Manager-Council Government: Less Democracy, More Hypocrisy

     I see that our officious First Ward council member Kevin W. Johnson is at it again, once more donning his Mussolini hat to modernize government the way the Italian dictator did, which was by undermining democracy. As if he had not done enough harm when he engineered the change back to the less democratic manager-council form of government, Johnson is proposing five more amendments to the city charter. For someone who is telling people as he makes his political rounds that he will be moving from Portsmouth as soon as conveniently possible, wouldn't you think he would stay around to live with consequences of these charter amendments he so freely and underhandedly proposes?

      What  apparently motivated Johnson to go on his latest amendment binge was the recent election in the Sixth Ward primary in which the incumbent Jeff Kleha finished third in the voting, disqualifying him from being a candidate in the general election. What Johnson and City Manager Derek Allen claimed to be disturbed by was that Sixth Ward voters were allowed to vote for two instead of just one of the three candidates. That is unusual. Usually voters vote for only one candidate. It may be unusual to vote for two in a primary in which there are three candidates, but that is not an infringement of democracy nor a  violation of the city charter or state law, which doesn’t specify how many candidates an elector can vote for in a primary. I think that what  really upset Johnson and especially Allen was not the irregularity of voting for two candidates, or the allegedly bad precedent the Sixth Ward set that Allen claims may haunt us for fifty years. That is not the bottom line in all this.

     What really upset Allen was the defeat of Kleha,  whom the city manager  was counting on for continued support on city council. If Kleha had not lost,  I doubt Johnson or Allen would have been the least upset. If Allen was acting on principle and not on selfish political motives, why did he wait until after the election, after Kleha’s loss, before making a public issue of the primary by writing a letter of protest to the Scioto County Prosecutor Mark Kuhn? As Kuhn pointed out in his ruling on the Sixth Ward primary, no one, including Allen, had objected in a timely manner to the unusual voting arrangement. And what was the city manager doing involving himself in the issue in the first place? Wasn't that as Kuhn pointed out the responsibility of the Portsmouth City Solicitor John Haas, the city's chief legal officer?

      What Allen found most  disturbing, if truth be told,  was  that the top vote getters in the primary, Tom Lowe and Shawn Stratton, have been critical of Allen’s performance as city manager, Stratton vehemently so. Since Allen could be terminated if the required number of the city council decide he has to go, he cannot afford to have even one member of the council who thinks he's not up to the job. If there was one council member against him, there might be more, and it would only take four to be a majority against him, and what then of Allen's job security? When  Allen told the Daily Times “he has no opinion regarding the outcome of the election or on the ruling of the Board of Election,” I believe he was not telling the truth, as I think is obvious in other things he said about the primary election. As city manager he knows he is supposed to be above politics, to be impartial. Was he lying when he claimed he had no opinion? Do you think a city official who would lie under oath as a public official in his hometown, as Allen had in Piqua, would such an official hesitate, in a city in which he is a commuting city manager,  hesitate to lie to a local newspaper reporter? If Kevin Johnson is something of a Mussolini, Allen is something of a Machiavelli. I don’t mean to imply that either of them is a fascist, but they both have a fine Italian hand, showing a contempt for the democratic process and for the intelligence of the electorate, which may be why they are so underhanded. 

     Speaking of undemocratic tactics I will have something alarming  to reveal about the undemocratic tactics that supporters of  the  manager-council form of city government resorted to in 2011 to get the change-in-government amendment passed. All I will mention at this point is an acronym. No, I don't mean SOGP, which blessedly is no longer with us, but ICMA, which unfortunately is.

