Our Passive-Aggressive City Solicitor

The background of Portsmouth’s gun registry controversy is as follows: In 1975, the Portsmouth City Council passed Ordinance 705.30, which stated “It shall be the duty of any person licensed under this section to keep in a separate book kept for that purpose a record of each sale of any gun, revolver, pistol, firearm or other dangerous weapon, which record shall include a description of the article sold, including the manufacturer’s name and number, the name and address and description to whom sold, and the date and hour on which the sale was made. The holder of such license shall also prepare and deliver each day to the Chief of Police a legible and correct copy written in the English language from such book, containing the description of such articles sold, the hour at which the purchase was made and a description of the person to whom it was sold.” Ordinance 705.30 places a lot of responsibility on the gun-seller and gun-buyer, responsibilities which Federal and Ohio laws since 1975 have to a large extent superseded.

Concerned about what he saw as an infringement of his Constitutional rights under the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, Harold T. Pack, of Rosemont, wrote to City Solicitor David Kuhn on 8 Sept. 2004. (See “Timeline” below.) As chief legal officer of the city, Kuhn had the responsibility to try to promptly resolve the gun registration issue, all the more so since Kuhn is a member of the NRA and of its legal arm the Institute for Legislative Action (ILA). It is hard to believe that Kuhn as a member of the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action could be so ignorant of gun laws, but it is even harder to believe that Kuhn as City Solicitor could be so ignorant of the City Charter, as he too often is. Instead of taking decisive action on the gun issue, Kuhn characteristically dilly-dallied for months. When Pack felt he was getting the run-around from Kuhn and other elected officials, he wrote a letter to members of the City Council on 25 Jan. 05. (See “Timeline” below.) As a result, Councilman Bob Mollette became involved, and so fortunately did David LaCourse, a field representative of the National Rifle Association. I am no fan of the NRA, but it appears that if LaCourse had not become involved, the controversy might still be festering and Kuhn might still be dilly-dallying. LaCourse’s long 16 Feb. 2006 letter is must reading for anyone trying to understand the complex legal issues involved.

“Personality Differences”

In that same 16 Feb. 2006 letter, LaCourse (shown here) expressed the opinion that a good deal of the controversy over gun laws in Portsmouth was the result of “personality differences.” He believed that the controversy was as much the result of psychological as of legal or policy problems. The context of LaCourse’s observation suggests that it was Chief Horner he thought was the problem. Whether or not LaCourse thought City Solicitor Kuhn was also a problem, I believe Portsmouth’s gun registration controversy had more to do with Kuhn’s than to Horner’s or anyone else’s personality. As a concerned voter, I will go even further and say I believe Portsmouth’s gun controversy is a consequence of our city solicitor’s psychological problems, and more specifically a reflection of his passive-aggressive personality. Since Kuhn is the chief legal officer of the city, and running for re-election, I feel I have the right and even the obligation to raise the issue of his fitness for public office not only on ethical but also on psychological grounds.

The Passive-Aggressive Personality Disorder was included in the first (1952) and subsequent editions of the authoritative Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, published by the American Psychiatric Association. The Passive-Aggressive Personality Disorder, or PAPD, was first recognized and named during the Second World War when a number of draftees displayed a cluster of behavioral traits that made it difficult for them to function effectively in a social unit, especially in a social unit as large and complex as the U.S. military. A soldier must be punctual, disciplined, and team-oriented. He or she must have the ability to make quick decisions, especially in combat situations. But being punctual, disciplined, team oriented, and decisive are just the virtues that people with PAPD lack. The Marines have a motto, “Adapt, improvise, overcome.” If passive-aggressives had a motto, it might be, “Delay, screw up, blame somebody else.” That could certainly be Kuhn’s motto.

Indecisiveness is possibly the most conspicuous PAPD trait. Kuhn finds it very hard to make decisions, and does everything he can to try to avoid them. Making even the simplest decisions appears agonizing for him. As City Solicitor, Kuhn’s routine responsibility is to offer legal opinions, but he appears very reluctant to do or decide anything. He tries to get other to do things and make decisions for him. According to the Synopsis of Psychiatry (1997), “People with this disorder [PAPD] expect others to do their errands and to carry out their routine responsibilities.”

NRA to the Rescue

Among those Kuhn expected to do his job for him in connection with the gun controversy was the National Rifle Association. Kuhn did not write the NRA until 25 Aug. 05, almost a year after Pack first wrote him. Since Kuhn is a lawyer and a member of NRA’s lobbying arm, the Institute for Legislative Action (ILA), he should presumably have had a leg up on gun registration legal issues when Harold Pack first wrote him in September 2004. But documentation on Councilman Mollette’s website shows clearly that Kuhn was in a dither from the start and relied heavily on Pack and then on LaCourse to do the research on the legal ABC’s of gun registration. The first thing Kuhn should have done when Pack wrote him was contact the Ohio Attorney General’s office, but I find no evidence that Kuhn ever contacted the Ohio Attorney General about this issue. What he did, after a delay of almost a year, was write to the NRA for assistance.

Kuhn should have been able to explain to Pack within days or a couple of weeks at the most that Ordinance 705.30 was not unconstitutional because under Ohio’s constitution, Portsmouth as a “home rule” city had the right to pass ordinances about gun control. After dilly-dallying, Kuhn did not make a formal decision on the issue until 4 Jan. 2006, sixteen months after Pack had first written him, and not until after LaCourse had effectively already made the decision for him, in a letter to Kuhn dated 1 Jan. 2006. (See “Timeline” below.) Portsmouth taxpayers should be thankful that the NRA did not bill the city for its legal advice as other “outside counsel” that Kuhn consults usually do. Having a city solicitor with passive-aggressive traits can be expensive for the municipality he is supposed to be serving. During Kuhn’s last four years in office, the city has spent more than $175,000 on “outside counsel” fees. What would that bill be for his twelve years in office?

In the documentation Mollette collected on his website, it is striking how much Kuhn resorts to passive-aggressive tactics, especially in the degree to which he delayed doing anything except come up with excuses for why he took so long to render a decision, a decision that was more LaCourse’s than his own. One of Kuhn’s excuses was that the NRA had failed to answer the first letter (dated 25 Aug. 2005) that he had sent them. Is he shifting the blame for his own delay to the NRA? And Kuhn probably would have done nothing if he had not been pressured by Councilman Mollette to write a follow-up letter to the NRA. When Kuhn got no response to his letters to the NRA, he should have telephoned them, which is what Mollette did. Since Kuhn seemed unable to follow through himself, Mollette was in effect doing Kuhn’s job for him. As a result, Kuhn resents Mollette, which is reflected in the snide remarks he made in his testy 18 Sept. 07 letter to the Daily Times about Mollette being a self-appointed “ombudsman” who expresses his “feelings to everyone.” If first Mollette and Pack before him had not applied pressure and expressed their “feelings,” Kuhn might still be putting off making a decision and blaming others for the delay. Kuhn works about as hard at his job as city solicitor and puts in about as many hours as Jim Kalb currently does as a clerk at Kroger’s, where the mayor still punches the cash register a couple of hours on Thursday mornings.

In his 18 Sept. letter to the Daily Times Kuhn also accuses Mollette of making unsubstantiated and undocumented accusations against him. Kuhn accusing Mollette of lacking documentation is laughable because Mollette meticulously documents everything on his website, including Kuhn’s long delay in reaching a decision of the gun registration issue. Accusing Mollette of lacking documentation is like accusing McDonald’s of lacking hamburgers. In contrast to Kuhn, who tries to keep as much information from the public as possible, Mollette believes in openness and accountability in government. When it comes to public records, Mollette is for Sunshine, Kuhn for moonshine.

