800 Pound Gorilla

It has become a mantra of Howard Baughman and the Portsmouth Daily Times: We have to put the Marting scandal behind us. We have to move on. The people of Portsmouth are not going to forget that fast, nor should they. It is not that easy forgetting, for what "moving on" really means is "We pulled off this scam, we won, so get over it!"

By “Marting scandal” I refer not only to the original sale of the empty leaking decrepit building to the city but also to the outrageous way in which the Portsmouth City Council and acting-Mayor Kalb, once the sale was declared illegal, allowed Clayton Johnson to dictate the terms under which he would return to the city the money he had illegally obtained from it. It is like someone who has stolen your wallet getting caught and then saying what you have to do to get the money back; and incidentally, you are not going to get all of your money back because the thief lost some of it as a result of gambling, in this case through bad investments in financial markets.

The Marting scandal is the 800 pound gorilla who sits in at every council meeting. All the searches and metal detectors have not kept out the gorilla. Howard Baughman and Marty Mohr know the gorilla is there, which is why they’re so nervous, and why they want to stop anyone from saying anything at council meetings to stir up the gorilla. Mayor Kalb also knows the gorilla is there, which may be why he looks so chronically depressed. They obviously wish everyone but especially that gorilla would go away and never attend another council meeting. They would like to return to the bad old days, when hardly anyone showed up for council meetings. They would like to go back to the days when council sessions were not broadcast on the radio. They would like to go back to the days when Marting’s deals were pulled off routinely, without so much as a grunt from any gorilla. They would like to go back to the days before every council meeting was a standing-room-only potential Irish wake.

Because of the Marting’s scandal, and the recalls that resulted from it, Portsmouth politicians and their supporters at the Daily Times fear the voters of Portsmouth even more than Dracula feared the cross, because they know that if the voters had an opportunity to vote on the city accepting the Marting building they would reject it, as they would also reject several councilmen by recalling them, if the recalls were not thwarted in one way or another.





When people in Portsmouth in 2030 look back to 2005, as we now can look back twenty-five years, to 1980, I think the Marting scandal will stand out as the defining political event of this era, just as the recall of three councilmen who tried to fire City Manager Barry Feldman stands out as the tumultuous and defining political event of that past era.

Consider what the Marting scandal has led to. It led to the birth of the recall movement. It led to the recall of Mayor Greg Bauer. It led to the recall of Carol Caudill and Ann Sydnor from the city council. It led to the election of Bob Mollette and Tim Loper to the city council. Marty Mohr might have been recalled if he hadn’t come out against the purchase of the Marting building, which he said at the time “ain’t worth anything!” He of course has since changed his tune, and become one of the biggest fans of the Marting building, which is why he is now the object of a recall effort in Ward 6.

The Marting building remains as Portsmouth's bad dream, a distorted House of Usher/Dorian Gray/Freddie Krueger landmark lurking just behind that 1950-ish phony facade.

Marting's: Portsmouth's Bad Dream

The Marting scandal led to Lee Scott becoming a relentless leader of the recall movement. The Marting scandal reenergized such veterans as Richard Noel, Harold Daub, and Jim Wilson. The Marting scandal led to the involvement of a number of people who were not previously involved in city politics, such as Bob and Teresa Mollette. The Marting scandal led to the Mollettes standing up to the over-privileged as no couple in the last twenty-five years have been able to do. The Mollettes have spent much of their free time and over $24,000 of their savings to see that justice was done in the Marting matter. Judge Marshall’s decision invalidating the sale of the Marting building because of the underhanded tactics used by Clayton Johnson is a landmark decision in Portsmouth’s legal history, and the people of Portsmouth, whether they know it or not, are in debt not only to Judge Marshall but also to the Mollettes, who were instrumental in bringing it about.

The Marting scandal increased the readership of the Shawnee Sentinel, whose number of visitors have grown eye-poppingly while the Daily Times continues to wallow in the circulation doldrums along with alleged ducks in storm drains. The Marting scandal inspired John Welton and Austin Leedom to dig even deeper into the corrupt activities of the over-privileged of Portsmouth. The Marting scandal has attracted younger people, such as Julie Stout and Andrew Feight, into the campaign for honest government. The Marting scandal even led Joe Ferguson to become an investigative videographer and for Claudette to use her writing skills in on-line forums to good advantage.

The Marting scandal led to websites and blogs, including River Vices. In the fourteen years I had lived in Portsmouth, I had almost always voted in state and national elections, but I had never once voted in a city election, that I can remember. I used to think it was only Shawnee State that was in control of the over-privileged of Portsmouth. I knew nothing of Portsmouth politics prior to the Marting scandal, but as a result of making a video, The Recall of Mayor Bauer, I became very interested in Portsmouth politics and, like others had much earlier, became outraged at what I learned. I became one of the angry voters who went to the polls a year ago June. I created River Vices as a way of making my voice heard and trying to make amends for years of ignorance of and indifference to who the mayor or the members of city council were, or what was going on beyond the boundaries of the university, even while the university was using eminent domain to expand its boundaries by destroying surrounding neighborhoods on behalf of local developer Neal Hatcher. It was politically unconscious people like me that made it possible for the over-privileged of Portsmouth to continue to control and exploit the city. A large number of Portsmouth voters (and not just those the Daily Times dismisses as a handful of malcontents) are not asleep any more, and neither am I, and neither is that gorilla. Not yet anyway.

Viagra Chronicles

Monsignor Eugene V. Clark (shown above left waving to the faithful), the 79-year-old rector of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, in New York, recently resigned as the head of the most famous Catholic church in the country. Monsignor Clark resigned after it was reported in the New York Times and other news sources that he was accused of having an affair with his married, long-time secretary , who reportedly annually earns between $70,000-$100,000. Though no spring chicken herself, she is 33 years his junior.   The monsignor did not pull a Rafael Palmeiro; that is, he did not unequivocally deny having an affair as the baseball player had denied using steroids. He did not say “never ever,” as  Palmeiro did about steroids. He did not accuse his accusers, as Palmeiro did,  of being “crap.” But the monsignor has not admitted to having the affair, either. In a statement released by his lawyer, he said “events and circumstances have been portrayed in such a false and sensational manner that I will no longer be able to effectively serve the archdiocese.” “False and sensational” may refer, among other things, to the video footage  showing  monsignor and his secretary going into a motel room during the day and then leaving five hours later (shown above center) dressed in different clothes. If he listened  to her tell her sins for five hours in the motel, it might go into the Guinness World Records for confessions.  But what he was doing for five hours in the motel room may have more to do with Viagra (shown above right)  than absolution. His secretary, accompanied by her two children, sometimes spent weekends with the monsignor in his beach retreat, leaving her husband at home. Her husband is suing for divorce, charging her with adultery.

Palmeiro hawking Viagra on TV

The almost-octogenarian monsignor may be suffering from an overdose of the same recreational drug that Palmeiro hawks on TV, the same Viagra  that appears for long spells in ads behind home plate on televised baseball games where they imprint themselves on the brains of millions of aging, unathletic American males interested in improving their sexual performance when they step up to the plate, so to speak. Those old enough may remember the 1978 so-called “Twinkie defense,” when the homophobic San Francisco supervisor Dan White shot and killed Mayor Moscone and Harvey Milk, and the best defense White's lawyers could come up with was that he had done it because he was deeply depressed as a result of  binging on junk food and Coke.

I would not be surprised if the monsignor’s lawyers come up with a “Viagra defense,” which may include testimony from an underpaid Latin-American immigrant housekeeper that the monsignor is a baseball nut who constantly watches games on TV. His lawyers could argue that the Viagra ads behind home plate had brainwashed him and that the monsignor had fallen victim to one of Viagra’s widely publicized dangerous side-effects. “Warning! Erections may last up to four hours.” Not to be outdone or outsold, a rival product’s warning goes Viagra more than one better: “If erections last as long as 24 hours, seek immediate medical assistance.” These of course are intended not so much as warnings as enticements, but if the monsignor had been using the rival brand he might not have gotten out of the motel room except on a stretcher.

