The Latest Portsmouth Daily Times Coverup

The masthead of Celina's The Daily Standard, which, unlike the Portsmouth Daily Times, did not cover up the truth about Derek Allen's career.

      Under the byline of that pious fraud Frank Lewis, a  front page report in the  Portsmouth Daily Times (29 Sept. 2015) has the headline, "City Says Multiple Public Records Have Been Costly to Taxpayers.” How costly? According to the  carpetbagging perjurer Derek Allen, who is Portsmouth’s city manager, the cost of the public records requests has been  over  $42,000. Because Allen is a compulsive liar, I doubt the veracity of everything  he says. That $42,000 figure is more inflated than a Macy's Parade balloon. In a report on public records that Allen concocted, which was handed out at the City Council meeting (28 Sept. 2015)—a meeting Allen did not attend—he claims that $24,592.50, or over half of the alleged total cost of the public records requests,  was what the city paid to the firm of Squire Patton Boggs (SPB) for legal advice on public records requests, beginning in January 2014.  

      What is Squire Patton Boggs? It is one of the largest and judging by the fee they charged Portsmouth probably one of the most expensive law firms in the country. Just who in our  city government is responsible for enlisting the services of SPB? Could it be anybody other than our wheeling and dealing, politically scheming  city manager? And who might he have been trying to curry favor with in engaging the services of SPB? Senator Rob Portman has close ties to SPB, according to Wikipedia. One of the partners of SPB, Patton Boggs, is an unsavory character who has represented some of the worst dictators and most polluting companies in the world. In advising Portsmouth legally, SPB is representing one of the sleaziest city governments in the United States, so maybe they are the right law firm, however high-priced they maybe. Perhaps because City Solicitor Haas has the reputation of being a nincompoop lawyer, maybe SPB was necessary. But if SPB  was the price the city had to pay for having a nincompoop  as  city solicitor, is that Murray’s fault? 

Deja Vu All Over Again

      Maybe the reason Allen is doing everything he can to stop Murray from making public records requests about the flooding in Portsmouth is because it was a public records request somebody made in Piqua that led to the exposure of Allen’s  illegal purchasing activities when he was the Assistant City Manager in that city. It was when he  testified under oath about those activities that Allen committed perjury. Allen was fired as soon as he perjured himself, but that was not the first time he had been fired from a job in the public sector.  As reported in The Daily Standard (2, Oct. 2004), Allen had previously been fired from public service jobs in Van Wert, Ohio,  after he was named as a defendant in two civil lawsuits and then subsequently in Celina, Ohio, by the mayor because Allen had become such a controversial figure, as he has also become in Portsmouth. When will he be fired as city manager in Portsmouth? For Portsmouth’s sake and for the sake of the flooded residents who live near the Hill and the Southern Ohio Medical Center, of whom Jane Murray is one, that day cannot come too soon.

The Perjurer from Piqua

      So we have the perjurer Allen,  from Piqua,  where his home is located but where he would not be hired as dog catcher, becoming with the complicity of the Portsmouth Daily Times and the  connivance of city council member Kevin W. Johnson and the skullduggery of the International City/County Management Association, the carpetbagging high-paid city manager of Portsmouth, where he is trying to sweep the  flooding under the rug and accusing Murray  of bankrupting the city with public records requests about that flooding. Allen reminds me of Patton Boggs, the big cheese in the Squire Patton Boggs law firm. Boggs served in the 1990s as the lawyer for the bloody Guatemalan dictatorship. When a Guatemalan nun, Sister Dianna Ortiz, was tortured and raped by members of a death squad, Boggs, according to Wikipedia, defended the dictatorship by claiming that Sister Ortiz was murdered not by a death squad but by her "out-of-control, sadomasochistic lover." With Allen we are bogged down with a city manager who blames the victims of the flooding for the flooding, but all we get in Lewis's report in the Portsmouth Daily Times on public records requests is Allen's side of the story. Why didn't Lewis call Murray, who says her telephone number is in the phonebook, for her side of the story? Lewis knows on what side his bread is buttered, so he never stops buttering up our local dictators, nor does Allen, who is fortunate he does not have a controversial city manager in Piqua who has been fired as may times as he has.