Kuhn Sitting on his Ass as Usual

In that same 18 Sept. letter to the Daily Times, Kuhn accuses PDT reporter Jeff Barron of presenting only one side of the gun controversy story. Well, how is a reporter going to get Kuhn’s side of the story when he can not reach him? Barron tried to contact Kuhn on Friday when he was writing the gun story, but he was told the City Solicitor was unavailable. Barron was told to try again Monday. The Portsmouth Daily Times, as its name indicates, is a daily publication, not a weekly or a monthly. It is not the Portsmouth Delay Times, although if it was Kuhn would probably be happier with it, because if there is one thing he does more than anything else it is delay, delay, delay. I am told tracking down Kuhn can be about as difficult as tracking down Osama Bin Laden. If Kuhn is not “out to lunch” or on a long weekend, he is otherwise occupied with hobbies or other affairs.

The NRA, Mollette, and others asked Kuhn to help repeal Ord. 705.30. But Kuhn took the position, or made the excuse, that the issue of Ord. 705.30 is a policy, not a legal, matter. In other words, it is an issue for the legislature, i.e., the City Council, not the judiciary, i.e., the Solicitor’s office, to deal with. But isn’t it the Solicitor’s responsibility to advise the Council on controversial issues in which laws or city statutes are direcly involved? If, as LaCourse stated, Ord. 705.30 is duplicative, ineffective, and inefficient, shouldn’t the city solicitor so advise the City Council. (See “Timeline” below, 1 Jan. 06.) To quote Mollette, “I feel the City Solicitor, who is elected by the citizens, would assure and guide the actions or inactions of elected officials to the City of Portsmouth to avoid legal entanglements and taxpayer abuse.” (See “Timeline” below 26 Feb. 07.)

Chief Horner backed away from his claim that the Ord. 705.30 is a valuable tool in fighting crime. It is hard to see how Horner could continue to maintain that it is of any value after LaCourse’s point by point refutation of the case Horner had made for retaining Ord. 705.30. (See “Timeline” below 1 Jan. 06.) Three years after the controversy began, the City Council has finally repealed Ord. 705.30. The “Timeline” below offers a detailed record of the time and effort that has been wasted because City Solicitor Kuhn was unwilling or, because of his passive-aggressive personality, unable to do what the taxpayers are paying him to do. The repeal of Ord. 705.30 has nothing to do with City Solicitor Kuhn and everything to do with Harold T. Pack, Councilman Robert Mollette, and NRA field director David LaCourse.

Timeline

8 Sept. 04. Claiming Ord. 705.03 was in conflict with two Federal statutes, Harold T. Pack, a member of the National Rifle Association, writes to Solicitor Kuhn, also a member of the NRA, questioning the legality of Ord. 705.30 and requesting prompt action.

15 Sept. 04. Kuhn writes to Pack, asking for more information.

20 Sept. 04. Pack sends Kuhn additional information, including material from the NRA.

1 Oct. 04. Pack forwards information to officials in city government.

29 Nov. 04. Pack mails Kuhn a “synopsis of existing gun laws.” Pack’s letter concludes, “Although this issue may seem trivial, I respectfully submit that a decision needs to be made soon to stop this practice.”

25 Jan. 05. Feeling Kuhn is failing to address issue of Ord. 705.30, Pack writes letter to City Council members, stating “The chief [Horner] and the mayor [Kalb] both stated they need a ruling from the city solicitor. Enough time has transpired since September for the solicitor to have researched this illegality and made a ruling.”

24 Feb. 05. A letter from Pack appears in Portsmouth Daily Times. His letter concludes, “Have either the mayor or the chief of police addressed this issue with the city solicitor and asked him to pursue the question? How concerned are the parties involved in having the city comply with Federal statutes?”

24 Feb. 05. Pack sends a letter to Solicitor Kuhn, Mayor Kalb, Chief Horner, and City Council complaining about inaction on issue of Ord. 705.30. “With Thomas Jefferson in mind,” Pack wrote, “I have contacted the Federal Prosecutor’s office in Cincinnati in regards to filing federal charges against the city of Portsmouth . . . The Federal Prosecutor’s office seemed most helpful and eager to participate in bringing suit. It is my sincerest wish that this issue can be resolved before litigation.”

28 Feb. 05. Councilman Mollette requests ruling from Kuhn on Ord. 705.30.

14 Mar. 05. Pack mails material related to gun registration issue to members of City Council, as he had earlier mailed material to Kuhn.

14 Mar. 05. At City Council meeting, Mollette repeats request for ruling from Kuhn on Ord. 705.30.

22 Aug. 05. At City Council meeting, Mollette again requests for ruling from Kuhn on Ord. 705.30.

26 Aug. 05. Kuhn writes letter to National Rifle Association on Ord. 705.30. “A non-resident of the City had questioned the validity of this ordinance. Portsmouth is a ‘home rule’ city, and under the Ohio constitution may exercise municipal police powers relating to local matters. Please furnish me with any literature or information which is available to assist me in determining the validity of this ordinance.”

17 Nov. 05. Mollette writes Kuhn a letter, which begins, “Please update me on the current status of your actions to resolve this potential conflict with federal law involving the enforcement of the City of Portsmouth Codified Ordinances Section 705.30 Dealers in Firearms and Ammunition; Fee; Records and Reports. . . . This practice was questioned by Mr. Harold T. Pack in September 2004, October 2004, November 2004, January 2005, February 2005, and again in March 2005. I have requested your opinion at the March 14, 2005, May 9, 2005, and August 22, 2005 Council Meetings in an effort to resolve this issue prior to any litigation.”

18 Nov. 05. Kuhn replies to Mollette that he is still waiting for NRA reply to his 26 Aug. letter. At some point after this date, Kuhn writes a second letter to the NRA.

6 Dec. 05. Mollette writes letter to Kuhn forwarding Harold Pack’s suggestion that Kuhn contact Ohio Attorney General’s Office about Ord. 705.30.

1 Jan. 06. Letter from NRA to Mollette, stating that Ord. 705.30 is valid under Portsmouth’s “Home Rule” status, but that the ordinance is “duplicative,” has not been effective in deterring crime, and “ties up valuable time and resources at all levels.” Therefore, the NRA believes, it should be repealed.

1. Jan. 06. Letter from LaCourse of NRA to Kuhn, beginning “Councilman Mollette and I had a good conversation about the legality of the Portsmouth gun registration ordinance, 705.30.” LaCourse repeats what he had written in letter to Mollette about ordinance 705.30 being duplicative, ineffective as crime stopper, and inefficient.

4 Jan. 06. Kuhn writes memo to City Council, with copies to Pack, Mayor Kalb and Chief Horner, “Attached is a copy of correspondence I received from the NRA yesterday, indicating that under the ‘Home Rule’ provisions of our Charter and the Ohio Constitution, the subject ordinance is legally valid.”

6 Jan. 06. Not yet having received 4 Jan. 06 letter from Kuhn, Mollette writes letter to Kuhn, which begins, “I am forwarding to you a response from the National Rifle Association of America . . . concerning the above ordinance (705.30). The correspondence is the direct result of the perseverance of Harold T. Pack at resolving this issue.” Mollette closes the letter by urging Kuhn, in bold face, to support the NRA recommendation. “I am requesting your support to repeal or amend Codified Ordinance 705-30.”

9 Jan. 06. Chief Horner makes written request to City Council not to repeal Ord. 705-30. “Ordinance 705-30 has been and remains an effective resource for law enforcement. The Portsmouth Police Department and I respectfully request Portsmouth City Council not to take any action to repeal or amend Ordinance 705.30.”

11 Jan. 06. Mollette writes NRA. “I applaud your efforts to assure the rights of citizens are protected. I agree with the NRA-ILA concerning consistency in state gun laws, with preemption providing one set of uniform rules for all to follow and easily understand.”

