"Portsmouth Boy": James R. Saddler, II [reposted]

[In January 13, 2011, I posted the following opinion piece on Richard R. Saddler, II, following his appointment as the council member for Ward Two. The doubts I expressed about Saddler’s appointment then have been confirmed in the two years since. Austin Leedom tells me that our “Portsmouth Boy” outdid himself in assininity at tonight’s council meeting. The record of those who first got on the council by being appointed is a sorry one, but what else can we expect when drug-dealing pimps, drunken drivers, deadbeat dads, and bankrupt failures are shown preference as appointees?]

. . . . . . . . . .

 “There are some issues with some of our local roads and infrastructure, things like that that might be easily fixed.” Richard R. Saddler, II, Portsmouth’s new city councilman (shown above taking oath of office), as quoted in the 11 January 2011 Portsmouth Daily Times story headed “Council gives Saddler 2nd Ward seat.”

“Give” is the right verb to describe the city council’s action in regard to Richard R. Saddler, II. When a member vacates a seat on the city council for any reason, the other members give the seat to the applicant of their choice. One of the last persons to be given a council seat, prior to Saddler,  was the notorious Mike Mearan. The list of of council members who were first given rather than elected to council seats is long and reflects a serious problem in Portsmouth’s city charter. The four-year terms for all elected officials invites recalls and political shenanigans.

Like Mearan before him, Saddler has never run for city council or attended city council meetings or shown much interest in city government. This is often the case with those who are given seats on city council. Unwilling or too lazy or too chicken to run for a seat,  they are only too happy to be given it, usually with the blessing of the unelected crooks who control the city.  Having been given the seat, they have an advantage in future elections because they are  the incumbent, which helps them remain in office, though in Mearan’s case incumbency was not enough to get him elected. Portsmouth has sunk very low but not that low.

When Saddler told the Daily Times, “There are some issues with some of our local roads,” what was he referring to? Was he referring to the issues of traffic lights and vehicular safety, which Mayor Murray had given a high priority to but which Police Chief Horner had spitefully opposed. (Horner’s ideal would be a Portsmouth that is completely free of traffic lights and farting.) Traffic lights were probably not one of the issues Saddler referred to when he spoke of “local roads,” because the traffic lights issue will not be  “easily fixed,” to quote his words. You don’t have to be a member of the traffic committee to know that. In mentioning “local roads,” Saddler might have been referring to  potholes, or something like that. [I feel fairly sure one of the issues he is not concerned with is drunken drivers.]

The Son of Hell-on-Wheels Bihl

But since he mentioned roads,  rather than the deficits, drugs, or traffic safety,  I would say that if Saddler  is no better as a councilman than he is as a driver, then we’re in for a hell of a ride. From 1992 to 2008, Saddler  had twenty-one traffic violations, many of them  for  speeding and not using a seat-belt. (See his rap sheet below.)  In not wearing a seatbelt, he was not only breaking the law; he was  endangering his own life. In  speeding, he was not only breaking the law, he was also endangering the lives of others. If Saddler had  twenty-one moving violations in sixteen years, how many times was he not caught speeding and driving without a seat belt? Is Saddler “The Son of Hell-on-Wheels Bihl”? Saddler is just the kind of driver who is all the more dangerous the fewer traffic lights there are in the city. And he would be even more dangerous if he was driving while under the influence. But in  none of Saddler’s  twenty-one traffic violations is there any mention of alcohol. It’s hard  to believe that someone would  drive above the speed limit without a seatbelt as many times as Saddler has, and in every one of those instances be cold sober. It’s possible he never drinks and drives, and it’s possible he doesn’t drink at all. It’s possible, also,  that former Police Chief Tom Bihl, when he totaled  two parked cars on Offnere Street back in 1998  was cold sober,  as he later claimed he was. But how  can we be sure since he was  not given a breathalyzer test, which Saddler apparently wasn’t given either in   any  one of his  twenty-one moving violations.

I have been driving for twenty two years in Portsmouth and have never received so much as parking  ticket, but that’s probably because I  drive much less than Saddler. The only driving I do is the couple of miles of day on round trips to the Life Center.  But you don’t need to drive much to be at risk on “local roads,” especially since the number of traffic lights has been reduced. On my way to the Life Center one day  several years ago I was slammed into by a young woman racing through a stop sign at an otherwise  quiet intersection on Findlay Street, not far from the notorious pain clinic.

Since city  traffic lights were unwisely covered up during Kalb’s incompetent and corrupt administration, driving has become even more nerve wracking. Crossing Route 52 in particular has became a heart stopper, and about six months ago I saw a very serious accident at a Route 52 intersection where the light was covered.  One night just several months ago driving south on Chillicothe Street I was sideswiped by a car going over the speed limit. I tried following  the compact white sports car to get the  license plate, but the young male driver sped away. I had to replace the driver’s side rear view mirror. Since I didn’t get the license number, I  didn’t report it to the police.  I also didn’t report to the police another time when my car was broken into and some personal belongings were stolen. I am told that Horner’s officers discourage those involved in  traffic accidents or a petty theft reporting, unless they file a claim with their  insurance company. I am told that is how Horner is reducing Portsmouth crime and accident rate is being reduced: by discouraging victims from formally reporting them unless they are filing a claim with their insurance company. As long as Horner is chief, the real crime and accident rate may not see the light of day.