City Seal Snafu

Our officious First Ward councilman Kevin W. Johnson, didn't like the mayoral form of government, so he sneakily got the change back to the misnamed city manager form of government, creating a snafu that will take years and years to resolve. I mean just who if anybody is governing this city? Then Kevin W.  decided he didn't like the tasteless city seal and proposed a contest to get a new one. Well, now that's turned into a snafu  too, and Kevin W. and acting mayor Jim Kalb proposed postponing picking a winner. Jim Kalb is not satisfied with the candidate seals. He would like to see some changes. "But to me, personally there’s just some changes I’d like to see made on them," Kalb said, "and that’s something I think that this council ought to have time to discuss instead of just picking a favorite tonight and settling for that.” What does Kalb have in mind? Maybe the following is the one  he favors:

The word is Kalb doesn't like the one below :

And what about Kevin W.? Which seal may he be holding out for? It's rumored that Kevin W. feels the most tasteful seal by far is the following:

In a telephone survey he did in area codes 270, 502, 606, and 859, Snuffy Smith claims that the seal below was the overwhelming favorite:

KWJ's Three Harmful Legacies

First Harmful Legacy

"It was not long after the change back to the City Manager form of government that KWJ became President of City Council in which capacity, with his shaved head, he bore some resemblance to  Mussolini, il Duce, the dictator of Italy during the Second World War." 

I have already written a post on Kevin W. Johnson’s most harmful legacy in Portsmouth, (click here) which is the misnamed City Manager form of government. It should be called the City Council form of government. Under the City Manager form the mayor is either eliminated completely or retained as a political eunuch. The City Manager form of government increases the authority of the City Council. The City Manager, in the absence of a mayor, becomes  subordinate and answerable to the City Council, which has the authority to hire and fire him or her. The City Council has the authority to formulate the policies it wants the City Manager to carry out. Though Portsmouth had already tried and eventually rejected the City Manager form of government, KWJ, with his characteristically dictatorial tendencies, engineered the change back to City Manager in an off-year coup d'etat election without most residents being aware of what was happening.

It was not long after the change back to the City Manager form of government that KWJ became President of City Council in which capacity, with his shaved head, he bore some resemblance to Mussolini, il Duce, the dictator of Italy during the Second  World War. When the City Manager and other members of the City Council saw what a tyrant KWJ was, they united against him and forced him to resign as President of City Council. KWJ agreed to resign, but to save face he claimed he was resigning because of health problems. He reportedly has had health problems for some time, so they were probably not the real reason for his resignation.

 The City Manager form of government did not work in Portsmouth in the past, is not working now, and probably will not work in the future, not even if we had a city manager whose primary residence was in Portsmouth, not Piqua, some 150 miles away. If it were not for KWJ, Portsmouth would not have the albatross of the misnamed City Manager form of government around its neck.

Second Harmful Legacy

Another harmful legacy of KWJ is the virtual canonization of his late business and same-sex partner, Paul E. Johnson. In canonizing his late partner, KWJ, an inveterate politician, is trying to improve  the very negative image of himself he has created. I am not opposed to same-sex marriage, but I am opposed to anyone who thinks that same-sex marriages are made in heaven and acts, as KWJ does, as if his same-sex partner was a saint or at least someone who deserves to be memorialized with an annual “Paul E. Johnson Memorial Fund Soiree,” to quote the obsequious Portsmouth Daily Times reporter Frank Lewis’ description of what he claims is “One of the area’s favorite charity fundraisers.” Just what did Paul E. Johnson do for Portsmouth that prompted Main Street Portsmouth to memorialize him with an annual charity "Soiree"? In failing in the upscale antique business in Appalachia, was Paul E. Johnson a martyr to taste? Is that why he is being memorialized? Speaking of taste, the use of the phony French word soiree for the annual event underscores the pretentiousness of KWJ with his wine-tastings and his campaign to change the Portsmouth city seal because he wants something less gauche, something more au courant, as the French would say.  There is even a plaque on one of the least historic and most commercial looking Portsmouth buildings that the most prominent same-sex couple in the city lived above before their upscale antique business went bust.

If I have this right, both Paul and Kevin Johnson were originally from Appalachia. But you can’t cross-pollinate Appalachia with San Francisco anymore than you can Peoria with Paris, as the Paul E. Johnson Soiree will annually serve to remind us. And speaking of bad taste, what about those ugly funereal flower pots that detract from the beauty and constitute a hazard for joggers along the Floodwall Murals? Adding insult to ugliness, those pots now display advertising plugs for Main Street Portsmouth and for KWJ’s apotheosized late partner.