15 Jan. 06. Portsmouth Daily Times publishes article “NRA: City should ease restrictions.” The article begins “Even though the National Rifle Association said that city should scrap an ordinance mandating gun registration, Police Chief Charles Horner said that is a bad idea.”

22 Jan. 06. First Ward Councilman Timothy W. Loper writes barely literate letter to his fellow council members in support of Ord. 705.30.

16 Feb. 06. David LaCourse of the NRA writes a long detailed letter to Solicitor Kuhn. In the letter LaCourse responds point-by-point to the issues involved in the Portsmouth gun registry. He effectively refutes those, and Chief Horner in particular, who want to retain Ord. 705.30. LaCourse said that after talking with Horner, he observed that “It was quickly apparent that there are not just differences on public policy at play, but personality differences greatly affecting this discussion as well.”

8 Mar. 06. Ohio House of Representatives passes with veto-proof majority Sub HB347, which provides for uniform gun laws throughout the state.

26 Feb. 07. Mollette writes a long letter to Kuhn titled “Expectations of our City Solicitor from a Citizen’s Perspective,” in which he says, “I feel the City Solicitor, who is elected by the citizens, would assure and guide the actions or inactions of elected officials to the City of Portsmouth to avoid legal entanglements and taxpayer abuse.”

16 Sept. 07. Portsmouth Daily Times publishes Jeff Barron’s article “Mollette Addresses Gun Laws.” The article includes the information that “According to National Rifle Association field officer Dave La Course, the city is not in compliance with Ohio House Bill 347, which mandates all municipalities follow state gun registration procedures.” Barron pointed out that he tried to reach Kuhn for comment but the City Solicitor was unavailable.

18 Sept. 07. Portsmouth Daily Times publishes Kuhn’s Letter-to-Editor in which he denies Mollette’s claims that Pack had “sent several letters to the city that went unanswered” and that “The City Solicitor’s office wasn’t doing its job. David Kuhn received information about a city ordinance and didn’t respond.” Kuhn claimed that, on the contrary, his records show that he (Kuhn) “verbally responded twice with telephone calls to Mr. Pack regarding his inquiries, as well as responded twice to Mr. Pack and Mr. Mollette, after Mr. Mollette assumed the role of ombudsman in this matter.” Mr. Kuhn also wrote in his Letter-to-the-Editor that it was “unfortunate and irresponsible” that the PDT published “unsubstantiated statements of one person, who not only has no documentation for the statements, but also had exhibited improper political motives as basis for the statements.” Kuhn also criticizes PDT reporter Jeff Barron for not checking the veracity of his sources and for not being “objective enough to print all relevant information pertaining to the subject matter of the article . . .”

24 Sept. 07. In response to Kuhn’s of 18 Sept., Mollette writes a letter to the PDT in answer to Kuhn’s charge that he, Mollette, had made unsubstantiated statements and offered no documentation for his statements. Mollette writes that “My divergence of opinion over the last three years with Solicitor Kuhn is a matter of public record. Expressing my opinion and documenting those views is also a public record.” Mollette reviews the history of the gun controversy, providing dates and citations.

24 Sept. 07. The City Council passes a motion to repeal Ord. 705.30. The first reading on the proposed repeal will occur at the 8 Oct. 2007 meeting.

8 Oct. 07. At request of Councilman Mollette, City Council suspends rule requiring three readings and repeals Ord. 705.30.

Giving the Finger!

In the photo above, Portsmouth’s real estate predator, Neal Hatcher, is shown giving the finger to an onlooker while he oversees the replacement of Clayton Johnson’s sidewalks. The photo says it all, which is even more than you might think, for, ironically, in giving the finger, the helmeted Hatcher on his motor scooter manages to look even dorkier than Dukakis in the tank. Johnson and Hatcher are Portsmouth’s Odd Couple, and Hatcher was obviously very unhappy that Johnson had been pressured by concerned citizens into replacing the hazardous sidewalks outside his walled estate at the corner of Washington and 4^th Streets. The rich-as-Croesis Odd Couple are not used to being pressured by anybody to do anything. In Portsmouth money talks, and Mayor Kalb and the City Council are all ears. If Hatcher wants to give the public the finger, who is going to stop him? Incidentally, is it just a coincidence that the name of the restaurant where Hatcher and Johnson used to tête-a-tête for lunch was the Fork and Finger? The Hatcher finger photo reveals graphically what the overprivileged have been giving the people of Portsmouth for a long time. If one picture is worth a thousand words, this one is worth a million. Is it too much to hope that someday, when Portsmouth emerges from the Reign of the SOGP, that an artistic rendering of this photo will find a place on the Floodwall murals? We already have a mural depicting the Flood of 1938, but shouldn’t we memorialize Portsmouth’s other calamity. Shouldn’t we have one depicting Hatcher, and in what better pose than on his motor scooter giving the finger?

Hatcher is not the only one among the overprivileged who likes to give the finger. Harold Daub told me that he got the finger from Hatcher’s wife, the pork rind heiress. And some years back when Emily Gulker put up signs in her front yard in support of embattled SSU president James P. Chapman, former chair of the SSU trustees, Frank Waller, reportedly drove by her house and he, or someone in his car, gave Emily the finger. So suave, these city leaders. In contrast to his crude, uneducated sidekick, Johnson and the other overprivileged are more subtle about giving the finger. Unlike Hatcher, Johnson wraps his finger in culture and philanthropy. The public is not likely to suspect they are being given the finger by entities named the Southern Ohio Museum, the Marting Foundation, and the Southern Ohio Growth Partnership. But they are.

The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines “the bird,” or “the finger,” as “an obscene gesture of contempt made by pointing the middle finger upward while keeping the other fingers down.” What Merriam-Webster squeamishly chose not to point out is that the reason the gesture is obscene is that the finger symbolically substitutes for the penis.

Anthropologists provide more background on the obscene gesture. Giving the finger is, to use the anthropological term, an ancient “phallic aggressive” gesture. According to Wikipedia, the finger gesture is mostly used as a non-verbal way of saying ‘Fuck you.’” Lower primates, not having the capacity for symbolism of homo sapiens, don’t substitute the finger for the penis. In confrontations, they insultingly thrust their penis at their enemies, suggesting not only that they going to defeat them but they are also going to “screw” them. That may be why some primates indicate submissiveness to a more dominant male by turning the rump toward him.

There are two slang meanings for “screw,” according to Merriam-Webster: (1) Screw can either mean “to copulate with,” or (2) “to mistreat or exploit through extortion, trickery, or unfair actions; especially : to deprive or cheat out of something due or expected.” Merriam-Webster provides an example of “to screw” being used in the sense of to mistreat, exploit, or cheat. The example was provided by Nixon White House counsel John Dean III, who is quoted as saying that he and the Nixon White House used “the available Federal machinery to screw our political enemies.” Screwing was apparently very much on Dean’s mind during the Watergate scandal, and not just the figurative kind of screwing.

Fair-haired Boy

The reporter Daniel Shore mentioned on PBS radio back in the Watergate era that one of the reasons that John Dean broke with the Nixon White House was not a sudden religious or ethical conversion but his fear he was being figuratively screwed (in sense # 2) by the older White House crew – Nixon, Haldeman and Ehrlichman; and that he would, if he allowed himself to be the fall guy, end up in a District of Columbia jail, where he could be screwed (in sense # 1) by sexually depraved prisoners, the majority of whom were African-Americans. Dean was sometimes described as “the fair-haired boy of the Nixon White House” and when it came time for Haldeman and Ehrlichman to find a fall guy, they chose Dean as the odd man, or odd boy, out. After females, fair-haired boys are the next to be screwed. In every bureaucracy, if you don’t want to get screwed, you have to follow the first law of survival: Cover Your Ass, known cryptically as “CYA.” Dean was following that law when, turning against those who were trying to screw him, he became the star witness for the prosecution in the Watergate trials. Dean’s career should serve as a warning: Be careful, because the faired-haired boy you try to screw can end up screwing you, as Dean demonstrated by repudiating the Nixon Administration and making a second career of criticizing the current Bush administration, which he calls, in the title of one of his books, Worse than Watergate.

