Just Say Nay to Kay the Slumlord

1416 1/2 Park Ave.

In 2011 the controversial Portsmouth businesswoman Kay (AKA Klara) Reynolds was reappointed by Governor Kasich to the Shawnee State University  Board of Trustees, where she will serve on the three-member presidential search committee. More recently, she was sworn in as the Vice-Chair of the Ohio Republican Party (ORP). In view of her reputation, as least among the faculty at SSU and among Tea Partiers, I'm surprised  she was chosen for  either of these two prominent positions. Reynolds  was and still is the owner of, among other businesses,  Scioto Rental Management. In her first term as a member of the Shawnee State University Board of Trustees (1999-2008), she was suspected  of a conflict of interest when she reportedly tried to interest the university in  one of her  troubled properties, an apartment complex  at 115 Boundary Street. At that time SSU president Clive Veri was pushing hard for football at the university, and the argument was made that 115 Boundary Street, overlooking historic Spartan Stadium,  would make  a convenient dormitory  for the team. But  Veri resigned under pressure in 1998, and he was replaced by James Chapman, who decided football was not financially feasible for the university, dashing whatever hopes Reynolds may have had of selling  or leasing 115 Boundary to SSU. She was stuck with the property and the headaches that went with it, not selling it until 2012.

A past president of the Shawnee Education Association, the faculty union, told me that Reynolds back in the late 1990s had voted against a collective bargaining agreement the union and the administration negotiators had worked out, saying that the SSU faculty were like children, and “even though you would like to give them what they want, you must sometimes say NO!” That apparently was also her attitude toward tenants, whom she was accustomed to saying no to, as for example, when they asked for their security deposits back. I was told by one of her former tenants at 115 Boundary that Kay, or Klara,  to use her business name, refused to refund his deposit even though his mother told me she had thoroughly cleaned his apartment after he moved out.

Kay  Boynton  Reynold's maiden name was Klara Rapp, but having been married twice, she uses a bewildering combination of first names, initials, and last names,  making it difficult to track her down in public records.  But generally, Klara is the name she uses in business and Kay the name she uses as a social and political figure. The mercenary Klara makes the money and  does the dirty work, so to speak, and  the high-minded public-figure Kay takes the credit and gets the kudos.  Klara takes the low road and Kay the high road. Read the statement she released when she was reappointed to the board and you would think she was a miracle worker and not the most divisive and obstructive member of that board. "I’m honored to be able to serve again," she wrote.  "My previous term we accomplished a great deal and made a number of decisions that I feel were critical in helping Shawnee State grow. It makes me proud.”

Is she also proud of what she has done as a landlord in Portsmouth? In the last fourteen years, for allegedly failing to meet their financial obligations, her tenants have been taken to court by Kay, or more specifically by Klara,  about 180 times,  including tenants from 115 Boundary Street. It appears she failed to meet her obligations as a landlord to keep up her properties.  I recently learned she owns a house, at 1416 ½ Park Avenue,  that is not  fit  for human habitation.  Actually, the house is not located on Park Avenue  but on the alley that runs behind it, and it is not officially numbered 1416 1/2, but rather as 1416, creating confusion.  The County Auditor's Office clarified things for me when they pointed out that  the parcel of land at 1416 Park contains two different residences, front and back, separated by a fence. How did this confusing arrangement of two 1416s come about? Perhaps only Klara knows. Kay took tenants of 1416 into court, but of the front or the back 1416 is not clear.

I made a visit to the back 1416, to  what I'll call 1416 1/2, one muggy morning with my friend Austin Leedom, editor of the Shawnee Sentinel.  When we arrived at the alley, a deranged-looking  man was poking through overflowing trash barrels. Barking dogs snarled at us from behind rusting link fences. The front door of the unnumbered 1416½ was boarded up with plywood, so we went to the backyard, which was strewn with debris, including a large, ratty sofa. Through the open  back door, I could see the gutted kitchen which had a large mattress on the floor. (See the photos above.) 