Troubling Questions

I will conclude with some  troubling questions about Saddler and offer some troubling answers. What will happen when and if Saddler gets another moving violation? Will he go to court to appeal it, now that as a councilman he has more political influence? And suppose, if he appeals the violation, that Steve Mowery is the judge presiding at the municipal court. Prior to being elected municipal judge, Mowery was the lawyer who represented Saddler in his divorce,  and Mowery is also one of the “friends” on Saddler’s Facebook site. There is even a photo of Mowery in shades (shown at left). Mowery is the one who when campaigning for municipal judge said that the Municipal Building should be torn down and the city government, including the municipal court, should be moved to a renovated Marting building. Mowery’s opponent in the contest for municipal judge correctly pointed out that whether the Municipal Building should be torn down and whether the city government should move to the Marting building is something the voters, not a municipal judge,  should decide. The  decision not to renovate the Marting building has already been rendered, twice, by the voters of Portsmouth. But the recall of Mayor Murray and the installation of David Malone as her replacement, and the “giving” of the Ward Two council seat to Saddler is probably the prelude to completing the Marting Scam, and the voters be damned. Malone, the Uncle Tom of Portsmouth, has already indicated he is in favor of spending the millions of dollars that the city doesn’t have to renovate the Marting building, and there is  no question how Hassle’em and  Bash’em will vote. In Saddler we already know we have one for the road, and it may not be long before we have another for the Marting building. 

Just the good ol’ boys,

Never meanin’ no harm.

Beats all you ever saw,

Getting in trouble with the law

Since the day they was born.

* * *

Traffic Violations of James R. Saddler, II

1

Concerning: Saddler, James R II

D.B.A./A.K.A.:

Filed: 02/24/1992

Arr. Agency: OSP

Case #: 9201332

Docket Entry: Click

Charge: SEAT BELT-DRIV

Case Type: Traffic

2

Concerning: Saddler, James R II

D.B.A./A.K.A.:

Filed: 01/06/1997

Arr. Agency: OSP

Case #: 9700112

Docket Entry: Click

Charge: 64/45 SPEED

Case Type: Traffic

           

3

Concerning: Saddler, James R II

D.B.A./A.K.A.:

Filed: 09/19/1997

Arr. Agency: OSP

Case #: 9705887

Docket Entry: Click

Charge: 67/55 SPEED

Case Type: Traffic

4

Concerning: Saddler, James R II

D.B.A./A.K.A.:

Filed: 06/15/2000

Arr. Agency: OSP

Case #: 0004500

Docket Entry: Click

Charge: 70/55 SPEED

Case Type: Traffic

5

Concerning: Saddler, James R II

D.B.A./A.K.A.:

Filed: 06/15/2000

Arr. Agency: OSP

Case #: 0004500

Docket Entry: Click

Charge: SEAT BELT-DRIV

Case Type: Traffic

6

Concerning: Saddler, James R II

D.B.A./A.K.A.:

Filed: 04/17/2001

Arr. Agency: OSP

Case #: 0102442

Docket Entry: Click

Charge: FOLLOW TOO CLOS

Case Type: Traffic

7

Concerning: Saddler, James R II

D.B.A./A.K.A.:

Filed: 04/17/2001

Arr. Agency: OSP

Case #: 0102442

Docket Entry: Click

Charge: SEAT BELT-DRIV

Case Type: Traffic

8

Concerning: Saddler, James R II

D.B.A./A.K.A.:

Filed: 10/12/2001

Arr. Agency: OSP

Case #: 0107630

Docket Entry: Click

Charge: 66/55 SPEED

Case Type: Traffic

9

Concerning: Saddler, James R II

D.B.A./A.K.A.:

Filed: 10/12/2001

Arr. Agency: OSP

Case #: 0107630

Docket Entry: Click

Charge: SEAT BELT-DRIV

Case Type: Traffic

10

Concerning: Saddler, James R II

D.B.A./A.K.A.:

Filed: 05/17/2002

Arr. Agency: OSP

Case #: 0202903

Docket Entry: Click

Charge: 65/55 SPEED

Case Type: Traffic

11

Concerning: Saddler, James R II

D.B.A./A.K.A.:

Filed: 05/17/2002

Arr. Agency: OSP

Case #: 0202903

Docket Entry: Click

Charge: SEAT BELT-DRIV

Case Type: Traffic

12

Concerning: Saddler, James R II

D.B.A./A.K.A.:

Case #: 9705887

Docket Entry: Click

Filed: 09/19/1997

Arr. Agency: OSP

Charge: SEAT BELT-DRIV

Case Type: Traffic

13

Concerning: Saddler, James R II

D.B.A./A.K.A.:

Filed: 09/19/1997

Arr. Agency: OSP

Case #: 9705900

Docket Entry: Click

Charge: 67/55 SPEED

Case Type: Traffic

14

Concerning: Saddler, James R II

D.B.A./A.K.A.:

Filed: 07/09/2002

Arr. Agency: OSP

Case #: 0204754

Docket Entry: Click

Charge: 50/40 SPEED

Case Type: Traffic

15

Concerning: Saddler, James R II

D.B.A./A.K.A.:

Filed: 07/09/2002

Arr. Agency: OSP

Case #: 0204754

Docket Entry: Click

Charge: SEAT BELT-DRIV

Case Type: Traffic

16

Concerning: Saddler, James R II

D.B.A./A.K.A.:

Filed: 10/18/2006

Arr. Agency: OSP

Case #: 0606781

Docket Entry: Click

Charge: 75/55 SPEED

Case Type: Traffic

17

Concerning: Saddler, James R II

D.B.A./A.K.A.:

Filed: 05/08/2007

Arr. Agency: OSP

Case #: 0702581

Docket Entry: Click

Charge: 58/35 SPEED

Case Type: Traffic

18

Concerning: Saddler, James R II

D.B.A./A.K.A.:

Filed: 05/08/2007

Arr. Agency: OSP

Case #: 0702581

Docket Entry: Click

Charge: SEAT BELT-DRIV

Case Type: Traffic

19

Concerning: Saddler, James R II

D.B.A./A.K.A.:

Filed: 01/04/2008

Arr. Agency: OSP

Case #: 0800067

Docket Entry: Click

Charge: 70/55 SPEED

Case Type: Traffic

20

Concerning: Saddler, James R II

D.B.A./A.K.A.:

Filed: 12/01/2008

Arr. Agency: OSP

Case #: 0808118

Docket Entry: Click

Charge: PHYSICAL CONTRO

Case Type: Traffic

21

Concerning: Saddler, James R II

D.B.A./A.K.A.:

Filed: 12/01/2008

Arr. Agency: OSP

Case #: 0808118

Docket Entry: Click

Charge: MARKED LANES

Case Type: Traffic

Sh*t Heel Jim Kalb

Depicted above in a Portsmouth sewer is the then redneck  mayor Kalb who in a 2AM  email to me in 2009 wrote that, “I think you're a worthless  piece of s**t and I wouldn't p**s on you if you were on fire.” 

As Eskimos have many words for snow,

River rats have even more for sh*t.

In sewers, rats prefer to go with the flow

Like the politician Kalb, the nitwit, 

Who leads excrementally, from behind,

Which puts him, linguistically, in a bind.
Whenever  he’s at a loss  for words,
The dope has to resort to p*ss and t*rds.
To piss or not to piss, what in tarnation!
Verbal diarrhea or constipation?
Among the rats  he’s a really big deal
But excrementally only a shit heel.

                               Robert Forrey, 2012

Top Ten Posts of 2012

The canned party animal Randy Yohe (first on left) kicking up his heels as a can-can dancer.
 The Can-Can post had more hits than any other post in 2012. Happy New Year, Randy!

Top Ten Posts of 2012

(Listed according to the number of hits posts received. 

Clicking on the title will take you to that post.)


1. Canning the Can-Can Man

2. La Cucaracha

3. Dr. Albrecht’s Snake Oil Fifth-Third Elixer

4. Think Tank or Stink Tank 

5. Bankruptcity

6. DeSimone’s Haunted House from Hell

7. The Illogic of CoreLogic  

8. Horner’s Son

9. The SOGP: “It’s Alive! It’s Alive!

10. Survey of Men About Town 

Snuffy and the Incredible Shrinking Daily Times

Snuffy is happy to see the incredibly shrinking Portsmouth Daily Times
in 2013 will be only four pages two days a week and will feature
him in  front page cartoons along with the customary cover-up of corruption.

WHO KILLS KIDS?

On-line billboard with names of kids killed in Newtown, Conn.

Who Kills Kids?

“Death toll in Connecticut shooting up to 27”

                                

“The husband of a Notre Dame schoolteacher walked into his wife’s fifth grade classroom

 where he shot  her, later killing himself after a stand-off with police.”  Portsmouth, Ohio 2008

                                                                                   News reports

We think we’ve guns sort of under control

But we most definitely don’t.

We think we’ll remember the Newtown toll,

But pretty  soon we probably won’t.

Who recalls that day in 1927, when

A  school board member killed  forty-five children,

Blasted  everyone of them to heaven

In a grade school bloodbath in Michigan?

What no nun could possibly teach her—

Or prophetic priest at a high Mass—

The husband of a parochial teacher

Shot her in front of her fifth grade class.

But don’t blame psychos or the handcuffed fuzz:

Guns don’t kill kids—the NRA does.

                                         Robert Forrey

                                      
 Comment

I sent my post “What Kills Kids?” to a dozen or so friends, and this is the response from one of them.  Since Ray’s thinking or non-thinking  on the gun issue is probably shared by a number of other friends, as well as millions of Americans, I am adding his response here.

Thick as Thieves

 Thick as Thieves

The appointment by the Portsmouth City Council of fellow council member John Haas to replace Michael Jones as Portsmouth City Solicitor is a reminder not only that city officials continue thick as thieves as they play the political game of musical chairs, but also that they steadfastly maintain the incomparable tradition of incompetence  for which they are notorious throughout Scioto County.  They perform as public officials as they did as private citizens, which is to say ineptly, especially in the handling of money, their own as well as the public’s. Three members of city government—former-mayor-now-councilman Jim Kalb; former-councilman-now-appointed-mayor David Malone; and former councilman-now-city solicitor Haas—have gone bankrupt. Two other members of city government—councilman Kevin Johnson and former city-solicitor-now-assistant-Domestic Relations-judge Michael Jones, might have gone bankrupt if Michael Gamp, of American Savings Bank, consigliere Clay Johnson’s heir apparent, had not bailed them out financially.