Spilling the Beans

When the Bridge to Nowhere, the new U.S. Grant Bridge, opened in October 2006 to great fanfare, radio coverage was provided by WNXT’s Steve Hayes, who reported from inside the Ramada Inn that Bob Huff (shown here), the head of the Portsmouth Chamber of Commerce, was outside “giving people the finger.” He was kidding, of course. But in slips of the tongue and in quips and jokes, Freud pointed out, we reveal things that we otherwise would not dare express. Hayes is the eternally adolescent chatterbox for the overprivileged who screw the people of Portsmouth, but being the hip nature lover that he is, having to kiss the asses of guys in suits really bugs him. On the morning of the bridge opening, Hayes was like a kid on Halloween letting the cat out of the bag. On that solemn occasion, which was touted as the beginning of Portsmouth’s return to prosperity, Hayes spilled the beans with his quip about Huff. What Hayes was saying, if you understand the language of the unconscious, was that the overprivileged of Portsmouth, concentrated in the SOGP and the Chamber of Commerce, are in fact constantly giving people the finger. But why did Hayes accuse Bob Huff, of all people, of being the one giving people the finger? Because Huff is the fair-haired boy, the “gofer” for the overprivileged. Hayes would not have accused somebody at the top of Portsmouth’s provincial pecker order (such as Johnson or Hatcher) of giving the people the finger. No, if Hayes made jokes about Johnson or Hatcher, his own ass would soon have been in a sling, and he would have had to take his eternal-adolescent nature-boy shtick to some other market.

Royal Screwing

Portsmouth is presently in the process of getting royally screwed. Our complaisant and corrupt city officials, whom the Portsmouth Times in a recent headline flatteringly called “city leaders,” are about to turn the site of the present Municipal Building over to some unnamed real estate developer so that he can build a hotel and convention center. This game of footsie about an unnamed developer has been going on for about ten years. To cater to this mysterious unnamed real estate developer, our corrupt city officials and Mayor Kalb in particular have publicly condemned the Municipal Building as a death-trap and tried to stick the taxpayers with the Marting Building as a replacement. But when the Marting scam produced a political firestorm and was scuttled in a referendum, our corrupt city officials appointed a Building Committee to look for another site. In other words, they were appointed to pull another municipal building scam. The unelected First Ward councilman and self-confessed pussy-addict Mike Mearan was appointed chair of the Building Committee, as he had just previously been appointed First Ward councilman, and he promptly appointed the addicted drug courier and purse-snatching Heather Hren, whom he was dating, as stenographer of the Building Committee. What did this Building Committee, chaired by Mearan, choose as the site for a new municipal building? Wouldn’t you know! They chose the site of the so-called Adelphia building, a property Mearan once owned and made a fast $95,000 on before selling it to Dr. Singer of Los Angeles. In serving on the Building Committee, which chose the site owned by Singer for a proposed new 12 million dollar municipal building, Mearan had a blatant conflict of interest. At the same time he was employed by Singer to help unload his decrepit Adelphia property, Mearan was chairing the committee that recommended Singer’s property as the site for a new municipal building. Where else but in a city in which City Solicitor David Kuhn was the chief legal officer could such a fraud have been perpetrated?

When the time comes for the unknown developer to buy the Municipal Building site, count on the phrase “fair price” being bandied about. Remember the scam in which the 15^th Street Viaduct was sold to the developer Mullins for a song because the property was allegedly contaminated and would take millions of dollars to clean up? Well, it turned out, after Mullin acquired the property for a fraction of its potential value, that there was no contamination. What would a fair price for the Municipal Building site be? Under current circumstances, the site is not very valuable. Why would anyone want to build a hotel and convention center directly across the street from the Ramada Inn, known in travel circles as the “Queen of the Rust Belt”? The Ramada has survived by mooching on public funds. If it hadn’t served as a dormitory for SSU students and as a half-way house for wayward, would it still be in business?

Gambling

Building a hotel and convention center across from the Ramada makes as much sense as building a new department store across from Marting’s. The only justification for calling the Municipal Building site “prime real estate,” as our lapdog mayor has, is if gambling comes to Portsmouth. The only way our Bridge to Nowhere makes sense is if gambling comes to Portsmouth. Then that site, next to the bridge, becomes a goldmine. But will whoever buys it pay what it is potentially worth? Not likely. The purpose of our city government is to enable the developers and dishonest lawyers to screw the public. Mearan made a fast $95,000 on the Adelphia site. The Marting’s Foundation almost got away with $2,000,000. That figure will be chickenfeed compared to the profits that will be made on the Municipal Building and Adelphia sites if and when gambling comes to the city. The new Democratic governor of Massachusetts Deval Patrick is calling for opening three casino resorts in the Commonwealth. The president of a Boston TV channel said, “In the end, a lot of people stand to become very wealthy owning these casinos.”

I grew up in a coastal Boston suburb of Revere, which had been a basket case economically for centuries. Then, in the early 1900s, the town saw a way out. It had a beach front, as Portsmouth has a river front, and it turned that into a kind of New England Coney Island, with lots of rides and games of chance. Then in the middle of the Great Depression, in the 1930s, Revere welcomed big time gambling, specifically pari-mutuel horse and dog tracks. In addition, there was an extensive underground gambling economy. When I was in middle school, a boy in my homeroom took bets on races. He was a precocious bookmaker. Revere became known not only as the Gambling Capital of New England but its Crime Capital as well. It became one of the most notorious cities in Massachusetts.

It was not “a lot of people” who profited from the gambling and vice in Revere. It was relatively few. And you can bet it will be relatively few who will get wealthy if gambling comes to Portsmouth. And you can bet that the public will get screwed, royally, before predatory developers and crooked politicians are through. Talk about getting the finger!

Sidewalk Shenanigans: 2

The photo above suggests how city inspector Justice should have marked Johnson's hazardous sidewalks

     The Portsmouth City Engineering Dept. periodically and apparently haphazardly inspects sidewalks in the city, marking with bright orange paint sections that are potentially hazardous for pedestrians. Only the sightless could miss these “mark-ups,” as they are called. In addition, the property owners are given warnings and a specified time by which they must make repairs at their own expense. How long property owners have to fix their sidewalks is stipulated in the City Charter: 30 days.

      Early in 2005, the City Engineer’s office marked up sidewalks in the Boneyfiddle district. St. Mary’s Church had its sidewalks marked up and received notification letters from the City Engineer. At about the same time, a number of sidewalks directly across the street from Clayton Johnson’s residence, on the corner of Washington and 4th Streets, were marked up. Those homeowners across from Johnson received a letter notifying them they had thirty days from the date of the letter by which to make the repairs. The property owners across the street from the Johnson residence made repairs on their sidewalk. Johnson did not, even though his sidewalks were in bad shape and had been getting worse for some time. In fact, so many of sections of Johnson’s sidewalks on Washington Street and on 4^th Streets were beyond repair and needed to be replaced.

      Though Johnson’s sidewalks had been marked up in 2005, they were not repaired and the orange mark-ups gradually faded. His sidewalks remained hazardous to pedestrians, particularly to senior citizens, especially in winter. Early in 2006, photographs of Johnson’s hazardous sidewalks were posted on the Concerned Citizens Group website, where viewers were asked to try to identify whose sidewalks they were. Someone who walked up Washington St. regularly to have lunch at Toro Loco immediately recognized the photos as Johnson’s sidewalk. He knew the cracks and crevices by heart.