Not only does Viagra cause blindness in some men, the defense will argue, but it can turn pious old prelates who watch too much TV into Brad Pitbulls, men who abandon their families for more alluring sexual partners, and priests who betray their flock and break their celibacy vows. So that’s what it could come down to: the monsignor was a vulnerable senior citizen victimized by Viagra.

When I was the president of the Shawnee Education Association, the faculty union, and on the union negotiating team, I suggested that we exclude Viagra and other costly recreational drugs from coverage under our faculty insurance. The administration appeared to be very determined to cut the costs of faculty medical coverage during the negotiations, but they were unwilling to accept my proposal, perhaps  fearing a backlash from older male faculty.

This story of the amorous monsignor should be of interest to Portsmouth residents because a prominent Portsmouth cleric, David A. Malone, was reported to be having an extramarital affair with a member of his Kingdom Builders Evangelistic Church. Malone did not deny he had the affair. He reportedly admitted his adultery to his congregation. But instead of resigning, he asked for their forgiveness. Not everyone was willing to forgive, and some left his church. I know how those who left his church feel, because I was one of those who had hoped Malone would see the light and stop voting with the corrupt faction on the Portsmouth City Council, and that he would lead a cleansing moral crusade in Portsmouth.

When I say Malone’s adultery was reported, I am using the term reported loosely, for as far as I know, the “professional” journalists who work for our two local newspapers, the Portsmouth Daily Times and the Community Common have not written a word about this matter. The Daily Times considers a duck that was caught in a storm drain front-page news, but a local preacher who is also a member of the Portsmouth City Council, getting caught in an extra-marital affair, that is not fit to be printed on any page of the Daily Times.

Perhaps one of the reasons for the absence of any reporting on Malone’s infidelity is sexual squeamishness. The Boston Globe reported just today (August 12) about two celebrated swans at the Boston Public Gardens, nicknamed Romeo and Juliet, who had become a symbol of the inspiring life-long sexual faithfulness that has been observed among some bonding pairs of the animal kingdom. It turns out that tests have proved the two swans are both females, so that it would be more accurate to call it not a Romeo and Juliet but a Juliet and Juliet relationship. If a same-sex bonding pair of swans were discovered in the Scioto River, would either Portsmouth newspaper dare to report it? I doubt it.

But it is not sexual squeamishness alone that explains the Daily Times silence on Malone. Even more to the point is political sqeamishness. Rev Malone is not just the minister of the Kingdom Builders Evangelistic Church on Waller St. He is also the Ward 2 representative on the Portmouth City Council, and there’s the rub. A political struggle for the very soul of Portsmouth has been going in the last several years, and Malone has not hesitated to use his alleged closeness to God as a justification for the political positions he has taken. Last year, claiming to be divinely called by God to do so, he opposed the recall of Mayor Bauer. Again, claiming to be divinely called to do so, he held public prayer sessions on the steps of the Municipal Building, with his wife praying in tongues at the foot of the steps. In his prayer “Protection and Deliverance of a City,” Malone said, “Father, thank You for sending forth Your commandments to the earth . . .” Among God’s commandments is “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” One of the impressive things about Malone's congregation is how bi-racial it is. But the fact that Rev. Malone is African-American and his mistress white probably does not impress God.

If Malone was only a minister, a case could be made that it is nobody’s business but his family’s and his congregation’s if he commits adultery. But because he is also a politician, and a politician who has conspicuously mixed religion and politics, he should be held to account by more than his wife and congregation. A man who stands on the steps of the Municipal Building and thanks God for the commandments and then turns around and breaks one of them is a man capable of betraying not only God but the constituents who elected him.

Malone preaching on the steps of the Municipal Building

On the sale of the Marting Building, Malone is perhaps voting not his conscience but his pocketbook, or rather his wife’s pocketbook, since she is the breadwinner of the family. And where she earns her bread may be relevant, for I'm told she works for the Portsmouth Metropolitan Housing Authority. In other words, she works in the public sector, and in Portsmouth that carries a great deal of significance, given the degree of control the over-privileged of pork-barrel Portsmouth have over the public sector. As a member of the Portsmouth City Council, Malone is of enormous usefulness to Portsmouth’s over-privileged, especially since he claims to speak in the name of God. In a religious community like Portsmouth, God carries a lot of political weight.

But now those of us who had looked to Malone as a possible savior have to admit he might not be all he claims, that he might in fact be one of those who use religion as a cover for misdeeds. No church, no religion, is free of wolves in sheep’s clothing. No church is too imposing, or too humble, whether it is located on Fifth Avenue or Waller St., to be free of deviltry, though of course there is always the possibility that it was a popular prescription drug, presumably available through the PMHA health plan, that may be the real culprit. If only there were some investigative reporters in this town who were allowed to ask probing questions about something more important than a duck trapped in a storm drain.

Hatchered

Grim reaper or real estate developer?

In other towns they call it eminent domain. In Portsmouth we call it "Hatchered."

Headlines we will not see in the Daily Times: "Elderly homeowners Hatchered as they sleep." "African-American family attempting to make living in real estate Hatchered."

Eminent domain is a hot-button national issue. Getting Hatchered is a local one.



Mrs. Lela Perry spoke at the Aug. 8 city council meeting. She complained about the way poor black people in Portsmouth are treated by rich white males. She complained about the abuse of eminent domain. I heard it all on WPAY (1400 AM). She said she and her son Joe had been treated badly by city officials and by Neal Hatcher. Yes, she named Hatcher. Specifically. Explicitly. I turned up the radio and held my breath, waiting for council president Baughman to gavel them out of order and possibly expel them from the meeting. But no gavel sounded. Perhaps it is only the names Kalb, Baughman, Mohr and Kuhn that cannot be pronounced before the city council. Or perhaps it is only Harold Daub who cannot mention any public official’s name without getting kicked out.


Joe Perry home at 1149 4th St., soon to be Hatchered?

Joe Perry cited a letter he had received from lawyer and former city council member John W. Thatcher informing him that the city was taking his property by eminent domain. This is the same John W. Thatcher whose white elephant of a house on Franklin Blvd. was taken off his hands back in the early 2000's by the obliging Shawnee State U. board of trustees, which his wife Jo Ann had formerly been a member of. In buying the Thatcher house as a temporary president’s house, SSU and the state of Ohio took a $50,000 loss, a deal that documents show university lawyer Stephen P. Donohue (now vice president and Judge Donohue) had rushed through for the Thatchers. It is a shame that Joe Perry does not have connections on the city council or SSU board of trustees, a shame he does not have the kind of connections that would allow him to sell his property to the city or the university for $50,000 more than its market value.


John W. Thatcher house on which state took $50,000 loss

Another speaker at the council meeting last Monday was Harry Kyle, of 4th St. Kyle was one of those who would not allow himself to be Hatchered when the developer, in collusion with the city, was using eminent domain to destroy the 3rd St neighborhood back in 2002 to make way for Hatcher’s dormitories in the section of Portsmouth that residents who still live there call “Hatcherville.”

Kyle refused to be Hatchered in 2002, and he said at Monday’s meeting he was going to continue to resist as long as he could. He said that next fall’s mayoral election, which will include possible recalls of several council members, might change the political climate in the city and stop the ruthless eminent domaining of private property. In speaking at the 13 May 2002 meeting of the Portsmouth City Council, Kyle had said that the city had deceitfully and ruthlessly driven people out of their homes to make way for the expansion of Shawnee State, and that the whole business was a “horrible, horrible thing.”

Last Sunday on the ABC program This Week, I heard commentator Cokie Roberts say the power of eminent domain had put developers in virtual control of city councils all across the country. That is certainly the case here in Portsmouth, and another speaker at last Monday’s council meeting, SSU President Rita Rice Morris, bears out the truth of Cokie Roberts’ observation, for kowtowing to Neal Hatcher was obviously the main reason she came to the council meeting.