One puzzling aspect of the search for someone to replace Haas as city solicitor was that one of  the candidates who applied for the position, the lawyer Steven C. Rodeheffer, is  apparently a success professionally, having a thriving law practice with a top-notch female partner.  Haas told the PDT that now that he’s solicitor “he plans to scale his private law practice back so he can focus on this new responsibilities.” How do you scale back on virtually nothing? It’s widely rumored  Haas was a flop as an attorney, which is why he was so desperate for the solicitor’s high paying job. Personal failures have the inside track on public jobs.

Rodeheffer, by contrast, has not falsified his residence for purposes of serving on the city council; Rodeheffer has never been a drug dealing pimp; Rodeheffer, in fact, appears to have no criminal connections; he has never declared bankruptcy; he has not been taken into court for nonpayment of child support; he has not had his wife take out a restraining order against him; he has not had his license suspended for speeding and DUI, all of which misdemeanors and felonies, city officials have at one time or other been guilty of. How could a man without a record of incompetence, bankruptcy, recklessness, cronyism, and criminality hope to be appointed to  public office in Portsmouth? What was Rodeheffer thinking? Who put the crazy idea into his head? When Haas filed for bankruptcy, he had the shyster Mike Mearan as his lawyer. Which lawyer did Rodeheffer consult before he applied for the office of solicitor? Doesn’t he know a crooked lawyer who might have set him straight about the qualifications needed to qualify for appointment to public office in Portsmouth? The fact that Rodeheffer, with his clean record and good credentials,  did apply for city solicitor, in and of itself,  shows such poor judgment that Mr. Rodeheffer should be barred from ever trying to be appointed to public office in Portsmouth again. No felonies and certainly no misdemeanors he might be convicted of in the future could possibly make up for the crimes he has not committed in the past. Even if he were to someday fail as miserably and hilariously in court as Mike Jones did in his attempt to convict Harald Daub of shoplifting a shopping bag from Aldi’s, Rodeheffer  will never live down the shame of having the city council choose a deadbeat dad and bankrupt dodo instead of him.

In explaining why he was chosen, Haas told the PDT, “I’ve been dealing with these guys for several years during my time on council. They know me . . .” Yeah, these guys  know Haas and Haas knows these guys. What more is there to say? They’re not just thick, they’re thick as thieves.

“When Haas filed for bankruptcy, he had the shyster Mike Mearan as his lawyer.” 

A-Marting We Will Go, Again!

a twinkle in his shifty eyes and a few tricks up his sleeve. . .

A-Marting We Will Go, Again!

Ho! Ho! Ho!  Santa’s eyes are twinkling.

And reindeer bells are tinkling.

It’s that time of year again, the time of mistletoe and holly,

The  time of Marting’s madness and Albrecht’s folly.

   Like others, when I read  in the Portsmouth Daily Times (26 Nov. 2012: click here) that the Building (or Bilking) Committee is recommending tearing down both the Marting building and the former Adelphia building, and replacing them with a new Municipal Building and a new Justice Center, I thought they’ve got to be kidding.  Has the Daily Times become the Daily Show of the print medium? Is Frank Lewis Stephen Colbert, reporting  preposterous stories  with a straight face? How in the world is Portsmouth going to come up with the money? Isn’t this the city that’s under fiscal watch and isn’t it the seat of Scioto County, the first county that the State of Ohio ever put on fiscal watch?

                                                     

   Perhaps fearing  sticker shock, the PDT article apparently didn’t dare print the estimated total cost of the two building projects,  but if you do the math on the basis of the figures provided—$200 a square foot for each of the proposed 75,000 square feet, that comes out to $15 million dollars, but I’ve been told the $200 a foot is not an estimate but a fantasy. The two existing buildings, for those who might not know their sordid histories, were virtually empty worthless properties that were unloaded on the city and its taxpayers with the  connivance of two crooked city officials: Mayor Greg Bauer in the case of the Marting building and appointed First Ward councilman shyster Mike Mearan in the case of the Adelphia building. The city foolishly paid almost $2 million for the Marting building and in the case of the freaking, leaking, black-molded Adelphia building, the city acquired,  or got stuck with, the  property by doing no more than excusing the delinquent  back taxes and allowing the Los Angeles absentee landlord to claim it was a charitable gift to the city, providing  him a  write off on his income taxes.

   I believe that what has long indirectly driven the downtown Marting nuttiness is Jeffrey Albrecht’s determination to get control, directly or indirectly, of the land on which the Municipal Building sits, right across from his new Holiday Inn.  He has doubled down on his original investment mistake, the Ramada Inn, the Queen of the Rust Belt,  and before the Holiday Inn too proves a financial failure,  he is going to do everything he can to convince the naïve and gullible that the Municipal Building has got to come down, no matter what the cost to taxpayers. The Municipal Building is about the same age as the U.S. Post Office, just up the street, and is of the same design and constructed of the same materials, so why is the one supposed to be at death’s door while the other is an architectural treasure of the city? Because corrupt city officials and greedy developers have been trying  for some time to kill the eighty-year-old gal to get the valuable ground on which she rests. That’s why.