Third Harmful Legacy

I will conclude briefly with KWJ's third harmful  legacy, which is the confusing charter amendment he has got placed on the ballot for next month’s election. That amendment seeks to repeal the spending restraints placed upon the city government in a previous charter amendment. Our city officials are so addicted to spending that if there were half-way houses for fiscal addicts, city officials would be confined to them. If Johnson’s charter amendment is passed, it will be one more reason why we will live to regret that KWJ ever returned to Appalachia. Don't  be confused by the language of KWJ's amendment, which implies we won't have money for sewers if his amendment doesn't pass. That is a canard that even the City Manager has publicly said is not true.  As in the sample ballot below, vote against KWJ's charter amendment!

Snuffy's Take on Jim Kalb's Open Letter

Jim Kalb composing his open letter to Kevin W. Johnson

Iffen you red Drek Aillen’s Cock-n-Bull Opin Litter, now reed Jim Kalb’s  to the failed antic deeler Kevin W. Johnson. Summite suspeck Ol’ Jim din’t rite the litter cuz it lax the redneck shit-and-piss retrick that made Jim  the most famus Appleashen in the whirl fur 48 ours a few yeers back. Sumuthers mite suspeck Jim didn’t rite it cuz it haz finnishin’ skool wurds like “therefore,” “ultimately,” and “abide” wen all he haz iz a vacational edjication. Weather itz by Jim or his bitter haff wif the govinment krazy chek. Iffen you aint red Jim’s Appleashen masterpiss, just klick here.

Jims open litter iz not so much a litter az a chronicul of govinment cunfusion, cullusion, and dilusion in witch Jim cumplanes Kevin always kept him, that iz Jim, out of the loop privyusly but iz trying’ to suck up to him now that Kevin iz on the sity man’gers shitlist.

Bee that az it may, Jims litter to Kevin W. begins,

             "Hello Vice President Kevin W.”

He leaves  off  hiz last name witch iz suposed too bee sarkastick  like you wood begin a litter to the president, “Hello President B’rack Husane,” leavin’ off hiz last name Obummer.  Summite say iffen he rit the litter hisself he cud cum up with sumthin’ better like, “Hello Vice President Kevin W. who  I woodn’t piss on if you waz shit on fire.”  But la-dee-da Jim sez insted, "I copied this correspondence to all concerned because, well, that’s just the proper way to do things (in my opinion)." Wat Jims  reely doin' ritin’ fancee-dancee like this iz makin' fun of kweers who rite like that. Then Jim  sez supersillyous, “I don’t know if you have ever read the Charter, you don’t understand the language in the Charter or you just flat out refuse to abide by the Charter and other laws/rules governing Council.” Jim leckturing Kevin W. on vilelating the chatter iz ironick cuz Jim iz the biggist vilelator of the chatter in the anals of Porchmuth like he did on the Martin’ bilding and the Kiwanis Playground. Hell, there aint nobuddy who vilelates the chatter more’n Jim.

Jim also ‘cuses Kevin of subvertin’ the Design and Review Bored. Speekin’ of bored, don't we have more than enuff bored fellas in sity govinment and nobuddy more so than Jim, as shone in the  classick schnapshot of him  ketchin’ twenty winks during a counsil meatin'.

As fur Kevin’s dilutions of grander, Jim in hiz litter quotes an emale in witch Kevin rote, “As you know, Derek is called by our fire or police Chief whenever there is a fire, homicide, robbery or a bear in the city. I have asked to be called as well; as the Mayor (or Acting Mayor, in my case, effective July 1) I should be aware of such activity.” In uther wurds, Kevin W. wants to be in the loop as much az he wants to keep Jim out of the loop. If theres a bear or a bare-ass stewdent running up Chillyclothy street, Kevin W. wants to be woked up and tolled about it.

Then in a kleer warnin’ to Kevin W.,  Jim kwotes the city chatter like it’s the Bibull, the furst commandmint being you better follow the chatter or you cud end up convickted: “Any violation of the provisions of this section by a member of the Council shall be a misdemeanor, conviction of which shall immediately forfeit the office of the member so convicted.” Of coarse our currant sity man’ger wuz prevously convicted of lying under oath about givin’ a buddy of his a no-bid contrack for gravil or sumthin’ butt he waz hired anyway. In fakt, I think one of the kwalifications fur the job waz you gut to have  a please record or at least to have been a bankcorrupt.