I have waited several years before forming any firm opinion on President Morris, hoping against hope she would turn out to be a worthy leader of the university. But I knew the odds were against her, or any president, who dared to buck the corrupt system in this town, the same corrupt system SSU is an integral part of. I resisted the opinion that some faculty have that she has become the kept woman on the Hilltop. Former SSU president James Chapman is a reminder of what happens to individuals who don’t go along with those who rule Portsmouth. SSU has its first woman president, but the university, like the town, is still in control of the same corrupt rich white males Lela Perry complained about. Rita Rice Morris is not part of the solution; she is part of the problem. The rich white males have put her in a money-pit on the top of the Hilltop, miles from campus. The way in which George Clayton purchased the Camelot money-pit she now lives in was a scandal, and like the purchase of the Thatcher house, the Camelot house is reminder that in Portsmouth poorer people get eminent domained while the over-privileged of Portsmouth get bailed out when they have property they can’t sell. The Thatcher house, the Camelot house, the Marting building, George Clayton’s Kenrick building, the Adelphia building – it’s the same old story. The poorer folk get Hatchered, and are forced to sell property they value and want to retain; the rich sell to the government or the university property that they don’t want and that is practically worthless for millions or at the very least, hundreds of thousands.


3060 Camelot. The presidential money-pit at the top of the hill.

In her appearance before the council, Rita Rice Morris dared to laud Neal Hatcher as a benefactor of the university and the city. She attributed the growth of the university directly to his willingness to risk money in student housing. Risks? I have already shown in the blog, whose url is given below, that Hatcher is not taking any risks. A Portsmouth businessman like him does not take risks: he takes abatements and pork, he takes guarantees from the university that he will be paid rents even if the student occupancy of his dorms ever falls below 92%. The picture of the wonderful conditions at SSU that Morris presented to the council is a crock. Her claim that students love his dormitories is also a crock. They are required by the university to live in Hatcher’s dorms. Serious students have told me they wanted to get out of them because they are so noisy and, on weekends especially, dangerous. Female students have told me they wanted to get out of them because they run the risk of being sexually assaulted. Students were instructed to call the university police, not the Portsmouth police, if there is trouble. The university does not want any bad publicity getting out to the media, though they could count on the Daily Times to bury any adverse publicity, as it did the anthrax mess.

Where Hatcher's dorms have been built shows little regard for the safety of students. Once the new bridge is completed, 3rd St. traffic will become even more of a hazard than it now is, as I warned President Rice in the first formal meeting I had with her when I served as president of the faculty union.

In contrast to Morris’s pollyanna picture of a Neal-Hatcher-blessed university, SSU continues to be ranked annually among the worst colleges in the United States by U.S. News. Should that be a surprise? The university for almost a decade, except for Chapman’s presidency, has been run not by educators but by a university lawyer who was hired on the basis of as fishy a resume as I have ever seen, by a committee that did not follow accepted hiring procedures; the university is being run by a lawyer who after he was hired would not permit a Daily Times reporter to interview him about his past; the university is being run by a lawyer who was rumored, in Portsmouth’s Republican circles, no less, to be trouble from the start; the university is being run by a lawyer who I was told, was fired from the last job he had held prior to be hired at SSU; the university is being run by a lawyer whom the board of trustees, I was told, almost appointed president, and only after warnings from faculty leaders about the dire consequences of such a move were they dissuaded. This is what happens at a university that has the likes of Neal Hatcher as godfather.

If I sometime speak or write intemperately, it is because I, like a number of others, am outraged by the brazenly corrupt and mendacious political establishment in this city, three members of which the voters of Portsmouth recalled from office last year. The members of the SSU board of trustees are not elected: they are appointed by the governor, and – O, woe is us! – his recent appointment of Kay Reynolds as chair of the board of trustees would justify the faculty wearing black armbands for the rest of the year. The combination of Reynolds and Donohue conspiring together to undermine Chapman as president had to be seen to be appreciated. The combination of Donohue, Reynolds, and Hatcher – that will be something to behold. Members of the SSU board of trustees cannot be recalled but elected members of the city government can, and many of Portsmouth voters, including those who spoke at the city council on Aug. 8, are determined that they will be.

For more on Hatchering, see my earlier blog at http://rivervices.blogspot.com/2005/01/student-housing-shenanigans-at-ssu.html

Lying Addicts

In his book Juiced, Jose Conseco confessed to using steroids and claimed a number of other baseball stars had as well. He said he gave some fellow athletes steroid injections in the buttocks. One of those Canseco accused of using steroids was first baseman Rafael Palmeiro, who testified before a Congressional committee last March 17. When asked under oath if he had ever used steroids, Palmeiro said emphatically, “I have never used steroids. Period!” He repeated “Never!” Now we learn that Palmeiro did test positive for steroids this season, prompting New York Times sportswriter George Vescey to write, “I have come to regard athletes as essentially an addicted sub-society, even worse than the general population because the rewards are so high.”

Palmeiro is a member of the privileged sub-society of athletes who are addicted to steroids. Most addictions are accompanied by denial. Most addicts lie to others and sometimes to themselves about their addictions. Sometimes they even lie under oath and perjure themselves. If Palmeiro had been a Pinocchio, his nose would have stretched all the way up to the congressmen and poked out a congressional eye or two. Instead, inveterate liar that he apparently is, he convinced most of those on the committee, as well as his friend and former Texas Rangers employer, George W. Bush, and most viewers watching on TV, that he was completely innocent. Well-groomed, clean-cut, and righteously indignant, Palmeiro offered to lead a crusade against performance-enhancing drugs as a way of protecting American kids. But after testifying positive for steroids, Palmeiro has qualified the answer he gave the Congressional committee. He now says not that he has never used steroids but that he has never “intentionally” used them.

I bring up Palmeiro because he reminds me of the over-privileged of Portsmouth, another addicted “sub-society.” What the Portsmouth over-privileged are addicted to is pork, not steroids, but pork, like steroids, is a performance enhancing substance. It has kept the over-privileged of Portsmouth in the game. As bad as Portsmouth’s economy is, where would it be without pork, without the public funds that the over-privileged are attached to in so many different ways? Pork keeps not only those in the public but also some in the private sector in business. If they had to compete without local, state, and federal pork, they would be batting so far below the Mendoza line they would be out of the game. They can’t compete without pork, and having depended upon it for so long, they have created a culture of lies to deny their dependency. They lie every bit as earnestly and convincingly as Palmeiro did.

Some time back in the late 1990s, an over-privileged couple, a local businessman and his wife, told me at a dinner how tough they had been in raising their children, never pampering them but rather instilling in them the philosophy of rugged individualism and self-reliance I associate with stalwart Republicans. At the time I wished that I was capable of such “tough love.” Feeling guilty for not having been able to employ that philosophy as a father, I was somewhat in awe of any parent who could. What I subsequently learned was that this same businessman porks and lies with the best, or should I say, the worst, of them. In fact, he is a master of the art of milking public cows for the benefit of himself and his over-privileged cronies, and if there was a Hall-of-Fame for liars, he should qualify. I can believe he preached self-reliance to his children, just as the Republicans who are now in control of all branches of the Federal government continue to preach fiscal responsibility and less government spending at the same that they go on record porking sprees.

Jeff Jacoby, a conservative journalist for the Boston Globe recently wrote a column, titled “Republican Pork Barrel,” in which he said, “it might surprise younger readers to learn that spending discipline was once a basic Republican principle. Hard to believe in this era of bloated Republican budgets and the biggest-spending presidential administration in 40 years – but true.” The $2 million of public money that Clayton Johnson nearly bilked the city out of as payment for the Marting building is the most notorious but by no means an isolated example of porking by Portsmouth’s over-privileged. It is merely the tip of the iceberg, or perhaps I should say it is merely the schnozolla of the swine.