Well into 2007, Johnson’s sidewalks remained the public hazard they had been for years. In June 2007, Teresa Mollette went to the Engineer’s Office and asked why the city continued to do nothing about Johnson’s sidewalks. The Asst. Engineer looked to see if there was a copy on file of a 2005 letter to Johnson, notifying him of the mark-ups, but no copy could be found. On June 20, 2007, Asst. Engineer Bill Beaumont and Residential Building Inspector Larry Justice met with Johnson to inspect and mark-up his sidewalks. It is a reasonable assumption that this meeting would not have occurred if photos of the sidewalks had not been posted on the internet and if Teresa Mollette had not made her inquiry. On June 26, Beaumont wrote a letter to Johnson, which included the following paragraph: “You are hereby instructed to have the marked-up sidewalks replaced/repaired per sidewalk specifications located in the Engineering department. This work needs to be completed within sixty (60) days of the date of this letter.” Sixty days is twice the number called for in the City Charter and twice the number of days given to others in the neighborhood early in 2005. Sixty days from June 26 was August 25.

Missing the Deadline

      By Monday August 20, fifty four days had gone by but neither repairs or replacement of Johnson’s sidewalks had even begun. On Tuesday, August 21, Teresa Mollette dropped by the Engineer’s Office and pointed out that the sixty-day deadline was drawing near. If the work was not done by the end of the week, Saturday, August 25, Johnson would be in violation of city ordinances and presumably liable for a fine. Whether it had to do with Mollette’s visit to the Engineer’s Office on Tuesday, August 21, on the morning of Wednesday, August 22, Johnson’s neighbors were awakened by the rumble of tractors and trucks of Neal Hatcher’s JNH Construction Company, which were tearing up Johnson’s sidewalks

JNH was not through replacing Johnson’s sidewalks until Wed., August 29. So Johnson was given twice the time called for in the charter, and twice the time of others in the neighborhood, and then he waited until the last week to begin replacing them, and might not have then if Teresa Mollette had been applying pressure.

      Thanks to pressure from concerned citizens and the publicity generated on the internet, the hazardous sidewalks in front of the Johnson estate are no more. Boneyfiddle and Portsmouth are a little safer and less unsightly than they were. Johnson has done his civic duty, even if belatedly and reluctantly.

Thatcher's Unmarked Sidewalks

      Johnson is not the only Boneyfiddle property owner shown favoritism. Take the property of the lawyer John Thatcher on the corner of 3^rd and Washington Streets. The sidewalks surrounding the house and garage Thatcher owns on that site are badly in need of repair, and have been for years, but they have not been marked by the City Engineering Dept. The city apparently does not hassle Thatcher about violations of city ordinances the way it does Harold Daub and David Newman, who are not in the good graces of city officials.

      Why are Thatcher’s sidewalks spared? Is it because like Johnson he is one of the overprivileged of Portsmouth? Thatcher was a member of City Council for a number of years, and there was no one on the council more determined to tear down the Municipal Building. Why? Because, he claimed, it was falling down and a safety hazard. I suspect that’s not his only reason for wanting the building down. Active in Republican politics, he litters his yard at the corner of Washington and 3^rd Streets each election season with political signs. Thatcher’s political connections have worked to his financial advantage as a property owner. He owned a white elephant house on Franklin Blvd. that he was having trouble selling, a lot of trouble at the price he was asking. In SeaView, the magazine of the Shawnee Education Association, I wrote about the shenanigans accompanying the sale of Thatcher’s empty Franklin Blvd. house to Shawnee State University for a ridiculously high price. When SSU finally sold the house, the taxpayers of Ohio lost $50,000 on that housing shenanigan. Thatcher’s wife, also very active in Republican political circles, had served on the SSU Board of Trustees, so Thatcher, like other overprivileged lawyers and businessmen, are in a position to receive political favors from the trustees of SSU. The political prostitution that goes on in Boneyfiddle can be gauged by the number of signs Thatcher manages to cram on his property. Like the whores of John Street, Thatcher believes in advertising, although the signs the prostitutes use are more subtle and less of an eyesore.

      Since the City Auditor no longer has anything to say about sidewalks, in spite of obligations placed on him by the City Charter, might the chief legal officer of city government, City Solicitor Kuhn, exercise some kind of restraint on sidewalk shenanigans? Forget it! Kuhn is joined at the hip with Thatcher, and all the other unprincipled characters in Portsmouth. If you get a chance, the next time you drive by Thatcher’s parking lot on Washington and 3^rd Streets, stop and look at the sidewalks around the Thatcher-Kuhn signs, which are nailed together. 

Sidewalk Shenanigans

Finagling Files

Having written extensively about them, I am all too familiar with housing shenanigans in Portsmouth. But in addition to housing shenanigans, we also have sidewalk shenanigans. Yes, something as pedestrian and prosaic as sidewalks can be shenaniganized. It is as if politically obligated public servants leave no sidewalk marked when it comes to pleasing Portsmouth’s overprivileged and no sidewalk unmarked when it comes to punishing troublemakers. Marking with orange paint is what the City Engineering Dept. does to sidewalks that must be repaired, at the property owner’s expense.

Sidewalks are unique. They are the areas where private and public property overlap. Property owners do not own the sidewalks abutting their property, but they are responsible for keeping those sidewalks in good walking order, free of hazards to pedestrians.

Back in 1928, the framers of the Portsmouth City Charter considered sidewalk repairs important enough to devote a whole section to them. Section 111 of the Charter states that “The Council may by resolution declare that certain specified sidewalks, curbings or gutters shall be constructed or repaired. Upon the passage of such resolution [sic] the City Auditor shall cause written notice of the passage thereof to be served upon the owner, or agent of the owner, of each parcel of land abutting upon such sidewalks, curbings or gutters who may be a resident of the City, in the manner provided by law for the service of summons in civil actions. A copy of the notice, with the time and manner of service endorsed thereon, signed by the person serving it, shall be returned to the office of the City Auditor and there filed and preserved.” In an amendment made in 1975, the Charter (Section 112) further stipulated that sidewalks, curbings and gutters have to be repaired within 30 days. (The provisions of Sect. 111 of the City Charter are repeated in the Codified Ordinances of the City of Portsmouth, 905.06.)

The framers of the Portsmouth City Charter gave the City Council the authority to pass resolutions calling for the repair of sidewalks and the City Auditor the responsibility for sending out the notices for those repairs and the responsibility of keeping records of those notices. But the system that has evolved in Portsmouth for dealing with sidewalk repairs appears to be in violation of those sections of the Charter quoted above. The City Council and the City Auditor, who were supposed to be the key players, have been removed from the process. The Residential Building Inspector, employed in the City Engineering Dept., does the selecting and marking of the sidewalks to be repaired, sends out the notices, and keeps records of notices, though apparently not very well. Someone who tried to track down a record of a sidewalk the Residential Building Inspector had marked in 2005 was told none existed. It was either missing or, more likely, had not been filed in the first place. When it comes to sidewalk repairs and sidewalk files, the City Engineering Dept. has replaced or supplanted the Office of the City Auditor, and the Residential Building Inspector has replaced the Auditor.

This is a bad situation. Not only is Mayor Kalb's honesty and competency an issue, so is Larry Justice's. He is the Residential Building Inspector, the sidewalk inspector, the Code Enforcement Officer, and the Land Reutilization point man. That's a lot of responsibility for an employee who has been officially reprimanded in writing at least twice, once for lying to his immediate superior about an important zoning matter, and again for his contacts with a state official, in which he claimed authority and a job title that he did not possess. Justice was apparently trying to get a friend a job in the Engineering Dept. Given the latitude Justice presumably has in making judgments about buildings and sidewalks, as well as 1500 vacant and abandoned properties, his ethical lapses should be a cause for concern, especially since his boss is Mayor Kalb. A few citizens who have had dealings with Justice told me he is not the most truthful of public servants.

