique that controls the city and it is the clique and Malone who are doing the screwing. With Malone as their unelected mayor, the  poor people of Portsmouth don’t have a prayer. 

Rev. Malone, future unelected mayor of Portsmouth, bible in hand,

 preaching on the steps of the Municipal Building (2007)