A culture of lies has been created in Portsmouth as a way of conning the public into thinking public officials and public agencies are honest and fiscally responsible. It is my observation that most top management in Portsmouth’s public sector operate within the culture of lies. Instead of solving problems, they deny and deep-six them. In a truly competitive environment, such behavior would result in failure. But in the public and semi-public sector of Portsmouth, incompetence and dishonesty are sustained through feeding tubes to public treasuries. Top administrators are on the same team, in league with each other and with Portsmouth’s top porkers. They constitute a network of mutual suppork. The team that sties together lies together. They give each other shots in the ass. Got some property you need to unload? Got a relative or friend who needs a public-sector job? Need an abatement? Need a tax write-off? Need to raze a neighborhood? Whom would you say is the first person in Portsmouth the over-privileged turn to? To whom do they go to get juiced, or should I say porked?

Portsmouth has its unfair share of bush-league Palmeiros who hide behind prayers, patriotism and protestations of innocence. On the city council, nobody pulls off this deceitful act better than city council president Howard Baughman, though his unctuous style is cramped by the crudeness of his close ally, council vice president Marty “I did not have sex with that woman” Mohr. If the mayor, solicitor, auditor, city clerk, and several members of city council had Pinocchio noses, the council chamber would be a virtual jungle-jim of noses through and over which only the most athletic of citizens would be able to climb to find seats.

Slime Time

"It's a pig, it's a plane, no, it's a Portsmouth politician!"

I am able to report exclusively that the former Shine Time Carwash on Findlay St. has been purchased by the city of Portsmouth for a million dollars, and renamed Slime Time Peoplewash. An example of Portsmouth’s classic cinderblock architecture, the Slime Time building may date all the way back to the 1950s. Acting Mayor Jim Kalb reportedly negotiated secretly with the real estate developer Neal Hatcher to buy the Slime Time building, which will be converted to a state-of-the-art facility that will wash not cars but people, specifically politicians and reporters who do the dirty work for Portsmouth’s corrupt ruling elite, drug dealers, prostitutes, members of the SOGP, the Marting Foundation, and wheelchair-bound senior citizens, in short everyone in Portsmouth who can use a regular washing and scrubbing

The owners of Shine Time Carwash were reportedly willing to let it go for only a million dollars because they wanted to give something back to the community. “We didn’t want to sell it to someone who thought it was an eyesore and would tear it down.” The city is consulting an architectural firm in Cincinnati about the possibility of removing the red brick exterior of Slime Time to reveal the cinderblock underneath. The plan is to turn Findlay Street into an architectural showplace, unpeeling its buildings down to their pristine unpainted cinderblock frames.

When city auditor Trent Williams heard of the city’s purchase of the Slime Time facility, he said incredulously, “It’s only going to cost the city a million dollars?” Even though he was the last to learn of the sale, he did not take offense. “That’s only half of what Marting’s cost,” he said. “It’s a steal.” In a secret memo to City Clerk Jo Ann Aeh, leaked by someone in the Ku Klux Klan, City Solicitor Kuhn wrote, “Screw the public! The purchase of Slime Time is perfectly legal.”

Acting mayor Kalb will release a statement that says, “It’s time Portsmouth moved forward again. Just as the renovated Marting building will serve as a city hall and the former Adelphia Cable building as the new police station and Kenrick’s store as a visitor center, the Slime Time building will no doubt make Portsmouth a cleaner and more attractive city, especially if the council passes an ordinance making couches on porches, dogs under porches, and chickens on top of porches illegal. I predict our citizens will wonder how Portsmouth has gotten by as long as it has without a facility like Slime Time.” The mayor's mantra has become “It's slime time!"

City rescues Slime Time landmark from wrecking ball

Lawyer Clayton Johnson was allegedly the first to propose the city purchase Slime Time at a secret public forum held in his office at which three council members, Neal Hatcher, and the carwash owners allegedly were present. Footage surreptitiously taken by Joe Ferguson from the back of a second-hand reconverted Adelphia van and shown on Moe’s Forum reveals that there were no lights on in the offices of Johnson and Oliver when the late-night time secret public meeting allegedly took place. “Johnson always operates in the dark,” Joe explained

“The Sentinel crowd throws so much crap at public servants like me that a facility like this is an absolute must here in Portsmouth,” council member Marty Mohr said. Eager to rid himself of his reputation as Portsmouth’s crappiest politician, Mohr is said to be one of several council members who are jockeying to be first to use Slime Time before facing voters in next November’s recall election. Mr. Clean is how Mohr hopes to emerge from Slime Time.

“The Slime Time Peoplewash will be a Portsmouth landmark,” predicted Steve Hayes, a die-hard cinderblock preservationist. “I hope the omission of the Slime Time building from the murals is an oversight that will be remedied in the future,” he added. Neal Hatcher told the Daily Times, “The Slime Time building ranks right up there with the Adelphia building as a cinderblock landmark in our community. You don’t see much of that classic cinderblock architecture anymore.” Zeke Mullins of WNXT praised the purchase. “It sure makes a fella feel purty good there’s still fellas like Steve [his boss Steve Hayes] who cares about something beside making money. Imagine what some of those Italian quattrocento fellas could have done iffen only they'd a built some of those big churches in cinderblock stead of marble.”

“The Slime Time building is one of the most patriotic structures in Portsmouth,” Howard Baughman said at a recent city council meeting. “Not long after 9/11, its owners patriotically painted the Slime Time facility red, white, and blue,” he explained. The head of a Portsmouth VFW Post was quoted in The Community Common as saying “demolishing the Slime Time building would be like burning the American flag.” Councilman David Malone said he plans to lead prayer sessions in front of the Slime Time facility each alternate Monday before council meetings, unless there is a secret meeting in the city clerk’s office he must attend beforehand. Malone is already working on his first Slime Time sermon, called “Cleanliness is next to Godliness.”

Finally, an unconfirmed report out of Washington says that Rep. Rob Porkman, in one of his last acts before leaving the House of Representatives, will attach a rider to a space appropriation bill to help finance a speedy conversion to Slime Time.

(For those who tend to believe everything they read in print, I feel obliged to point out that there is about as much truth in this posting as there is in most local news stories in The Portsmouth Daily Times.)

Slots and Sluts

To a drought stricken region, dark clouds on the horizon offer the promise of rain. But dark clouds can be accompanied by destructive forces, by winds, lightning and torrential rains that do much more harm than good.

Like great dark clouds to the west, gambling is on Portsmouth’s horizon – again. Those clouds were there before, in 1988 and 1996, when gambling was on the ballot, but Ohio voters decided on those occasions that the potential harm was greater than any financial gain gambling might bring. But the dark clouds are back. Pro-gambling forces are trying to amend Ohio’s constitution to allow qualified cities to legalize land-based casino gambling. Because it has a home rule charter and has one of the other requirements a city must meet (being a county seat), Portsmouth is one of three cities in southeastern Ohio that would qualify. Ironton and Gallipolis are the other two.
The ruling elite in Portsmouth were aware of these dark clouds before they were on the public’s radar. I found it hard to believe than any informed person could believe the Front Street murals could attract enough visitors to justify expending millions of dollars of public funds on the “Kenrick’s” tourist center. But if the ruling clique is right in betting that gambling will come to Portsmouth, then that visitor center will no doubt be a busy place. But it will be serving people who came to Portsmouth not so much to see the murals as to play the slots.
I was astonished by what a piece of private Front Street property near the Municipal Building sold for last year. It made absolutely no sense unless someone was betting that gambling would come to downtown Portsmouth. If gambling does come, then all downtown properties, particularly in the area of the Municipal Building, the Ramada Inn, and the new bridge can be expected to skyrocket in value.
The determination of the ruling clique and their local political prostitutes to tear down the Municipal Building can best be understood when put in the gambling context. Acting Mayor Kalb said in a public forum that Portsmouth’s riverfront property is potentially valuable and that he knew of a developer who was interested in the Municipal Building site. Since when is riverfront property in Portsmouth valuable? Only since legalized gambling became a distinct possibility.
The Ramada Inn has struggled for years and would not have been able to survive without the kind of pork that has kept others in business in Portsmouth, which has been like a Third World city for a long time. When I came for an interview at the university in 1989, I was put up at the Ramada, as all university visitors are. I traveled in the Third World in the 1970s, and when I stayed at the Ramada I felt I was back in a Third World hotel. Without university business, which is ultimately public money, and without serving as a dormitory for the university, would the Ramada still be in business? It is certainly not the Ramada that made downtown property valuable. It is the prospect of slots that make the Ramada and other downtown properties look like a potential goldmine. We already have the sluts. (For a libertarian read on the sluttishness of slots, look at http://tzaddik.us/lilpoh/archives/001116.html)
The Portsmouth Daily Times recently (28 June 2005) ran a front-page story by Mark Shaffer with the headline “Gambling Draws Local Support.” Who is the local support? The only supporter quoted is a local businessman, someone identified in the story as “Kevin Johnson, the co-owner of the Emporium at Portsmouth . . .” The PDT reports that Kevin Johnson is in favor of legalized land-based gambling in Portsmouth. Kevin Johnson pointed to unspecified cities in Colorado and South Dakota as places where legalized gambling have been a good thing, and what’s good for cities in Colorado and South Dakota, he implies, will be good for Portsmouth. “He [Kevin Johnson] said casinos could mean turning around the local economy.”