If some residents of Portsmouth think of  Kay Reynolds as a slumlord, some Tea-Party Republicans think of her as a RINO,  a Republican-In-Name-Only. Tea Partiers consider RINOs  as  unprincipled opportunists who are as big-government as Democrats. From a Tea Party perspective, Reynolds was being unprincipled when she  resorted to Section 8, which  is a New Deal piece of legislation passed by the Democratic-dominated U.S. Congress during the Great Depression. Under Section 8, the government  pays up to  two-thirds of  poor tenants' rent. To conservative Republicans, the government  paying rent for poor people smacks of socialism, if not fiscal insanity. But the clever RINO created a corporation called Choice Housing to take advantage of  Section 8. The corporation was described as a charitable organization, as if she was a philanthropist.   With the government paying two-thirds of the rent, there was less need for Klara to take tenants to court because they needed to pay only one third of what she charged for rent with the government paying the rest.  Here is the rundown on Kay's Choice Housing  that  I found online:

  

Kay’s “Charitable Organization”

Voters are not children anymore than the faculty at SSU or her tenants are children. As a retired faculty member, I have an interest in the future of SSU, and I don’t think Reynolds should be on the presidential search committee or even on the Board of Trustees. If the Ohio Republican Party wants her as their Vice-Chair, that is their business, but what does that say about the Ohio Republican Party? As a presumptive candidate in the 2016 presidential race, Kasich is trying to move to the center politically to appeal to independent voters. But people like Kay Reynolds  may be just what Kasich and the Ohio Republican Party don’t need if they hope to win back the White House. They may end up getting more independents to vote Republican  but by abandoning sacrosanct Republican principles they may lose the votes of conservative Republicans.

From public records available on the internet (Appendix B), I have culled some two hundred names (Appendix A) from among those Kay brought into Portsmouth Municipal Court on one charge or another. Many of the names date back to the 1990s and at least some of them may have moved on and a few sadly passed away. With one exception, none of them challenged her in court, which they probably could not afford to do, but I am offering them the opportunity to set the record straight for posterity, if they can, to show they were not the deadbeats the official records suggest they were but rather Reynold's victims.   I invite any of them that might read this blog, if they are so inclined,  now that she occupies the number two position on the central committee of  the Ohio Republican Party, to Just Say Nay to Kay.

Another decrepit Reynolds property, this one in the Sixth Ward

Appendix A

Adams, Harold

Adams, Martha

Adkins, Craig

Allard, Robert

Allie, Anwar

Anderson, Vincent

Applegate, Lisa

Artressia, Jeff

Arwood, Melissa

Ashley, Harold

Atkins, Ronald

Bach, Kimberly

Bailey, David

Bailey, Diane

Barnes, James

Barrett, Marvin

Bender, Greg

Bender, Jodi

Bennington, Cynthia

Bertram, Donald, Jr.