Justice followed the well-worn path down which the not too bright, the not too ethical, and the not too successful find a refuge in city government, where they advance by serving the interests of the kind of rich, clever, and overprivileged people they themselves are obviously not: think Bauer, think Kalb, think Baughman, think Mohr, think Loper, and think Malone. It was Rev. Malone, recall, the adulterous pastor, who publicly complained he was not getting the respect that he should be accorded as councilman.

If Justice's failures in the private sector are any indication, his performance as a public servant should be monitored closely. Justice owned a business at 817 Spring Lane named Quality Sheathing Co. He failed to pay Workmen's Compensation taxes to the state, which put a lien on his property and got a judgment against him for $7,053.76. The condition of the building at 817 Spring Lane that housed Justice's Quality Sheathing Co. and the sidewalks in front of that building are one of the worst eyesores in Portsmouth. 817 Spring Lane, does not reflect well on Justice's performance as the Portsmouth's Inspector of Buildings and sidewalks. A candidate for City Council received a citation from the city for keeping so-called junk on his premises, but there is far more junk inside 817 Spring Lane, constituting a serious fire hazard. Has Justice cited anyone for the hazardous junk in the building where his tax lapses occurred?

817 Spring Lane does not reflect well on the Building Inspector

Interior of 817 Spring Lane

Harold Daub told me the Health Dept. instructed Justice he had to remove weed patches on sidewalks in front of property Justice owns on 18th St. Whom do we turn to when the Inspector of Sidewalks and Enforcer of City Codes is violating codes? The Health Dept.!

Checks and Balances

Why did the framers of the City Charter, back in 1928, assign authority over sidewalks to the Auditor, the city’s chief financial officer? Why didn’t they assign responsibility for sidewalk repairs to the mayor, since the mayor is chief executive officer of the city and has the say over who is hired and who is fired in the City Engineering Dept.? Logically, it would seem the mayor, not the auditor, should oversee sidewalk repairs. But politics, not logic, was apparently what the framers of the Charter had in mind when they gave authority over sidewalks to the auditor. By provisions of the City Charter, the mayor already has enough opportunity to show favoritism in making purchases for the city and awarding contracts . Why give him authority over sidewalk repairs as well? That process is too susceptible to political hanky-panky. Suppose, for example, that the biggest property owner in the city was the chief financial supporter of the mayor. Wouldn’t the mayor be tempted to think his biggest supporter’s many houses and sidewalks were not in need of repairs whereas a political opponent’s houses and sidewalks might be deemed to be in bad shape? By making whoever inspected and repaired the sidewalks accountable to the auditor, rather than the mayor, the framers of the Charter were probably trying to prevent the mayor from having control over a procedure that might easily be politicized and abused. As Councilman Mollette pointed out in a discussion about sidewalk repairs, what the Charter provides with regard to sidewalks is part of a system of checks and balances. Just as the framers of the U.S. Constitution set up a system of checks and balances for the branches of the federal government, the framers of the Portsmouth City Charter apparently tried to provide some checks and balances among the offices of city government. The mayor in particular, as the chief executive officer, must not be allowed too much power, because power corrupts. It should be noted that the Charter allows the mayor to also serve as the head of any other department in city government, with the exception of Dept. of Finance. That appears to be another instance of using checks and balances, of making the auditor be a check on, and balance to, the mayor. The mayor cannot tell the auditor what to do.

But the checks-and-balances approach of the framers of the City Charter were eventually ignored. Somewhere along the way, the Council stopped being the branch of the city government that authorized sidewalk repairs and the Auditor stopped sending out and keeping record of the notices. The City Engineering Dept., over which the Mayor has authority, appears to have taken complete control of sidewalk repairs. The power that the framers of the City Charter chose not to give the mayor he nevertheless eventually acquired. The mayor is now in a position, through the department of the City Engineering, to influence whose sidewalks are deemed OK and whose are not. Putting such power in the hands of the mayor was bad enough, but it got worse.

In 2005, the City Council at Mayor Kalb's urging passed Ordinance 2005-87, making an important modification in the way the city, departing from the City Charter, was handling sidewalk repairs. The mayor argued in cases where sidewalks have been damaged as a result of trees planted near or on them by the city, then the city should pay for those repairs. That seems like a very fair and sensible proposal. But what the proposed change actually would do is give the mayor even more opportunity for mischief than he already has in regard to sidewalks. Suppose a political supporter of the mayor has sidewalks that are so badly in need of repair that they have to be fixed, but suppose that property owner prefers the city rather than himself pay for those repairs. Tapping into public monies is a practice that the overprivileged of Portsmouth have become so addicted to that they can’t stand spending a dime if somehow the public can be made to pay instead. Whether it is an unoccupied house or useless department store they want taken off their hands or a sidewalk that needs to be repaired, they want the public to foot the bill. Our current mayor is only too eager to oblige the overprivileged of Portsmouth. In fact, Mayor Kalb allowed the owner of a department store to unload it not once but twice on the city, for when the courts ruled the first sale of the Marting department store illegal, Mayor Kalb and his cronies brazenly turned around and took the useless building off the hands of its owner a second time. A mayor who would do that wouldn’t hesitate to shenaniganize sidewalks.

Speaking as a private citizen, Paul Penix pointed out at the 24 Oct. 2005 City Council meeting that the proposed change in the sidewalks procedures Mayor Kalb wanted was in violation of the City Charter. At the 11 Nov. 2005 Council meeting, when the ordinance to change the sidewalk procedures was up for a second reading, Penix repeated his warning. He said that while he was in favor of making the city pay for damages resulting from trees the city planted, “he felt the designation of the Mayor as the person who would notify property owners responsible for sidewalks would violate the Charter.” He was absolutely right. What he did not point out, however, was that the city government was already in violation of the City Charter by allowing the City Engineering Dept., i.e., Mayor Kalb, to have control over sidewalk repairs.

City Solicitor: Master of Obfuscation

The somewhat haphazard and apparently politically biased procedures that the City Engineering Dept now follows in requiring property owners to repair their sidewalks was what the framers of the Charter were apparently trying to prevent. But Portsmouth’s Master of Obfuscation (obfuscation), City Solicitor Kuhn, according to the minutes of the 24 Oct. meeting “acknowledged that the Charter does provide that notices will be sent out by the Auditor but it does not say that is exclusively the only place from which these notices can be sent.” Kuhn is either so dense or evasive that he makes Alberto Gonzales look like a graduate of Harvard Law School. We haven't had an honest city solicitor in a Kuhn's age. The issue is not who will send out the notices but by whose authority they are sent out, and who has oversight responsibility for the notices from start to finish. The City Solicitor, as usual, was not being precise. The Charter does not state notices will be sent out by the Auditor; the Charter states the “City Auditor shall (emphasis added) cause written notice[s]” to be sent out. Then the Charter adds, “A copy of the notice, with the time and manner of service endorsed thereon, signed by the person serving it, shall (emphasis added) be returned to the office of the City Auditor and there filed and preserved.” Merriam-Webster states that when used in laws, regulations, or directives, the helping verb shall is meant “to express what is mandatory.” It is what must be done. So the City Charter mandates that, once the City Council rules that certain property owners must fix their sidewalks, the Auditor or somebody of the Auditor’s choosing, must notify those property owners. What has happened instead is that the City Council and the Auditor have relinquished the authorities and responsibilities assigned to them by Charter to the City Engineer’s Dept., which is a department directly under the mayor’s control.