“Gambling Draws Local Support” is the kind of slanted and inaccurate reporting that has made the PDT the prostitute of the local ruling clique for at least a quarter of a century and probably much longer. A story on a local antique dealer’s enthusiasm for legalized gambling is published without checking on the nature of the purported success of legalized gambling in Colorado and South Dakota. In a twenty-minute search on the Internet PDT reporter Mark Shaffer could have found enough documented criticism of gambling in South Dakota and Colorado to balance Kevin Johnson’s rosy scenario for legalized gambling in Portsmouth. When if ever will the PDT point out the potential environmental, social, and moral costs of “revitalizing” Portsmouth through gambling dollars?

Perennial Political Pawn David Malone at Work

We can expect more coverage like "Gambling Draws Local Support" by the PDT in the months and years ahead. Expect the forces pushing for legalized gambling to spend big bucks in promotional campaigns. Expect the PDT to be the recipient of many of those promotional dollars. Expect local businessmen and politicians to cite unspecified studies, as Kevin Johnson does, that imply legalized gambling will be the answer to Portsmouth’s economic woes, as “the mall” was supposed to be back in 1980.
In a cursory look on the internet, I found many websites promoting legalizing gambling in Colorado and South Dakota. These websites are sponsored by the gambling interests in those states. They obviously have a vested interest in convincing the public legalized gambling is a good thing. If your research extends no further than these patently biased sources, you will be impressed, as Kevin Johnson is, by the possibilities of legalized gambling in Portsmouth. A final word about Kevin Johnson. According to the County Auditor’s records, Paul E. Johnson and Kevin Warren are co-owners of the Emporium, a new antique store on Chillicothe St., so Mark Shaffer may have mixed up their names. If so, that was not the only thing he did not get right in the story.

After PBS showed a Frontline program on legalized gambling in the USA, a Colorado viewer wrote a letter to PBS saying, “I want to thank you for the excellent story about gambling. A few years ago when I lived in Colorado I voted for legalized gambling in the town of Blackhawk just west of Boulder and Denver. Today I would never vote for something like that again. I saw the slow decay of that beautiful mountain town and what that type of business can do! It basically destroyed the spirit of the town. The locals were driven out by big money, and fast life style in the name of progress. Closer to home a co-worker of mine hits the Native American casinos on a regular basis, and has in my opinion nearly bankrupted his family. I realize as Americans we control our own destiny, but what kind of future are we creating for ourselves? I get very scared when I hear of all the problems of this country, but I think this problem needs immediate attention! At the rate we are spending money on the ‘Gaming’ industry what is going to happen to us when the well runs dry, all this investment could have been more wisely spent on perhaps educating children against the evils of gaming.”

Another viewer wrote PBS from Colorado to say, “Your program regarding gambling was very interesting. I live in Colorado and we have legalized gambling in three small mountain towns and the State of Colorado lottery. I have seen my in-laws who are in their 70's spend their time and money on the pursuit of ‘easy money.’ It amazes me because they worked very hard all their lives to be able to retire with a modest income. They use to camp and ride their dirt bikes in our beautiful Rocky Mountains. Now, they take bus trips to gambling towns in and outside our State. I personally do not enjoy gambling or understand the pleasure in it. I have not expressed to them my opinion of gambling because it is after all, their right. Four years ago, I met a man who moved to Colorado from Las Vegas. Originally, he told me he moved because he was tired of the rat race and his now ex-wife was transferred here by her company. He lived here over a year before discovering legalized gambling just 30 minutes away from Denver. He became a frequent visitor to the gambling casinos. His whole personality changed. He began losing large sums of money he did not have. He would take out cash advances on credit cards in order to try and 'win it back.' To make a long story short, he never did 'win it back' and eventually hit bottom when he lost his job and had to file bankruptcy for the second time in his life. I learned later on that he had a terrible gambling problem and that was one of the reasons for the move to Colorado. I do not agree with the widespread of legalized gambling. I am concerned for the children who sit in lobbies with very little to do while their parents are gambling. I think gambling is one of the factors contributing to the demoralization of American society.”

And what about South Dakota, the other state Kevin W. Johnson mentioned? “Since South Dakota voted to make Deadwood a casino town in 1989, South Dakota politics have been hijacked by the massive political spending of gambling interests,” according to Mother Jones Magazine. A citizens' group on the internet (http://laplaza.org/~totem/gam.html) wrote, "Deadwood (South Dakota) is a prime example of what happened to a small self-sufficient community after the opening of casinos in its town. The town was lured by the promise of a much larger tax base, a larger tourist industry, and all the other lures that an industry will use to force the passing of ordinances to allow the business to locate in a community that otherwise would not allow it." The same citizens' group provided the following report, the information in which they attributed to U.S. News & World Report (14 Mar. 1994):

"Shortly after the advent of legalized casino gambling [Nov. 1989], the Deadwood [South Dakota] casino economy lurched forward. The state attorney's office in Deadwood indicated that within approximately two years:

1. Child abuse cases had increased 42% to 43% (from 350 to 500 cases);

2. Police costs had increased 80% to 100% with a virtual doubling of the number of police officers;

3. Although national statistics had increased only slightly, crime in the Deadwood area had increased overall by 10% (although prior to 1989 the crime rate had been declining) with a 50% increase in felonies. Furthermore, there were 614 Class One misdemeanors or felonies in 1988, and 1,070 in 1992, a 75% increase in four years;

4. Domestic violence and assaults had risen 80%; and

5. Burglaries and writing of bad checks had increased . . .

One of the saddest impacts of gambling and casinos in a community are the costs in people. The property and money loss are nothing compared to what people have to do to obtain the money to support their habits. And the saddest of these is when teen age girls have to turn to prostitution to get the money they need. It becomes epidemic as casinos and gambling have always lured girls and women into prostitution.

Teenage girls are forced into prostitution when they can't pay their gambling debt to the loan shark. In 1976 Atlantic City had no prostitution problem - today it is a public health problem.”

It is also possible that the lure of gambling, like the lure of the 1980 mall, by promising prosperity, will take in the hopefully gullible but amount in the end to nothing, and there will be further recriminations against those who challenged gambling for having prevented progress and prosperity. If gambling does come to Portsmouth, the Marting building might finally be recycled appropriately, in view of its recent notoriety, either as a casino or, in the unlikely event prostitution might be legalized, as the biggest bordello east of the Rockies.

Biggest bordello east of the Rockies?

Father, Forgive Him!