Jim allso cumplains in his litter ‘bout Kevin tellin’ Drek to take a vacation. Kevin tellin’ Drek to take a brake iz like Hitler rekomending that Muscleenie becuz he’s virgin on a nervuss brakedown shood take a long vakation and leeve Itally to the Nasties. “Not your call Kevin,”  Jim sez in his opin litter. “The City Manager is perfectly capable of scheduling a vacation for himself when he feels the need.”

Here’s the hippocritical enden of Jims opin litter to Kevin W. “Since you took a seat on City Council I’ve witnessed a loss of confidence that Portsmouth residents have in their city government. I’ve seen nothing from you but hidden agendas and a failure to follow the laws and rules governing the city. I’ve watched you speak for City Council as a whole without being asked. You thrive on controversy and you constantly share information with the media before it is ever discussed by Council. Now allow me to ask a question of you: Do you plan to continue your actions on City Council as you have to this point? If you have no intentions of changing, would you consider making it easier on everybody and cheaper on the City and just resign your seat on Portsmouth City Council?”

Jims  crittersizin’ Kevin W. Johnson on vilelating the city chatter iz ironick cuz like he did on the Martin’ bilding and the Kiwanis Playground, Jim iz the biggest  vilelator of the city chatter in the hisorry  of Porchmuth. Hell, there aint nobuddy who haz ever vilelated the chatter more’n Jim.

Iz this what sity managemint govinment in Porchmuth haz cum too? The bankruptured, incompitent Kroaker clerk a-lying with the convickted sity man’ger aginst the Connivin’ Actin’ Mayor affective July 1? Guvnor Kasick haz got it rong. It aint the devil whose in controll in Porchmuth, itz the lawyers and develuppers that pulls the strings of the underhanded, bankruptured and incompetint politishins of witch the out-to-lunch Jim Kalb is the epitymee. 

Political Puppets of Portsmouth

Midsummer City Manager Madness

"Kevin W. Johnson is up to his usual tricks and  the moon is full."

Having a city manager form of government in Portsmouth is  the equivalent of a mid-summer full moon. The full moon brings out the craziness  in Kevin W. Johnson, who apparently doesn’t know the difference between  the  mayoral and  the  city manager form of government,  even though he is the one who instigated the charter change to city manager. Since  the change to  the city manager form of government is turning everything topsy-turvy, Johnson thinks the solution is to make more  changes to the city charter. So he recently proposed three more  charter changes, which with his typical underhandedness he began illegally lobbying several  other council members to support. Then unnamed parties  who apparently  think the city manager is the city’s chief executive,  urged Johnson  to drop two of the three proposed charter changes and let the city manager handle things,  which is what Johnson did.

The only charter change Johnson  is going to continue to push for is the one  that would repeal the charter amendment that limits what  the city can spend on capital projects without first getting approval from the voters. The reason the voters approved that  charter amendment was because city officials were seriously proposing to spend up to $12,000,000 (twelve million dollars!)  to renovate the worthless Marting’s building and the equally worthless former cable company building for city offices, which they would have had to raise city  taxes up to the moon to pay for since there was nothing like twelve million in the Capital Improvements budget.

The city manager is not the chief executive of Portsmouth, which has no chief executive per se. The executive powers once invested in the mayor are now distributed, diluted you might say,  among the members of the city council. The city manager is the servant of the city council. His job is to manage, not make policy. Considering  how incompetent and corrupt the majority of city council members have been historically,  giving them executive authority, along with their legislative authority, is a recipe for bedlam.

The successful lawyer  Frank Gerlach, the only person in the history of Portsmouth who served as both city manager and mayor, warned that the city manager form of government would not make things better, that  it would make things worse, and it has, especially when the moon is full and Kevin W. Johnson is up to his usual tricks.

Click below on other on other posts on Kevin W. Johnson

Political Puppets of Portsmouth

All Aboard!

Financial Black Mold

Gerlach Says No to City Manager

Selling Out: Kevin W. Johnson

The Emporium: A Historic Landmark?