   The history of Portsmouth real estate is replete with examples of well-to-do well-connected owners  unloading overvalued but nearly worthless property on the taxpayers. It goes with the territory.  The Bilking  Committee recommends that all unoccupied, unessential property “be sold absolutely at auction.” Absolutely? At auction? Presumably that  means all unused city property deemed unessential will be sold at auction, positively, post-haste, without question. I think this is  the Jeffrey Albrecht provision in the Bilking Committee’s recommendations. In a  recent article in the PDT, he predicted property would soon be bought and sold in downtown Portsmouth (i.e., in the vicinity of the Holiday Inn), and he said he hoped that property owners would not be greedy and ask too much of buyers. He obviously had not only heard but probably had something to do with the  recommendations the Bilking Committee came up with. Buy  cheap and sell dear is the first law of real estate, but Albrecht wants that law suspended, or reversed,  because he or his  accomplices will be the ones doing the buying. As long as something is built on the Municipal Building site that will create more business for the Holiday Inn, he will be for it, no matter what it is or what it will cost taxpayers. And of course, he wants the Municipal Building to be auctioned off. We know how adept he is reputed to be at rigging auctions because the state attorney general came close to taking legal action against him after shenanigans that took place at a controversial auction in Athens.

   Yes, Santa’s got a twinkle in his shifty eyes and a few tricks up his sleeve, for this is the season of Marting’s madness and Albrecht’s folly.

Paula and the Peacock

Paula and the Peacock

Like Jay Gatsby (born Gatz), Paula Broadwell

(born Krantz), an upwardly mobile Dakotan,

raced to the tiptop and tragically fell

 for a peacock, for a military man

whose colorful medals cast quite a spell.

Her narcissistic Daisy Buchanan,

her rapidly racing heartthrob from hell,

her jogging partner in Afghanistan—

she loved him not wisely, but too well.

Life for her became a marathon

that she ran  like a bat out of hell,

from North Dakota to the Pentagon.

Like Jay Gatz, Paula Kranz got nowhere fast:

Love-sick gals, like love-sick guys, finish last.

                           Robert Forrey, 2012

City Manager Search

         


                 City Manager Search         

The search was thorough as can be,

They searched ev’rywheres in the county,

Considered ev’ry livin’ kin and kith

‘fore choosin’ ole Snuffy Smith.

*For the unhappy history of a past Portsmouth city manager, click here.

Bankruptcity

Portsmouth, Ohio, home of the bankrupt politicians

Having failed at handling their own finances, bankrupt Portsmouth city officials then went on and mishandled the city’s finances, misallocating funds intended for roads, public buildings, etc., to increase their salaries and benefits and the salaries and benefits of other city employees, especially the fire department. 

The current unelected mayor Malone, who likes to gamble, lived beyond his wife’s public sector salary and went bankrupt:

Former mayor Kalb lived beyond his grocery clerk salary and went bankrupt:

The deadbeat president of city council Haas lived beyond his means and went bankrupt:

City solicitor Jones lived beyond his means, is now insolvent, unable to repay his donut loan to the SOGP, and may go bankrupt if  he is not bailed out by his enabler, American Savings Bank:

In Portsmouth, the also-rans of life, the financial and moral bankrupts, with the support of the crooks who control the city, run unopposed for public office and pocket the difference.

Presidential Election, 2012

“Politics is the systematic organization of hatreds.”

                                                   Henry Adams

                     Presidential Election, 2012

The last ballot’s been cast, the last poll’s closed.

It’s been vitriol without precedent.

The querulous questions have been posed:

Who will be elected president—

The foreign-born Muslim filled with hate,

Or the greedy Mormon who lies like a rug?

The perpetrator of Benghazi-gate,

Or the goof who strapped his dog to the roof? Ugh!

The black who expanded the welfare state,

Or the white who thinks that blacks are moochers?

The Saint who wears the magic underwear,

Or the kin of Kenyan hootchy-koochers?

Politics proliferates hatred:

Elections bring it virally to a head.

                    Robert Forrey, November 6, 2012

Canning the Can-Can Man

The canned party animal Randy Yohe (first on left)

 kicking up his heels as a can-can dancer

The kid glove treatment of law enforcement of WSAZ’s Randy Yohe suggests that the protected class of criminals in Appalachian Ohio includes not just the drug-dealing sons of  police chiefs, as was the case in Portsmouth, but of “on-air personalities” as well. At 12:30 a.m., Saturday evening, October 21, 2012, according to the story in the Ironton Tribune, Yohe drove through a stop sign in Coal Grove and also went over the centerline and a concrete lane divider. The arresting officer found an open container of alcohol in Yohe’s silver Ford F-150, a violation of Ohio law, as well as illegal drugs (marijuana) and drug paraphernalia. Yohe was taken to the Ironton Police Department where his blood alcohol level was recorded as .12, well above the legal limit .08. Since no mention was made of marijuana showing up in the blood work, I am assuming Yohe was drunk but not stoned.