The issue is not whether Mayor Kalb is going to send out notices, because his office, as he pointed out, doesn’t and isn’t seeking to send out notices. The issue is whether the Dept. of Engineering, in violation of Section 111 of the City Charter, is going to continue to unilaterally make the decisions on who must repair their sidewalks, and is going to continue to send out the notices, and is going to continue to keep (or not to keep) the records of those notices. The issue is whether the City Engineering Dept., which the mayor has authority over, is going to continue to operate without any oversight from the Auditor or from anybody other than the mayor.

Paul Penix’s language at the 24 Oct. meeting is worth noting. He said that putting the mayor in charge of sidewalk repairs “could result in ‘selective enforcement’ should the Mayor have issues with certain citizens.” Penix made it clear that he wasn’t just talking about hypotheticals. Some residents in his ward already felt “selective enforcement” was taking place. The phrase “selective enforcement” is a euphemism. “Selective enforcement” is the kind of language citizens who address the City Council must resort to. If they are clearer and more specific in their criticism, if they call a spade a spade, and name names, they will be gaveled down by Council President Baughman, and if they persist in criticizing city officials they are ushered out of Council Chambers by Police Chief Horner. No criticism of city officials is allowed at Portsmouth's authoritarian City Council meetings. What Paul Penix apparently meant by “selective enforcement” of sidewalk codes is that Mayor Kalb might reward political friends by ignoring their sidewalks and punishing those “certain citizens” the Mayor has issues with. The mayor himself doesn’t need to be the one to punish “certain citizens”: he only needs to get subordinates in the Engineering Dept., who are answerable to him, to select them for him. Is there no Justice in the Engineering Dept.? Yes, unfortunately there is: Larry Justice.

Quality Shafting

What City Solicitor Kuhn was either trying to hide or, in a more charitable interpretation, was oblivious to, at the 24 Oct. meeting, is that the City Charter makes the Auditor’s Office that part of city government that will insure that sidewalk repairs are overseen by someone other than the mayor. It was not the intent of the framers of the City Charter that the Auditor’s Office would do the selecting and marking of sidewalks or that it had to be the office or department that sent out the notices. The Charter states that the Auditor could “cause” or authorize another department to send out the notices. But in doing so it would not, or at least it should not, relinquish the authority and responsibility over sidewalks assigned to it by the Charter.

The Portsmouth City Charter was written in the wake of the so-called Progressive Era of American history, when legislating against graft and corruption at the local, state, and national level became a civic crusade. Public construction projects, including the laying out and repairing of sidewalks was just one area in which crooked local politicians filled their pockets. Section 111 of the City Charter should be understood as an attempt to legislate against potential corruption. An honest and competent city solicitor who was combating rather than abetting corruption, would be expected to have that understanding of the Charter. But regardless of what the intent of the framers of the Charter was, the language of Section 111 is clear, and the city government is clearly not following it.

If the framers of the City Charter had concerns about the mayor when it came to sidewalks, what would they have thought if the Mayor and the Building Inspector were in charge of disposing of 1500 hundred vacant and abandoned properties as the two of them are in the so-called Land Reutilization Program. There is a committee to provide cover for this program, chaired by a new hire, a "sanitarian" in the Health Dept. What is a sanitarian with all of five months experience doing chairing a committee charged with the disposition of 1500 pieces of property? I do not mean to suggest any parallels with a certain stenographer of the Building Committee, but with Kalb and Justice in cahoots, with no City Charter provisions in place to provide checks and balances, and our Crooked City Council looking the other way, the results could be catastrophic. With Kalb pulling the strings and Justice finagling the files, 1500 other properties may end up in as bad a condition as the building, at 817 Spring Lane. It will be Quality Shafting, not Quality Sheathing.

In my next blog I will give particular instances of sidewalk shenanigans, naming names and singling out sidewalks of Portsmouth's overprivileged.

Kalb's Brain

Kalb at Council Meeting

The news has been dominated this week with reactions to the hasty departure from Washington of Karl Rove, “Bush’s Brain.”

For the last several years, ever since Jim Kalb was elected mayor of Portsmouth, I have been struck by the similarities between Bush and Kalb, from their purported past heavy drug use to their incompetence and conspicuous lack of intelligence. Kalb has become a joke locally for the same reason Bush has nationally and internationally. It may say something about where this country is headed that the chief executive officer, at both the national and local levels, both the President of the United States and the Mayor of Portsmouth, appear to suffer from a very serious handicap: like the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz, neither of them appears to have a brain.

Unable to think for themselves, they rely on others to do their thinking for them. If Karl Rove is Bush’s brain, who is Kalb’s? As far as I can figure out, it’s the man who was instrumental in helping him get elected, Neal Hatcher. The flatulent frat boy who found himself elevated to the White House by the likes of Karl Rove and the serial grocery clerk who was put in the mayor’s chair at the Municipal Building by the likes of Neal Hatcher, that is not the American Dream: that is the American nightmare. There is a tendency in Portsmouth for the over-privileged to tap the socially marginal and misdemeanor miscreants for public office. Remember ex-felon Mike Malone's interest in serving on the City Council, which the City Clerk and the City Solicitor did nothing to discourage? Don't be flabbergasted to someday see Tim Loper as a candidate for mayor. David Kuhn did everything he could to keep Loper on City Council, even though he was unqualified to serve, according to the city charter, because he was not a legal resident of the ward he claimed to represent.

If Hatcher is Kalb’s brain, it would explain why the city government has been tied up in knots for the last several years over the issue of a new municipal building. Kalb has said publicly more than once that the land the present municipal building sits on is “prime real estate” and that some unnamed developer wants it. Kalb and the city government may have accommodated that unnamed developer by systematically neglecting upkeep of the Municipal Building while at the same time declaring it decrepit and dangerous. Though the Municipal Building may have become decrepit and dangerous as a result of systematic neglect, it is hard to believe it is that bad because it was built at about the same time, in the same style, and of the same kind of materials as the Portsmouth Post Office, which has been serving the public well for the last seventy-five years and looks like it will do so for another fifty years, provided the building is maintained properly.

But the Municipal Building, Kalb tells us over and over, is dangerous and has to be torn down. Since Kalb is incapable of generating ideas on his own, where did he get this idea? Probably from the unnamed developer who covets the “prime real estate.” And who is this unnamed developer if it isn’t Kalb’s brain, Neal Hatcher? Otherwise why would Kalb not say who the developer is? Why the need for secrecy? Because if it were confirmed that the controversial Hatcher is the unnamed developer there would be a storm of protest and possibly the Municipal Building might be rescued, restored, and treasured for being the historical landmark that it is, every bit as architecturally distinguished and useful as the Post Office is. If Hatcher is the real estate developer who is behind this whole mess about the Municipal Building, Mayor Kalb might be subject to the kind of recall movement that led to Mayor Bauer’s recall from office. That may be the reason for the secrecy.

Peer Evaluation

I have asked some half dozen people who have worked with Kalb at Kroger's what they think of his being mayor. They all expressed surprise, if not astonishment, at his occupying that top municipal office. A Kroger employee who had moved away from Portsmouth and then returned some years later told me he was absolutely flabbergasted to learn Kalb was mayor. He just could not believe it. But let’s give Kalb his due. A long time employee of Kroger’s, Kalb should be given credit for holding down that job as long as he did. Especially in Portsmouth, having and holding on to a job is no small achievement, and Kroger’s is a successful company that has been in a highly competitive business a long time. Kroger’s is the largest retail grocery chain in the country. It isn’t as if Kalb was employed in some shady business or some pork-financed operation of the kind that Portsmouth is noted for, such as the Welcome Center, whose unqualified director is the wife of recalled mayor Greg Bauer. Kroger’s is not the Welcome Center, or the Portsmouth Municipal Housing Authority, where jobs are provided for relatives of politicians. Kroger’s is the real deal. Why, then, would people who worked with and had the chance to get to know Kalb up close be surprised, astonished and even flabbergasted to find him serving as mayor? The reason is that though Kalb has worked for Kroger for many years, he has not been what you would consider a prize-winning employee. On the job, he did not display the industriousness, smarts, or ambition that would explain how he came to be the chief executive officer of a city of some twenty-thousand people with an annual budget of millions of dollars. If it were not for the union and seniority, he might have been gone from Kroger's long ago.