      Portsmouth businessman Kevin Johnson is playing an important role in helping the city’s corrupt politicians recycle the Marting Scam, which has morphed into the “City Center Scam.” The City Center Scam is a scheme to turn the 124-year-old decrepit Marting building into a home for city offices, with mom and pop kiosks on the ground floor to sell notions and newspapers. You can bet on the featured newspaper being the Portsmouth Daily Times, which fires reporters who even accidentally happen to report news embarrassing to the over-privileged who run the city. But why did Richard’s News close shop if there’s money in selling newspapers and magazines in downtown Portsmouth?

      The citizens of Portsmouth rejected the Marting Scam by more than 2 to 1 in a referendum in May 2006, but the crooks are back again in 2008, recycling what they failed to sell the first time, repackaging it as the City Center, with Kevin W. Johnson up to his neck in the lies and “petitions” being circulated to fool the public into thinking that the old, unoccupied, leaking Marting building, with its ugly phony-brick 1950's façade, is the key to the revival of downtown Portsmouth. After my legal challenge to First Ward councilman Tim Loper resulted in his removal from office, Johnson harbored political ambitions of being appointed to replace him. But the city chose Mike Mearan over Johnson, perhaps with the philosophy of “better the devil you know.” Now Johnson, as a member of the City Building Committee, has shown he is a team player who follows the rules by which the crooked game is played.

Nefarious Building Committee, with Johnson in center

The Emporium

      Kevin W. Johnson, or Kevin Warren as he is listed on the Scioto County Auditor’s website, is the co-owner of the Emporium antique shop, at 607 Chillicothe St. His partner is Paul  E. Johnson, whose last name he has apparently taken. The irony is that Kevin W. Johnson, or Kevin Warren, this crusader for the revival of downtown Portsmouth, is reportedly trying to sell the Emporium. He’s going to sell out, after about five years in business, if he can find a buyer as foolish as himself and his partner to sell to. He’s going to sell out and move out, although a case could be made that he had already sold out when he became a member of the nefarious City Building Committee, chaired by Mike Mearan. His sellout may in the end help him unload the Emporium.

      What a poster boy Johnson is for downtown renewal! What in the world were he and his partner thinking when they opened another antique shop in Portsmouth? The Emporium is all the evidence you need that downtown Portsmouth died forty years ago but nobody buried the corpse, of which the Marting building is the stinking head. The people in our down-at-the-heels-crime-ridden-community needed another antique shop like they needed another dozen prostitutes on John St., or more doped-up drug dealers on Waller St., or like they needed another chop shop/oxycontin dealership like West End Auto. Who among us needs a Marting Shoe Polisher can, a life-sized cut-out of Marilyn Monroe having her skirt blown up over a subway grate; or a copy of a 33 1/3 Velvet Underground vinyl record (shown left); or a Black Forest Cuckoo Clock? Yes, a Black Forest Cuckoo Clock! Doesn’t Kevin W. Johnson realize that the local rednecks don’t even know, according to Clayton Johnson, how to set an alarm clock? Would potential customers who don’t know how to set an alarm clock pay $125 for an antique cuckoo clock? Antique cuckoo clocks? How about antique VCRs, the kind that used to drive everybody but children nuts fifteen or twenty years ago when they tried to program them. We really need to get some of those VCRs in the hands of senior citizens to bring back the good old days. Maybe Hill View could bus seniors down to the Emporium to shop for antique VCRs, the way they may be bussed down to the Hotel/Convention Center if gambling ever comes to Portsmouth.

      All those little downtown stores that useful businesses had long ago moved out of were like empty shells for hermit-crab antique dealers to move in and out of every six months. The Emporium had moved into the empty building that had previously been occupied by Stapleton Office Supplies, which had held on as long as it could before heading for greener pastures, heading for anywhere, that is, other than downtown Portsmouth, just as Sears Roebuck had previously moved out of that same building. Ah, where are the Sears Roebucks and Montgomery Wards of yesteryear? Why did Kevin W. Johnson think there would be any more customers for antiques than there had been for office supplies, or for pet grooming, or for Speedo bathing suits, or quilts, to name some of the businesses that have come and gone in the last twenty years on Chillicothe Street? Portsmouth was already the antique/junk shop capital of south-central Ohio before the pair of Johnsons arrived. Having another antique shop was like bringing coke to New Boston or Oxycontin to Portsmouth. We’ve already got enough of that stuff.