Rev. Malone Preaching
"Protection and Deliverance
of a City"

Rev. David A.Malone prayed on the steps of Muncipal Building for the deliverance of Portsmouth. Now citizens of Portsmouth are praying for the deliverance of Malone from the corrupt clique he is blindly following.

Below is a copy of one such prayer.

Prostitute Times

Hooker at work

Julie Stout recently pointed out in Moe’s Forum that the 56-year-old James M. McGinnis, until last February the president and CEO of Heartland Publications, the parent company of the Portsmouth Daily Times, or PDT, was found guilty last June of having purloined $1.7 plus from company coffers. Shades of Adelphia! McGinnis claimed that he was just borrowing the money, but the judge ruled the former owner of the PDT “committed theft, as that term is defined in 812.014, Fla. Stat. (2004) by taking $1,713,342 from Heartland's accounts for his own personal use and benefit." The judge fined McGinnis $5.1 million or triple damages. According to officials, McGinnis will probably not be able to pay the fine, because his wife divorced him, took possession of their house, which left him with only one asset – his XJ8 gold Jaguar, which will be sold at auction.

McGinnis has long been in the business, over the course of 30 years, of managing, owning. and milking roughly 80 small- and medium-town newspapers in 22 states in what he called the American heartland. Contrary to the prevailing view that American newspapers are liberal, most small-town newspapers, of which there are very many, are politically conservative. Small-town newspapers are conservative partly because they are dependent upon local conservative business people for their survival. If local businesses don’t advertise, there is not much to be milked by the small-town newspaper’s corporate parent. The pressure that the Portsmouth Chamber of Commerce puts on the PDT to toe the SOGP line is no secret. If you believe the PDT’s current opposition to a second round of recalls was based on an honest, independent judgment on the editor’s part, then you might also believe Madonna is a virgin.

As for the PDT’s circulation, the other source of its income, it has been about as robust as a fossilized pterodactyl’s. That is why small town newspapers often function as the handmaidens of local Chambers of Commerce and do everything they can to promote local economic development, even if the development has an unethical or criminal character and has a detrimental effect on the community, as legalized gambling has. (I’ll deal with legalized gambling in my next blog.) In the case of our river city, the PDT is not so much the handmaiden as it is the prostitute of the Portsmouth Chamber of Commerce and the Southern Ohio Growth Partnership, which is the arm of the Chamber that launders government money.

As for the notion that a small town newspaper might do the kind of investigative reporting that could put local business and political bigwigs in a bad light, forget it. Did the PDT report the conviction of its owner James M. McGinnis? Did it put a reporter on the anthrax evacuation at Shawnee State? Has it ever reported that for a decade or more Shawnee State has been ranked as one of the worst universities of its kind in the U.S., in spite of many millions of dollars of state support and special subsidies? Not that I am aware. But it did recently put a reporter on a front-page story of a duck that was reportedly trapped in a storm drain. The Shawnee Sentinel came into existence and became Portsmouth’s most popular source of local news not by reporting on alleged ducks in drains but because it does investigative journalism and is the generator of lively opinion. The PDT does not cover the news that the Chamber of Commerce and the two other large institutions in Portsmouth, the hospital and the university, do not want it to cover. There is a local news vacuum, which readers abhor. That is why the Sentinel, which reports it had 10,000,000 hits in the last year, finds so many readers. Even my infrequent and somewhat professorial blog, River Vices, as it approaches its first anniversary, has had over 10,000 visitors.

The FBI was reportedly involved in the investigation of McGinnis. I have heard rumors that the FBI is involved in an on-going investigation of criminal activities and corruption among the higher-ups of Portsmouth, but that’s all they are at this point, rumors, born of wishes. But of one thing I am fairly sure: the kind of newspapers McGinnis owned, such as the PDT, are about as likely to be investigating corruption or criminal activities among the higher-ups in the towns of the American heartland, and in Portsmouth in particular, as the Portsmouth Spartans are of playing in the Super Bowl next winter. Rather than investigating the well-heeled of Portsmouth, the drain-duck lame-duck PDT is in bed with them, trying to denigrate the use of the recall of public officials and promote legalized gambling, all the while piously pretending to occupy a moral high ground where it scolds the “troublemakers” on the internet, the same internet that broke its monopoly on local news. What the PDT is really doing is working both sides of the street, like a five-dollar John St. whore waiting for a John, or another Jim McGinnis, in a gold-colored Jaguar.

Adelphia: O, Brother!

Adelphia founder in handcuffs

To better understand the Marting mess and the swindle Clayton Johnson has nearly completed with the complicity of the Portsmouth City Council, it helps to look at the so-called Adelphia building, at 807 Washington St., which Johnson made part of the package he told the city it must accept if it hopes to get back any part of the $2 million he illegally obtained from the city for the Marting building.

A little background. Adelphia is a Greek word meaning “brother,” but Adelphia’s history of corruption is enough to make anyone say “O, brother!”

A year ago this week, a federal jury found former Adelphia chairman and founder 80-year-old John Rigas (in photograph above) and his son Timothy guilty of conspiracy and massive securities and bank fraud. Rigas and Timothy were convicted of deceiving investors and hiding more than $2.3 billion in debt while using company funds to finance a lavish life style for themselves and their relatives. The father received a 15- and Timothy a 20-year sentence. The Rigas family was required to pay huge fines and to give up any stake in Adelphia, which was operating under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The elder Rigas is reportedly down to his last $76 million.

Former Adelphia building on Washington St.

Now, what about Adelphia and Portsmouth? O, brother! In 1984, a Dr. Herbert I. Singer, of Los Angeles, bought what became known as the Adelphia building, on Washington Avenue, from Michael H. Mearan, a local lawyer who specializes in auto accidents and bankruptcy. Dr. Singer leased the building to Adelphia for twenty years, but Adelphia reportedly abrogated that lease in its last year, presumably because Adelphia was in bankruptcy and could get away with abrogating leases and not paying its bills.

About that time, Adelphia moved from Washington St. to its new location, not far from the 15th Street viaduct development. Given the 15th St. viaduct’s shady history and shady tenants, it should be called “Shady Plaza.” The Adelphia building on Washington Street was convenient to customers and far better suited than its current building, which looks and feels like a fur trading outpost in the wilds of Alaska. When I asked an Adelphia representative why the company had moved from Washington St., she said it was because the rent on Washington St. was too high – $2,200 a month.

Did Adelphia try to renegotiate the lease? I don’t know, but Adelphia was in an excellent position to do so, because commercial and retail property in downtown Portsmouth is notoriously hard to rent and even harder to sell. For example, according to figures in the auditor’s office, in the Scioto County Courthouse, in 2001 the true cash value of Adelphia’s Washington St. property – actually Dr. Singer’s property – was listed at $958,970; three years later that figure had been reduced 66% to $319,920.

It is hard to believe, with the value of the Washington St. property plummeting 66%, that Adelphia could not have gotten its rent reduced or even bought the property at a distressed price from Dr. Singer. If the city was sincerely interested in reviving downtown, they should have done everything to encourage Adelphia to stay on Washington St. That would have made sense, at least for Adelphia’s customers, but Adelphia does not think first of its customers, not when it has a cable monopoly and a city council that cares about its constituents about as much as Adelphia does for its cable customers.

By moving to “Shady Plaza,” Adelphia not only did a disservice to its customers, but it apparently dealt a karate chop to Dr. Singer, who filed for bankruptcy. In speaking before the city council, Dr. Singer’s lawyer denied his client had declared bankruptcy, but records in the Scioto County Courthouse at the time and still today prove otherwise. Why did Mr. Singer’s lawyer deny he was in bankruptcy? It is possible that Singer is trying to use bankruptcy in the way Adelphia used it, to avoid meeting his financial obligations. The suspicion that Dr. Singer is yet another shady character in this Adelphia corruption saga is heightened by the fact that he is in default for about $18,000 in city taxes on his Washington St. property, taxes which his filing for bankruptcy puts in abeyance.