Yohe claimed that the pot and the paraphernalia were left in his car by a friend he had given a lift to. This sounds suspiciously like the kind of hot air one can expect from an on-air personality. Should there be some kind of recognition (call it the Yohe Prize) for drunk drivers who don’t let friends drive stoned? Did the Coal Grove police ask Yohe for the name of the  alleged passenger so that they could check out Yohe’s claim that the drugs were not his? The Tribune story doesn’t say, but I doubt that the police even asked for the name. On the following Monday, Coal Grove Police Chief Eric Spurlock reduced the DUI charge to “aggravated reckless driving.” There’s no mistaking Spurlock for Sherlock. The sweeping under the rug has begun. The DUI charge could have led to Yohe losing his license for six months. The police and the media in many communities are in a symbiotic, you-scratch-my-back-I’ll-scratch-yours, relationship, as we learned only too well in Portsmouth when Charles Horner was the chief and  the Portsmouth Daily Times turned a blind eye for years to the criminal behavior of his drug dealing son.

Instead of being locked up for the night, Yohe was released on his own recognizance and allowed to call a taxi to take him home. The hung-over  Yohe  publicly apologized to his employer (WSAZ) and his wife, but not to the viewers of WSAZ, whose trust as a reporter he had violated, or to the public, whose safety he had jeopardized by driving drunk. A Tribune reader asked, “What if he had of hit my mother, sister, brother or grandchild while driving intoxicated?” Another reader, commenting on what he or she considered the kid-glove treatment of Yohe, protested. “This is not right. Shame on you Chief Spurlock.” Another reader with the moniker “stupid redneck” wrote, “It couldn’t happen to a more deserving person. I have watched him report on pot busts and know for a fact that he showed damaging footage in the report that had nothing to do with the people involved. I hope he gets fired and never works again.” Another reader wrote, “I am beginning to see how the news works now . . . we will see how long this will run until it is swept under a rug.” Someone on Topix reported Yohe appeared to have been under the influence of something on WSAZ a few weeks ago when he lost his train of thought and said nothing for thirty seconds, an eternity in on-air time. Time has run out for this on-air personality, for the Can-Can man has been canned so he no longer can. I guess Steve Hayes won’t be doing any more   “Rapping with Randy” interviews on  WNXT, interviews in which  Hayes deferred  to the West Virginian Yohe as the on-air authority on crime in Appalachia.

I think it was the arrogance Yohe displayed as an on-air personality that makes the apparent pampering of him by Chief Spurlock so hard to take. Called YoYo unaffectionately by one of his critics, Yohe used to blow in and out of Portsmouth like the city mouse, the big cheese from the metropolis (Charleston-Huntington!), deigning to report on the doings of the country mice of Scioto County. I recall him coming in noisily about fifteen minutes late, blaming the traffic, and interrupting a public meeting Portsmouth mayor Jane Murray was conducting. He had the attitude that Murray, having started the meeting without him, was obliged to fill him in on what had taken place in his absence before the meeting could resume. Along with his buddy, our local  on-air personality at WNXT (someone on Topix wondered if Yohe had been driving home drunk “from his buddy Steve’s house”), Yohe played a prominent part in the demonizing of Mayor Murray by the media. One can easily imagine how Yohe would have covered the story if it was she who had been arrested for drunk driving with an open container and drugs in her possession. But on-air personalities and the drug-dealing sons of police chiefs are not to be SLAPPed around. That kind of treatment is reserved for uppity women.

Who's Mentally Unfit for Sheriff?

Little Chuck Horner

Sat in a corner

Talking like a tough guy.

“Fee, fi, fo, fum—

That day  will  surely come

When Sheriff Matt Dillon am I.”

Building Trouble: 2837 Scioto Trail

2837 Scioto Trail, on Horner’s Architectural Trail of Tears

       A recent post by Jane Murray on her lively website wegottroublerighthereinrivercity calls attention to the checkered history of 2837 Scioto Trail, a building now being occupied by the SOLACE group, which, in my opinion, started out with the praiseworthy purpose of consoling the families and friends of deceased drug addicts, but was hijacked by former Portsmouth police chief Charles Horner for his own political purposes. Horner has been building trouble his entire phony drug-busting career. Having failed miserably as a drug-busting police chief, Horner was already planning to abandon ship, the ship from which he had frequently been AWOL for physical and mental problems, and run for sheriff. 

       It was ironic that SOLACE should end up in the singularly ugly building that had last been occupied, briefly, by a pill mill. That its occupancy was brief was owing not to Chief Horner, whose failures as a drug-buster are legendary, but rather to former Mayor Murray, whose recall from office, with additional irony, Horner and the landlord of 2837 Scioto Trail, Ronald Cole, were instrumental in bringing about. Cole circulated petitions to recall Murray, and Horner, in a typical treacherous betrayal of whomever the mayor (his boss) happened to be, was first to sign a recall petition for Murray. Did Horner’s slowness in dealing with the pill mill on the trail have anything to do with the camaraderie that he and Cole might have shared as a result of their cooperating in the campaign to recall Murray? And did SOLACE’s moving into 2837 Scioto Trail having anything to do with the image problems the Coles had created as a result of hosting pill millers in the building? Who better to help take the pill-mill stigma off the ugly building than SOLACE? Just as Horner had used SOLACE to cover up his notorious ineffectiveness in fighting the drug epidemic, did Cole use SOLACE to rehabilitate 2837 Scioto Trail? Murray wrote in her post, “[T]hough the committed people in the local prescription drug fighting organization SOLACE are no doubt unaware, the very building in which they have located in Portsmouth is at none other than 2837 Scioto Trail.” Is it possible the SOLACE folk were that gullible and unaware of what they were getting into when they moved into that building?