      I was in Stapleton’s the week before it closed, and talked to employees. It was a sad occasion, but the folks there understood the time had come to get out, something that proponents of reviving downtown refuse to recognize. The Marting Foundation is trying to con everyone into believing downtown can be revived, as it once was, as if dinosaurs can be replicated by DNA, as in Jurassic Park. The dream of recreating the bustling downtown Portsmouth of 60 years ago is a myth that Clayton Johnson and others perpetrate and exploit, just as unscrupulous evangelists exploit the hope of everlasting life. Unfortunately, the only thing that is likely to revive downtown Portsmouth is casino gambling, and that is what Neal Hatcher is banking on, not the return of Sears or Marting’s or even Stapleton’s. No, Hatcher knows better, which is why he’s betting on the Hotel/Convention Center that will replace the Municipal Building.

      That’s probably what Kevin W. Johnson was betting on too when he opened the Emporium. As I reported in an earlier River Vices blog, “Sluts and Slots,” the Portsmouth Daily Times (28 June 2005) ran a front-page story with the headline “Gambling Draws Local Support.” What did this local support consist of? Two people, the pair of Johnsons. The PDT reported Kevin W. Johnson was in favor of legalized land-based gambling in Portsmouth. Johnson pointed to unspecified cities in Colorado and South Dakota as places where legalized gambling has been a good thing, and what’s good for cities in Colorado and South Dakota, he implied, will be good for Portsmouth. Kevin W., the PDT reported, “said casinos could mean turning around the local economy.” Maybe gambling would eventually turn around the local economy, with serious moral and social consequences, but not soon enough, as it turned out, to turn the Emporium into marketable real estate.

      Will someone buy the Emporium or will it remain on the market for a long time? If the City Center becomes a reality, maybe Kevin W. can attract buyers for the Emporium by claiming, falsely I believe, that things are looking up downtown. As somebody with a lot of white elephants on his hands, he has a vested interest in the proposed City Center, which may explain why he has ended up being a strong proponent of the city investing millions of dollars in the Marting building, though many citizens are adamantly opposed to it. Kevin W.'s  hopes for gambling in Portsmouth did not bail him out, but maybe the City Center will. Beware of businessmen in Portsmouth who have property they want to unload. If they can’t unload it on some private party, then the public better beware because the city or county might come to the rescue with tax dollars. Remember Clayton Johnson and the Marting building? Remember George Clayton and Kendrick’s retail store? Kevin W. is trying to make the case  that the building the Emporium is located in has architectural and historical importance. In other words, a similar case is being made for the Emporium building that has been made for the Marting building. “In recognition of our [restoration] efforts,” the pair of Johnsons tell us on their Emporium website, “the City of Portsmouth designated our building as a historic site in late 2002, and plans are to restore the exterior of the building in the near future.”

Caveat Emptor

     The city has done everything to physically and verbally tear down the Municipal Building, which has historic value, which is 50 years younger than the Marting building, and which has housed the city government for 75 years. By contrast, the city has declared the Emporium building a “historic site.” What malarkey! There is nothing historic or artistically significant about the Marting and Emporium buildings. Perhaps we should be thankful that the pair of Johnsons have not restored the exterior of the building, as they planned to do, because that might have consisted of nothing more than a façade to cover up its undistinguished exterior, a la the Marting building.

      So Kevin W. is part of the crew of underhanded types, in and out of government, who are trying to stir up the populace as they did back in 1980, when three City Councilmen were accused of sabotaging a new mall, a mall that has gone down in Portsmouth mythology as the city’s last lost great opportunity. That mall was a scam and so is the City Center. Fortunately, we have one of those councilmen from 1980, Harald Daub, with us still, and he along with thousands of other Portsmouth residents are still opposing scams like the City Center. There’s one thing you can say for Harold Daub. Unlike Kevin W.  he never sold out.