"That $42,000 figure is more inflated than a Macy's Parade balloon."

For Jane Murray's views on this subject, check out her blog: 

http://wegottroublerighthereinrivercity.blogspot.com/

Jane Murray's Letter to State Auditor

 M. Jane Murray    1920 Dorman Drive   Portsmouth   Ohio   45662    U.S.A.

_______________________________________________________________________________

September 21, 2011

The Honorable Dave Yost

Ohio Auditor of State

88 East Broad Street, 10th Floor

Columbus, OH 43215

Dear Auditor Yost:

 It is my understanding that legally the City of Portsmouth has been and is now in a state of fiscal emergency. With the experiences I had as mayor, it is my opinion that the only way that financial stability for the city can be restored is through intervention by your office. Having worked with Auditors Barga and Thompson, I know they are fully aware that I inherited a $1.2 M. deficit at the beginning of 2010 and that the city council refused to enact my balanced budget but instead enacted a planned deficit budget in 2010 and have done so for 2011 as well. This is unheard of.

 At my request, your office conducted the city’s 2010. It confirms that the city auditor, city council, and previous mayors have violated state statutes by consistently using restricted enterprise and special revenue funds to pay for general government operations. Water, Sewer, Sanitation and State gasoline funds have been diverted to pay for salaries and benefits and general fund operations and services. As an example, in the 2011 city budget, over $1 million of water (enterprise) revenues are being used to pay part of the salaries and benefits of fire department employees. Yet water lines continue to break over and over. A plan for replacing aged lines doesn’t even exist. The disruption and cost of these breaks to residences and businesses continue. The destruction to the streets likewise get no or insufficient attention.

 Further bad public policy move is afoot. At the September 12 council meeting and as a way to partially address the city’s budgetary crisis, City Solicitor Michael Jones suggested the city petition the Scioto County Court of Common Pleas for permission to transfer capital monies into the operating budget to help offset the deficit. The city should not be allowed to raid capital funds to pay for operating expenses. There are desperate capital projects for which these funds should be expended. The voters approved these capital funds and mandated in the city’s charter they be spent for capital projects, not general operations. The city previously petitioned the Court of Common Pleas in 2003 for use of the capital monies and Judge Harcha approved the transfer, but warned the city not to make the request again.

 To date, there has been no discussion and no planning at all undertaken to address the deficits. The council put an income tax increase on the May primary ballot and it failed. There is another on the November ballot. Even if the tax increase passes, the funds will be insufficient to address the depth of the financial well dug by this government these past 10 years. The salaries are not the problem. It’s the benefits.

 It is my opinion that, because they benefitted too, the elected officials contributed to the financial disaster by approving union contracts such that the city pays all pension contributions – the employees contribute $0; employees contribute a mere $25/individual and $50/family monthly for insurance premiums and this only began in 2009; the council gave themselves the same health insurance benefits in the late 90s – though this action was challenged in court and rejected – the benefit continues to this day; 3 weeks of vacation leave after one year employment, 4 after five years, 5 after ten years and 6 after fifteen years (a month and a half); generous sick, holiday, funeral, etc., etc. leave, and the list of benefits go on.

 Though the 2010 Audit warns the city not to expend enterprise and restricted funds for other purposes, the city intends to continue this process. At the last council meeting and by emergency action (also contrary to law), the council approved a proposal by the city auditor to spend $8,000 for a consultant to devise sufficient rationale for the city to continue to raid these funds as they have in the past.

 Having been a local government professional for many years, I can attest to the desperate situation of the city’s infrastructure, the myriad problems facing our neighborhoods, sewage backing up in dozens of people’s homes, crime, drugs, prostitution…and the list goes on. Yet none of these issues have been nor will be addressed fiscally should the city continue down the same financially disastrous road.

 I join others and respectfully request that you: 1) take over the financial responsibilities of the city similar to your actions for Scioto County; and, 2) do whatever you can in your capacity as Auditor of State to stop the city government from using capital funds for the intent and purposes described above, and urge you to take legal action if necessary. Unless the community can get help from outside, from your office, I have no doubt things will deteriorate rapidly and dramatically. The residents, the citizens will be the big losers.

Sincerely,

M. Jane Murray

Cc: Charles F. Barga, David B. Thompson