The Ladies of Solace not saying no to Horner

       Along with a number of other buildings in Portsmouth (think of the police station in the Municipal Building, the Marting building, the Marting’s Annex, the Adelphia building, the gas company building on Clair Street), 2837 Scioto Trail has become part of an architectural trail of tears that Horner created in his sorry political career. Now he covets the County Sheriff complex, and if with the help of SOLACE members he is elected, that edifice too will be haunted by his controversial presence, for wherever Horner goes he builds trouble.

Adelphia building, on Horner's architectural trail of tears

Just Say No to Horner, #3

“Psst! Psst! Hey, Marshall Dillon. It’s me, your buddy Chuck, up here on the billboard.”

Just Say No to Horner #2

Even a beautiful sixty-nine year old senior Just Says No to Horner

Letter circulating among Scioto seniors

“I said have you ordered your Just Say No to Horner t-shirt?”

Horner’s Son

 "Comments from the Web" in the  Portsmouth Daily Times (2/12/2012)

Horner’s Son: People Who Live in Crack Houses Shouldn’t Throw Stones

David Horner, son of the former Portsmouth police chief, has injected himself into his father’s campaign for sheriff of Scioto County, thereby making himself a campaign issue. Presumably it was Horner’s son who earlier this year signed a post in an online chatroom  as DavidHorner2, responding to previous anonymous responders who identified themselves as Pepprkorn, firstresponder1, and ramz711.  Criticizing the three, who didn’t have anything good to say about his father, DavidHorner2 began, “People like you kill me.”  Then he turns in particular to firstresponder1, who had asked “how in the heck does this guy run for sheriff when he is on worker’s compensation????” Horner1 responded snidely, “So your [sic] telling me if you had P.T.O. [paid or personal time off, i.e. workman’s comp] you wouldn’t take it?” [F]irstresponder1 had also written, “also i think the next sheriff will be the current one [Donini] we have right now.” Horner2 replied to firstresponder1, “As to the Sheriff part, The only reason I could think you don’t want [Charles] Horner in there and the current one [Donini] to stay is because Horner actually does something besides sit at a desk all day. Are you afraid he is going to make it hard for you to score your drugs or is it that he already has and your [sic] mad?” (Quoted in  Comments from the Web, in the  Portsmouth Daily Times [2/12/2012].)

The chutzpah of David Horner lecturing anybody about drugs  might escape you if you didn’t know that the police chief’s son had not only been using drugs but had been dealing them  from high school onwards. That adolescent  stage of David Horner’s drug career culminated on June 25, 2000, according to Shawnee Sentinel writer John Welton, when he was arrested at the age of nineteen and subsequently found guilty  of   possessing drugs and drug paraphernalia. I looked in  the  Portsmouth Daily Times  archives for the whole month of  June, 2000, but found no  mention of David Horner’s arrest. I looked also at court records, but found no mention of his arrest there either. Does this mean Horner’s son was not arrested? Hardly, because the PDT has a long tradition of not reporting embarrassing news about anyone connected with the wealthy and influential crooks who control the city politically and economically. When Jeff Barron made the mistake of reporting that a drug dealer who was arrested worked as a mechanic at Glockner Motors, he was fired not long afterwards. There was a report on the arrest of Horner’s son in court records, according to John Welton, but it had been expunged. “The criminal records of the Chief’s son had been hidden by court order in March 2003 by judge Richard Schisler,” Welton reported in The Sentinel on July 18, 2003. Welton, whose handle was Doug Deep, had dug deep and found that David Horner’s   arrest for drugs record had not been completely expunged.

 David Horner continued selling drugs  after his 2000 conviction. A person in a position to know told me that Horner’s son  had brazenly sold drugs in Damon’s Restaurant, directly across from the Portsmouth police station. I learned from published sources that he was also selling drugs in New Boston, where  an ambitious New Boston sergeant, Matt Powell, was  making a name for himself as a drug-buster. Powell claimed he was close to arresting David Horner for dealing drugs in New Boston, but Chief Horner,  in an effort to prevent his son  from being arrested, began putting obstacles in Powell’s way. According to a timeline John Welton assembled for these events, during January, 2003, David Horner was “under surveillance by Sgt. Matt Powell for possible criminal activity in the Village of New Boston. Drug dealers claim that they tipped off Chief Horner that his son was being investigated by Sgt. Matt Powell.”

Even after his conviction in 2000 David Horner as a twenty-something continued to receive preferential treatment when he got in trouble with the law. A very reliable person told me of hearing on a police scanner that a David Horner had been found to have drugs and paraphernalia in his car when he was stopped by police in West Portsmouth. No  report of this incident appeared in the local media nor is there any reference to it in David Horner’s rap sheet. Another person told me of  hearing on another occasion that Horner’s son had been stopped in Sciotoville and found to be in possession of  drugs. A senior citizen couple told me they were near Andy’s Glass shop on 8th Street when David Horner drove into the back of a truck. Obviously in a drugged state, Horner was detained by two Portsmouth police officers until Chief Horner arrived and drove him away. That accident was not reported in the media, nor is there any record of it on David Horner’s rap sheet. These unreported incidents took place about ten years ago. But as recently as two years ago, while Horner was still  chief, a Portsmouth police officer told me Horner was still protecting his son. That’s all he would tell me, and I think he regretted telling me that much, because he was taking a chance telling me anything. 