Bihl, Andrew

Bihl, James

Bishop, James

Blackburn, Shawna

Blenkenship, Kim

Blevins, Linda

Blevins, Marcella

Booker, Doreene

Brammar, Carolyn

Brewer, Tom

Brickey, Arnold

Brickey, Pauline

Brightwell, Robin

Brown, Debra

Brown, Eva

Brown, Scott

Burchett, Dawn

Campbell, Angel

Campbell, Lois

Cantrell, Peggy

Caudill, Gary

Caudill, Shannon

Chaffin, Charlene

Chamberlin, Jason

Chan, Boe

Clare, James

Clark, Brenda

Clark, Sharon

Clark, Thomas

Clay, Melannie

Cline, Tracy

Cochran, Brenda

Collier, Edward

Collier, Rhonda

Conkel, Patty

Conley, Stephanie

Cooper, Kathy

Cooper, Roger

Craft, Cheryl

Cremeans, Jon

Cummins, Michael

Darnell, Paul

Dill, Gary

Dill, Sharon

Duckett, Fred

Duckett, Helen

Dugan, Roger

Emmons, Jack

Erhler, Liburn

Erhler, Tawyna

Evans, Jaime

Evans, John

Evans, Judy

Evans, Julie

Evans, Kathy

Evans, Rebecca

Farmer, Carolyn

Fitch, Michael

Glenn, Tommy

Graham, Angelia

Gribble, Rev. Steven

Grumman, Arthur

Hall, Bruce

Hall, Jennifer

Hall, Norman

Hall, Sonya

Hamrick, Julius

Harr, Donald

Harr, Linda

Hoard, Henrietta

Hoard, Ronald

Holcomb, Randy

Holsinger, Ruth

Hopkins, Debbie

Howard, Ernest

Howard, Pegy

Howard, Sheree

Hughes, Bob

Hughes, Karen

Hutte, Beverly

Jewett, Ronald

Johnson, Rebecca

Johnson, Walter

Jordan, Janice

Journey, Mark

Karzee, Gregory

Kennedy, Bonnie

King, Ray

Kinsler, Jean

Krekeler, Charles

Lennex, Ron

Lester, Christina

Logan, Dewayne

Logan, Marta

Maguire, Stephanie

Matiz, Erika

Mccarty, Bessie

McGraw, Joni

McKinley, Diane

McKinley, Rachel

Messer, Jessica

Messer, Rocky

Miller, Brandi

Miller, Nancy

Miller, Ronald

Monde, Tanya

Mullins, Joyce

Mullins, Tammy

Nathan, John

Nelson, Amanda

Nelson, Marcella

Nickel, Sandra

Nickel, Thomas

Parker, Diana

Phillips, Alan

Phillips, Denise

Piquet, William

Pollitt, Lara

Ratcliff, Jesse

Ratcliff, Shannon

Reed, Mish

Reeder, Mark

Reideinger, Amy

Rice, Russell

Riley, Brenda

Robosson, Lisa

Roe, Tammy

Rose, Kenneth

Rose, Phyllis

Roush, Michael

Roush, Paul

Ruggles, Angela

Ruggles, Jesse

Salyers, Michelle

Scherer, Letitia

Schwartz, Barbara

Scott, Dennis

Scott, Roger

Shaffer, John

Shepherd, Jennifer

Sherree, Howard

Silvia, Barbara

Silvia, Ed

Smith, Danny

Smith, Debra

Smith, Pauline

Soard, Marcella

Soard, Tim

Sorrell, Debra

Sparks, Melissa

Spears, Danny

Spradlin, Tina

Sprague, Clara

Sprague, Clara Bell

Spriegel, Melissa

Stacy, Harold

Stacy, Joyce

Storts, Jean

Swords, Al

Swords, Traci

Tackett, Rebecca

Thompson, John

Vega, Joe

Wagner, Nikki

Wallace-Hill, Cuba

Weaver, Georgetta

Weddington, Wallace

Whisman, Charles

Whisman, Margaret

Whitaker, Bill, Jr.

Wikoff, Doug

Wilcoxan, Anne

Wilcoxan, Heather

Wilson, Deborah

Young, Carrie

Young, Scott

Young, Stacy

Zickafoose, Danny

Appendix B

Hurrricane Klara: SSU's Perfect Storm

(This is a re-posting of  piece that originally appeared in River Vices on Oct. 25, 2005. I am currently writing another piece on Kay Reynolds called “Slumlord Klara,” in the writing of which I was reminded that, “The more things change, the more they remain the same.” Yes, the political hack is back on the SSU  Board of Trustees only now it’s Governor Kasich, not Governor Taft, she will be an embarrassment to.)

As if SSU needed any further dumbing down, Governor Robert Taft has appointed Kay “Hurricane Klara” Reynolds as chair of the Shawnee State Board of Trustees. It is the kind of stupid political move that has sent Taft’s poll numbers plummeting and almost guarantees that Ohio Republicans will be made to pay by voters in the next election.

Taft has already pleaded no contest to ethic violations. If only he could be put on trial for acting like a dodo, which is what he was in appointing Reynolds chair of the trustees. If anyone in the governor’s office could remember that far back, or cared, Klara Kay Reynolds was one of those trustees who conspired with university lawyer Stephen P. Donohue to remove the most popular and effective president Shawnee State has ever had, James P. Chapman, causing an uproar on campus and reinforcing SSU’s abysmal reputation in the academic world.

Reynold’s appointment caps a trend at SSU, which more than any other institution of higher education I know of shows the validity of the “Peter Principle,” which is “The theory that employees [and trustees] within an organization will advance to their highest level of competence and then be promoted to and remain at a level at which they are incompetent” (American Heritage Dictionary). With Hurricane Klara as chair of the trustees, Stephen P. Donohue as de facto president, Rita Rice Morris as nominal president, Michael Field as provost, and John Kelley as interim dean, we are faced with the equivalent of a perfect storm of incompetence and questionable ethics.

Rita Rice Morris has made a name for herself by jumping out of airplanes and joining in the beatification of real estate developer Neal Hatcher but not for being a strong leader. She lives in the infamous house on the hill, that distressed piece of property on Camelot Drive, that money pit that the trustees purchased at an inflated price from a doctor in distress, just as they had previously bought from local lawyer and politician John Thatcher at an inflated price a temporary president’s house, i.e., a piece of distressed property, on Franklin Blvd, which the trustees then took a $50 thousand loss on when they sold it to another doctor. Doctors and lawyers are among Portsmouth’s over-privileged who profit from public treasuries.