One of the refreshing things about Dr. Singer and his lawyer, Mr. Mearan, is how candid they are about the underlying reason Dr. Singer is offering the property to the city. There is no moonshine about saving downtown Portsmouth and no Herbert I. Singer Foundation façade has been established to provide a front of civic-mindedness for Singer’s pecuniary motives. According to Portsmouth City Council minutes (14 March 2005), “Mr. Mearan said that in order for Dr. Singer to take advantage of certain IRS regulations the City could not sell or lease the building because that would set a value on the property and would restrict the amount Mr. Singer can claim as a donation to the City. Mr. Mearan stated that with the understanding that the City would accept the property and use it for City purposes [italics added], with a restriction of ten years[,] after which if the City wants to get rid of the building or do whatever they want with the building they could do so.” After ten years, Dr. Singer doesn’t care what the city does with the Washington St. property; they can flush it down the toilet for all he cares. What he wants is for the city to use the property for some public purpose for a minimum of ten years or otherwise he will be greatly restricted in what he can claim as a tax write for a charitable donation.

We need to understand that this is also the motive behind the Marting Foundation’s offer to give the city the Marting building that it had previously fraudulently tried and failed to sell to it: in order for Singer and for Johnson to qualify for maximum tax write-offs the property they donate must by IRS regulations be used for government purposes, in the case of the Adelphia building as a police station and in the case of the Marting building as a city hall.

Public policy in Portsmouth is being dictated not by what is best for the city and its citizens but by what is best for privileged property-owners who want to unload their virtually worthless buildings off on the public for the purposes of tax write-offs. And it is not just the Marting and Adelphia buildings that are being foisted off on the public. The practice of getting the public to pay for property that is no longer of use to it owners and of very little value in the local real estate market is long-standing and widespread in Porksmouth.

Instead of using millions of dollars of public monies to build structures designed for the purposes to which they will be put, the city government receives old and architecturally embarrassing hand-me-downs that require ridiculous outlays to try to transform them into the public buildings they were so obviously never intended to be. In the meanwhile public buildings of architectural importance and practical value are derided and torn down, while for at least ten years, these other old buildings, such as the Marting and Adelphia buildings, with new phony facades, will have to be renovated and maintained, at large public expense, just so that the tax breaks to the privileged few can not be challenged by the IRS. After ten years the buildings can be flushed down the toilet, which is probably what should have been done in the first place. Or to repeat the startlingly candid language of the minutes of the March 14th city council meeting: “Mr. Mearan stated that with the understanding that the City would accept the property and use if for City purposes, with a restriction of ten years[,] after which if the City wants to get rid of the building or do whatever they want with the building they could do so.” O, brother!

From minutes of the 3/14/05 Portsmouth City Council Meeting

ROYAL SCREWING

“The history of the present King is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over Portsmouth. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.” Or so say I.

On this July 4th weekend I am thinking not only of the Declaration of Independence but of May 24th, 2005, and of another document that was signed on that day here in Portsmouth, Ohio. I hold a Ph.D. in American Civilization, and as a student and teacher, and as the coordinator of a Yale-based committee that organized a series of conferences around the world prior to the celebration of the American Bicentennial, in 1976, I have in my time seen a lot of American documents. But I have never seen one that mocks the Declaration of Independence and the ideal of American democracy as blatantly and cynically as the one that was signed on May 24th, 2005, by Portsmouth’s acting mayor James Kalb and city solicitor David Kuhn, representing the city of Portsmouth, and by Julia Wisniewski, representing the Richard D. Marting Foundation. That infuriating document, which the city solicitor gave the innocuous name “Marting’s Foundation Grant Agreement and Release,” deserves to be studied for the revealing light it throws on the tyranny that exists in Portsmouth as a result of the unholy alliance between crooked politicians and crooked lawyers.

The depth and pervasiveness of that tyranny cannot be appreciated unless we note that there appeared to be a sort of political revolution last year in Portsmouth. Following the revelation that the city had purchased a former department store at a wildly inflated price of $2,000,000 from the Richard D. Marting Foundation, Mayor Greg Bauer and two members of the Portsmouth City Council, Ann Sydnor and Carol Caudill, were recalled from office as a direct result of that scandalous sale. In spite of the support he received financially from well-heeled backers and editorially from the Portsmouth Daily Times and from the weekly Community Common, Mayor Bauer was recalled by a 2 to 1 margin. The recall movement was bi-partisan, for crooked/honest, not Republican/Democratic was what mattered. June 22nd, 2004, the day Mayor Bauer and the others were recalled, had some of the feel of July 4th, 1776, as I showed in Recall, the video that is now available at the Shawnee State Clark Memorial Library and the Portsmouth Public Library.

The political victory was followed by a stunning legal victory when a suit brought by community activists Bob and Teresa Mollette against the Marting Foundation led to a ruling by Judge Marshall that invalidated the sale of the Marting’s building to the city. Mollette’s attorney had argued that Clayton Johnson had conducted secret illegal negotiations with members of the city council, and Judge Marshall agreed. Johnson is playing the role of King George III in Portsmouth’s contemporary history, but fortunately there are some patriotic people in the city not intimidated by him.

But the political and legal victories of the reform movement did not end the tyrannical rule of crooked politicians and crooked lawyers, as the “Marting’s Foundation Grant Agreement and Release” sadly reveals. What that agreement does is not only put the Foundation and everyone associated with it, including Clayton Johnson, beyond the reach of the courts, it also stipulates a number of conditions that the city would have to meet in order to get back any part of the $2,000,000 the Foundation had previously illegally acquired from the city.

To quote the language of the May 24th agreement, which protects Johnson and the Foundation from any legal action: “the City hereby releases and discharges the Foundation and Marting Brothers from any and all claims or causes of action, from the beginning of the world to the date of this Agreement, arising out of the Dispute and the Purchase Agreement, including any and all claims asserted or which could be asserted which the City has or may have against the Foundation and/or Marting Brothers, whether such claims are legal or equitable, known or unknown, contingent or matured, or joint, several or individual. The release by the City is also intended to and does release and discharge the agents, affiliates, subsidiaries, related business entities, insurers, successors, attorneys, officers, directors, board members, assigns, and all and every other person who has worked for or on behalf of the Foundation and/or Marting Brothers.” With this agreement Johnson not only covers his own ass from the beginning of the world to all eternity, but he also covers the asses of every party however remotely related to the Foundation and the crooked sale of the Marting building.

In the agreement the Foundation on its part agrees to give the city the Marting building, but the Marting Foundation never wanted this worthless property in the first place; the Marting building is like the Old Maid in the card game: whoever gets stuck with it loses. I think the Foundation may have been created primarily to unload the Marting building, preferably by selling it to some foolish buyer or, failing that, by giving it away, which ended up being the only way the Foundation could get rid of it.

Councilman Marty Mohr was right about one thing when he told a Columbus Dispatch reporter last year that he had made a study of retail property and decided the Marting building “ain’t worth anything.” (After being courted by King George and after real estate developer Neal Hatcher named an SSU dormitory in Hatcheville in honor of the Mohr family, Marty Mohr changed his mind about the value of the Marting building.) As long as the Marting Foundation owned the building, it presumably would have had to pay taxes indefinitely, assuming the Foundation had not finessed those, too; there was little chance that any retailer would buy it. Giving the building away, provided someone would take it, might at least make a tax-write off possible, as had been the case when Johnson arranged to have the very dubious assets of the defunct Travel World agency donated to Ohio University, at Ironton.

What makes the May 24th agreement one of the most infamous documents in Portsmouth’s history is, first, that the Foundation, after Judge Marshall’s invalidation of the sale, did not agree to return the $2,000,000 it had received from the city but only $1,405,000, because the Foundation had lost nearly $600,000 on risky investments.

"Honey, I shrank the $2,000,000!"