Kalb was not only not the star at the top of the Kroger tree, he was not one of the brighter bulbs on that tree either. He could stack shelves and punch the cash register with the teen-agers and young adults that Kroger employs to do that kind of work, but those young people usually move on to other jobs and careers or, in exceptional cases, move up the Kroger ladder. I can think of at least a dozen SSU students who worked full or part-time at Kroger’s, and I can think of a few of them who moved on to other Kroger stores at the managerial level. But Kalb did not move up. He did not move on. He stayed at the Portsmouth Kroger’s at or near the bottom of the pecking and register-punching order. In his long and lackluster career at Kroger’s, Kalb did not become a department manager. He did not even become an assistant department manager, not even after a larger new store was built, with presumably new opportunities for advancement for employees. To say he was not executive material, to say he was not even assistant manager material, would be an understatement. I sometimes wonder if Jim Kalb as mayor is not the cross the community has to bear for its low academic standards and its traditional tolerance for drugs and crime.

To understand why Kalb has worked as long as he has at Kroger’s is to appreciate the sway of seniority and the power of unions. The late Teamster president Jimmy Hoffa said that it was working at a Kroger warehouse, in Detroit, that convinced him militant labor unions were an absolute necessity for workers. Hoffa organized the first union at Kroger’s, in Detroit, and Hoffa’s son Jim as Teamster president is still putting the pressure on Kroger’s in Michigan on behalf of Teamster members. If Kalb owes the mayorship to Neal Hatcher, he may he owe his longevity at Kroger’s, indirectly, to Jimmy Hoffa.

Portsmouth’s Legendary Pothead

Kalb’s education, or lack of it, may have held him back. He did not spend his junior and senior years at Portsmouth High preparing for college. He spent his junior and senior years at the Scioto County Vocational-Technical school. Whatever studying electronics might have consisted of at Vo-Tec back in the early 1970s, when Kalb (shown at left) was a student there, it was nothing he was able to draw on to help him advance at Kroger’s. In the 1973 PHS yearbook, the only extra-curricular activity Kalb is credited with was being a “Cafeteria Worker.” There may be something to the legend that the long-haired Kalb was a pothead in high school and continued as a post-graduate in that role for some years after. According to Austin Leedom, who has copies of the original court records to prove it, Kalb was arrested sixteen times after the age of eighteen, including for smoking marijuana. (What must his juvenile record have looked like?) Somewhere along the way, Kalb also became addicted to nicotine, which Malcolm X claimed was a harder habit to break than heroin. Kalb’s trips to Kentucky in a city vehicle to buy lottery tickets and cigs suggest he still likes to gamble and smoke. His difficulty staying focused at council meetings, of alternately dozing off and waking to engage in tirades, and challenging members of the Concerned Citizens to a public debate, may have something to do with at least one of his addictions. In contrast to Kalb, his high school classmate Howard Baughman (shown at right) was in the Latin Club, the Spanish Club, the Social Studies Club, played Golf and Volleyball, was the Football Manager, and a Homeroom Officer. Baughman was obviously preparing for college and the future, even if he later dropped out of college and had to settle for being a furniture salesman. If he did not play athletics, Kalb kept up his macho credentials by becoming a biker.

Unfortunately, too often people who otherwise have achieved little in life look to public office to get the recognition and influence they were unable to achieve in the private sector and in their personal life. Until Rove came along, George W. Bush was a miserable failure, as a student, as an oil entrepreneur, and as a baseball owner. (Think Texas Rangers.) It was his father’s millions and his family’s influence that bailed him out. Then, using the lowest of political tactics, Rove got Bush elected governor and then president, twice. And now, as commander-in-chief, Bush, claiming God is on his side, is responsible for failures so pervasive and catastrophic in their human and material consequences that his incompetence rises to level of criminality.

At the city level, the highest office is the mayor. In Portsmouth, the mayor’s office is becoming a haven for losers who have not achieved success in the private sector but are willing to sell their souls to the over-privileged in exchange for becoming a posturing political figurehead. Prior to becoming mayor, Greg Bauer was a failure at the graphics business, possibly because he was using his nose for purposes neither the Lord nor evolution intended; Kalb, for all his passion for speed, was a slow-show at the supermarket; and Baughman, who will probably be the next mayor because he is related to the Godfather, is chief of the La-Z-Boys at Covert’s Furniture. It may not be a requirement for being mayor of Portsmouth, but being an underachiever or failure apparently is an advantage. A mayor not having a brain is no impediment in Portsmouth. To those who control the city, a no-brainer is a definite plus. On her valuable website, PortsmouthCitizens.info, Teresa Mollette wrote in reference to Kalb as mayor, “It always astonishes me the people who are actually occupying positions in public offices that should require some amount of experience and a fair share of intelligence lack both.” As reported on the front page of the Portsmouth Daily Times (31 Jan. 2007), at the same time that the city was facing a $272,000 deficit, Kalb ineptly and inaptly asked for a ten percent raise. How much brains does that take? What would Kroger's have done if he made such a request?

I would have less contempt for Kalb if the price for his betrayal of the public trust was a little higher than it is. I don’t discount the possibility that he is profiting financially for the services he is providing to the over-privileged of Portsmouth, but I think his chief compensation and his chief need is psychological, not financial. He has an almost pathological need for respect, as you would expect someone who seems congenitally incapable of earning it would be. I doubt that he is taking anything under the table. Perhaps only a born loser would be willing to sell out for so little: a ten percent raise; a luxury SUV with a city seal on it, a vehicle worthy of His Honor; and the privilege of telling those concerned citizens who criticize him at City Council meetings to shut up, something he would not be allowed to get away with at Kroger’s. That’s all he’s asking for really – a $5,000 raise, a big car, and the right to insult citizens. Is that too much to ask in exchange for his soul?

Union Man

One of the advantages of being in a strong union is that Kalb can be the mayor and still remain an employee of Kroger’s, with all the rights and privileges, including insurance coverage. Jimmy Hoffa did not die for Kalb’s sins, but at least he provided him with job security. Whatever else he may have lacked, Jimmy Hoffa had balls and a brain. Kalb better not give up his Kroger job given his poor performance as mayor. To retain his union rights and privileges, as I understand it, Kalb only has to put in a minimum number of hours at Kroger’s each week, as provided for in the union contract. I see nothing wrong with the mayor moonlighting, particularly given his low salary, but I object as a taxpayer in principle to his moonlighting at Kroger’s during the morning. In practice, I doubt if it makes much difference to the future of the city whether Kalb is working behind a checkout counter at Kroger’s or behind his desk at the Municipal Building. It doesn’t make much difference where somebody who’s out to lunch works. But when I look up at the clock at Kroger’s and see that it is 10 AM and he is behind the checkout counter and not at the Municipal Building, I resent that he is not willing to at least keep up appearances. If he needs to work a certain number of hours at Kroger’s to keep his job open there, let him turn on the checkout charm in the evening or on weekends when the taxpayers are not paying for it. At least let him pretend at 10 AM on weekdays to be wrestling with the crises of the city, at the Municipal Building that he is letting go to hell, and not chatting it up with customers at Kroger’s. At least let him pretend he has a brain and is not simply waiting for the over-privileged to tell him what to do next.

It's 10 AM. Do you know where your mayor is?