Donohue, the over-privileged’s defacto president at SSU, handled the Franklin Blvd. fiasco from start to finish. As an Asst. Attorney General for the State of Ohio, Donohue would of course have known whether the purchase of the Thatcher house violated state law, wouldn’t he? Hired in a stealth search and on the basis of a resume that would not have got him even an interview at an ethical institution, he then declined, once hired, to discuss his past history with a Daily Times reporter. Since he is rumored to have been fired from his previous job, we can begin to understand his doctored resume and his reluctance to be interviewed about his past job experience.

Provost Field, acting as interim president, was just the kind of obliging bureaucrat whom the over-privileged of Portsmouth and several trustees and Donohue wanted as the next permanent president of SSU, but Field’s performance as provost and then as interim president was rated very poorly by the faculty, and then the campaign to make him the new president was handled so incompetently by his handlers that he was not even among the three finalists chosen by the presidential search committee. There has usually been at least one trustee of integrity, and that is another reason why Field did not become the new president. Field ended up, with a hefty raise, back in the provost’s office, at the job at which he never should have been temporarily promoted from, according to the Peter Principle. As provost, he had clearly reached his level of incompetence, and there he will probably remain until he retires, for who else, given his track record at SSU, would hire him, and who given his willingness to play ball no matter how sleazy the game, would dare fire him?

John Kelley completes the perfect storm at SSU. Shortly before Kelley was appointed interim provost, when speculation was rife about who would replace Field as interim provost, the word was that the trustees were going to appoint “a faculty friendly” person to the position. Kelley may have been a trustee favorite, but he was not a faculty favorite. Kelley is liked by the faculty, considerably more than the provost is. But it is sometimes the case that a person can be liked but not respected. Kelley could be described as bi-institutional, which gives him advantages that he does not fail to take advantage of, but it is also a quality that makes him look at times as if he is working both sides of the street. It is the administration and the trustees, not the faculty, who appoint Kelley to his interim administrative positions, and they appoint him because he can be counted on to do the questionable things administrators and trustees want him to do, which is what he can be expected to continue to do as interim dean.

But who makes the impending storm at SSU frightening is, above all, Hurricane Klara. While President Chapman was working a miracle at SSU and making improvements and building remarkable bridges to faculty, students, and community, Klara Kay Reynolds and several other trustees were working to undermine and remove him. Hurricane Klara, with her undergraduate major in Home Economics at Ohio State, this political hack, considers herself pretty smart, as is evident in her pretentious but poorly written evaluation of President Chapman that was leaked back in July 2001.

While Chapman was initiating Interest Based Bargain negotiations that were unprecedented at SSU in their amity and progress, Hurricane Klara was leaking her evaluation on Chapman’s presidency from her offices at Scioto Rental Management. Her evaluation was passed on to me. I was told George Clayton, trustee chair, was one of the intermediaries. Only vanity can explain why she leaked this document when she did, for it threatened to alert me, as union president, among others, that we were about to be screwed, that the trustees and the administration were going along with Interest Based Bargaining in bad faith, that they planned to get rid of Chapman just as soon as they had milked him and Interest Based Bargaining for everything they were worth.

Reynolds had closed her evaluation of Chapman with a quote from Galileo. “You cannot teach people anything. You can only help them discover it within themselves.” I too can easily look up famous quotes, but I find another more appropriate Galileo quote, the gender of which I will change to suit my purposes. “I have never met a woman so ignorant that I couldn’t learn something from her.”

I had been warned by faculty with more experience than I had, that I and the union were making a mistake in trusting trustees like Reynolds by entering into Interest Based Bargaining. Because I had faith in the honesty and ability of Chapman, I went along, and lived to regret it. I even wrote a very positive account of our bargaining experience in the NEA journal Thought & Action  (http://www2.nea.org/he/heta99/s99p139.pdf ), but that was before I had discovered the depths of dishonesty and incompetence that characterizes the people in control of Portsmouth and SSU.

Below is the cover letter that accompanied Reynolds’ evaluation of Chapman. Notice the line, “We are in the mist [sic] of union negotiation [sic] and should present a united front.” She was in a mist, all right, the mist of ignorance and prejudice that political hacks operate in and that SSU has been cursed with from its beginning. Something Professor Kathleen Simon wrote (June 3, 2001) in response to a letter from Reynolds has relevance. “I don’t know what your intention was when you wrote your letter,” Simon wrote Reynolds, “but after reading it, I am even more fully entrenched in my belief that letting political appointees run a university is a really bad idea.” With a political appointee as chair of the trustees, and with negotiations looming, I forecast a perfect storm, with Hurricane Klara right at the eye of it.