Being father of a  son,  but one who fortunately has never had a drug problem, I can sympathize with Horner’s father doing everything he could  to prevent his son from being arrested and sent to prison, but I cannot condone his failure to uphold the law, which as a police officer,  he was sworn to do.  Horner elbowed his way up the ranks of the Portsmouth police force, from Sergeant Screw-up, to Captain Incompetent, to Chief Enabler, finding it easier to ignore and cover up than confront his son’s drug problems.

Did an automobile accident in front of Andy's Glass go unreported?

I began this piece by quoting Horner’s son boasting that his father “actually does something beside sit at a desk all day,” the implication being that that’s all Donini does, sit at his desk all day.   But John Welton thought that  that was just what the father was guilty of,  as far as his addicted son was concerned—he sat on  his rear. “I have an agenda for you Chief Horner, Welton wrote in The Sentinel. “Get off your butt  and do your job. Why don’t you go to the Sciotoville crack house where you have admitted to Sentinel  staff members that you were aware your son is buying his crack. Call me a liar Chief Horner. We notified you of the drug house, as we have done on many of your local busts, and your words were, ‘I know he’s there but what can I do? If he doesn’t buy it there, he will buy it somewhere else.’ Well heck, Chuck, if you shut off his supply then he might have to leave town with the other drug users and our town would be safe. That is a terrible reason for not busting a dope house you know exists.” Yes,  Welton is an ex-felon, but in my experience in Portsmouth the indicted felons are far more truthful than the unindicted felons who control the city poitically and economically. If the scales of justice had been balanced,  David Horner himself would probably be an ex-felon.

It would have been better for his father, for his mother and for himself, if  Horner’s son had not gotten involved at all in his father’s campaign because in doing so he calls attention not only to his own history of drug abuse but to his father’s  helping to cover it up.  In fact, it would have been better for everybody in Scioto County if Horner had not chosen to run for sheriff because if he is elected, the same cycle will probably begin again. Horner cannot help being Horner. And now there is someone else who could end up paying for the sins not only of the father but also of the grandfather. There is in David Horner’s rap sheet,  if it too hasn’t been expunged, a record of his paternity case against a woman who bore two children while she consorted with him during his drug daze. David legally challenged  that he was the biological father of one of the two children, and DNA tests proved he was right. He therefore was not legally obligated to provide financial support for the unrelated child. For the sake of the child whom he did accept as his, it would be better if that child did not have a grandfather who might become the despised sheriff of Scioto County, just as it would have been better for David if he had not had to grow up as the son of the despised Portsmouth police chief.

In view of David Horner’s past drug-dealing, and in view of his father’s reported covering up for him, it is ironic that members of the SOLACE group are backing his father for sheriff. I believe some members of  SOLACE have been bamboozled by Horner, but those who know him best—and who knows Horner better than members of the Portsmouth police force?—want no part of him. In a straw vote conducted by the Portsmouth police union, Horner got not a single vote favoring him for sheriff.

I would not have written this particular post about Horner’s son if he  hadn’t implied firstresponder1 was a druggie just because firstresponder1 predicted Horner’s father would not be elected sheriff.  “Are you afraid he is going to make it hard for you to score your drugs or is it that he already has and your [sic] mad?” Horner’s son asked responder1. Apparently Horner’s son  has not learned that people who live in crack houses should not throw stones. 

Shawnee State University's Academic Reputation

Billboard near Shawnee State U.

The report yesterday (1 Nov. 2012) from CBS news that Shawnee State U. is among the worst American universities in terms of retention of students is hardly news to those familiar with the history of S.S.U. Just as Central State U., has a mission to serve poor black students, S.S.U. has one to serve poor white  students in the Appalachian region of south central Ohio. Retention rates, given this constituency, are not going to be good. Could the rates be better? Certainly,  in the case of S.S.U. At least some students used to stay at S.S.U. only long enough to pick up their first  financial aid check, but former President James Chapman stopped the worst of that racket.  But the  Board of Trustees have historically made what is bad at S.S.U. worse. Still, the rates would  have been bad even if the trustees were better and if the administration had been better at retention.

In terms of retention, at least, the switch from quarters to semesters was the single worse thing that has happened in the last ten years  at S.S.U. The quarter academic calendar is better for disadvantaged students in a number of ways, including retention. But semesters work better for advantaged students, who are much better prepared financially and academically than disadvantaged students, sothe powers that be, most of whom were educated at semester colleges and universities, decided  higher education in Ohio could not exist half slave and half free—oops I mean half quarters and half semesters. Uniformity in calendar was pushed even if public colleges and universities  of  Ohio  were very different in character and student body.  If Ohio University could not stop the semester juggernaut, S.S.U. had no choice but to go along.

Two postings I made on the academic reputation at S.S.U. can be found by clicking on the two links below. Much of the documentation in them is missing because the damnable fee Flickr photo service summarily deleted my charts and illustrations  once I switched to the free photo service provided by Google.

http://rivervices.blogspot.com/2005/04/ssu-turmoil.htmlhttp://rivervices.blogspot.com/2005/04/ssu-turmoil.html

http://rivervices.blogspot.com/2004/11/semesters-veris-revenge.html