Section of Marting's Agreement with city of Portsmouth showing how, through poor investments, the Marting Foundation shrank the city's $2 million to $1.4 million

Even though Judge Marshall had ruled that Johnson had violated the law in the underhanded way he had conducted negotiations for the sale of the building, the Foundation would not agree to return all the money it had received but only whatever portion of it that remained at such time that it might return it. The high-handed attitude of our King George can be explained by the unwritten rule that possession is ninth-tenths of the law, even if what you possess you acquired illegally.

But Johnson and the Foundation did not stop there: he also set conditions that the city would have to meet before the Foundation would turn over what ever remained of the $2,000,000, for there was no guarantee that the $1,405,000, with fluctuations in the market, would not shrink some more. Here is the relevant passage from the agreement:

“The Foundation agrees to deliver the Foundations Assets” [that is, the money the Foundation obtained illegally from the city], if “The City agrees that the Foundation Assets shall be used exclusively for one (1) or more of the following purposes: City Police Station, Portsmouth City Offices, or a national or regional retail establishment . . . The City agrees that the Foundation Assets may be used for rehabilitation and renovation of 807 Washington Street, commonly known as the Adelphia Building, for a Permitted Use; and/or (ii) the balance, including any sums which the City shall decide not to allocate to the use and purpose described in Clause (i) herein, to rehabilitate and renovate, or to tear down and rebuild at the main Marting Building, 515 Chillicothe Street, and any other of the Marting Properties, for a Permitted Use."

Imagine a con artist being arrested for illegally selling a worthless painting for $2,000,000, and then agreeing to return only part of the $2,000,000 but only if the defrauded party agrees to keep the painting and spend a specified amount of the returned money on restoring the worthless painting. Oh, and in addition, the con artist insists that any money left over should be spent on restoring another painting of dubious value (the Adelphia building).

We mustn’t lose sight of the fact that con artist King George is not asking for the Marting building back. If you miss that point, you miss everything. Hell, that Old Maid is the last thing he wants back in his hands. No one in his right business mind wants a square foot of that property. As a former employee of Marting's says in Recall, "I know every stinking inch of that building." Johnson's got the city’s money, and he doesn’t want to spend another nickel on that 100-year-old worthless old maid.

But King George the con artist is not done dictating conditions in the Agreement, for the city has to submit a specific plan for a Permitted Use (that is, plans for the Marting and possibly the Adelphia building) within 36 calendar months or lose all claims to the Foundation’s assets (i.e., the city money it holds). "Do exactly what I tell you to do in the time I have told you to do it or you will not get a cent of your money back!" Our spineless and corrupt city government is reduced to being a pawn of this small town dictator.

In his memo to the city officers, accompanying the “Marting’s Foundation Grant Agreement and Release,” solicitor Kuhn wrote, “Please review the agreement carefully, so that the time constraints are met in order for the City to take full advantage of the Agreement.” The city take full advantage of the Agreement? Anyone who reads the agreement carefully should conclude that it is the city that is being taken full advantage of. What the solicitor is really saying is let’s push this crooked deal through as fast as we can, for what the “Marting’s Foundation Grant Agreement and Release” really is, I say on this 4th of July weekend, is a royal screwing.

Prayer

Rev. Malone praying on steps of Municipal Building

Religion played an important part in the recall of mayor Greg Bauer. In the months leading up to the special recall election, on June 22, 2004, the Rev. David Malone denounced the wickedness in Portsmouth. With leaders of the recall movement standing next to him, with their heads bowed, Malone preached a sermon on the steps of the Municipal Building. In that sermon, “Protection and Deliverance of a City,” part of which is reproduced below, he said, “In the name of Jesus, we stand victorious over the principalities, powers, rulers of the darkness of this world, and spiritual wickedness in high places over Portsmouth, Ohio.” Austin Leedom later said Malone’s prayers on the steps were the turning point for the recall movement.

But while he was praying with leaders of the recall movement, Rev. Malone at the same time was disassociating himself from that movement. In a recorded interview with me, in his church office, not long after his sermon on the steps, Malone characterized the recall movement as mistaken and “divisive.” His prayers, he told me, had not been intended to help the recall movement. But if there was wickedness in high places, wasn’t using a special election to remove it not only totally constitutional but also morally obligatory? Apparently not, at least not in the mind of Rev. Malone. In his relationship to the “rulers of darkness” and to the followers of the prince of air who hovers satanically over Portsmouth, he appeared to be, if not hypocritical, at least contradictory.

There were those who believed Malone, in appearing to sit on the fence, was maneuvering for the upcoming mayoral primary. He was willing to denounce Evil, in general, but no crooked politician, in particular: “Holy Spirit, we ask you to visit our city and open the eyes of the people, that they may turn from the power of Satan to God,” he preached. But who in Portsmouth is Satan working with? Malone was not willing to be more specific. He was apparently trying to have it both ways, to please both his potential supporters in the recall movement but also powerful people in high places. If that was his strategy, his poor showing in the mayoral primary showed how politically ineffective fence-sitting can be.

The suspicion is growing that Malone’s political priorities take precedence over his moral and spiritual obligations, and as a result he is losing the trust not only of those recall advocates who prayed with him on the steps of the Municipal Building, but also of a number of others as well. Judging from his poor showing in the primary, he has forfeited much of the moral high ground he once occupied. The voters expect a man of God to be at least a cut above a politician, especially above a Portsmouth politician.

At the last city council meeting the ever solicitous city solicitor asked if any of those members of council who regularly meet in the office of the city clerk’s office prior to council meetings believed they were participating in a non-public and therefore illegal meeting of the council. When Malone blurted out “No!” to the solicitor’s question, many of the visitors in the chamber laughed. How did Malone interpret the laughter? Does he realize that in allowing himself to be used by solicitor Kuhn, acting mayor Kalb, and city council president Baughman that he is not only losing the respect of the populace but that he is also becoming something of a joke? Councilman Tim Loper was applauded at the last council meeting for saying he had been played for a dummie long enough. Loper was applauded for declaring his independence; Malone was laughed at for claiming he had done nothing illegal. Shouldn't that tell him something?

Judge Marshall had already pointed out, in ruling on the Marting sale, that whenever four council members get together there is a potential quorum; and if those council members discuss anything remotely related to city business that gathering constitutes a meeting, an illegal meeting since the public is not given the opportunity to attend. Clayton Johnson’s arranging to meet with members of the council in three’s in negotiating the sale of Marting’s was an obvious, crooked scheme to get around the “four’s a meeting” rule.

Pre-council meeting get-togethers in the city clerk’s office are another obvious way for illegal meetings to take place, and Malone should not give even the appearance that he is part of illegal meetings. He should follow the example of council members Bob Mollette and Tim Loper and not join with other members behind closed doors. And, as important, he should not join with those members of city council and mayor Kalb, who are attempting to deliver to Clayton Johnson a half of the whole loaf that Judge Marshall’s decision denied to Johnson when he ruled that the sale of the Marting building to the city had been illegal.

If ever the expression “the devil is in the details” could be said to apply, it applies to the sale of the Marting building, as well as to the machinations mayor Kalb and several on the city council are conducting to get around Judge Marshall’s ruling that the sale of the Marting building was illegal. The sale of the Marting building to the city was not only illegal, it was, from a religious point of view, illicit – a bastard project conceived in a law office in Portsmouth’s red light district. A minister of the gospel should not vote in favor of any ordinance that lends legitimacy to that illicit sale.

The mayor and two council members have been recalled as a direct result of the Marting scandal, which outraged voters, and for Malone to continue to add his support to a proposal that he knows will deliver a half loaf to Johnson will only add to the perception that he is still playing politics rather than following his religious principles.

Part of Sermon Malone delivered on steps of Municipal Building

I hope that those who believe in the power of prayer will pray for the Rev. Malone. When Baughman calls for a moment of silence at the beginning of council meetings, I hope that those who laughed at Malone will follow a more Christian path and pray for him, with all their might, for he was and still is a potential leader of obvious ability, and could yet be a key figure in the crusade against the forces of darkness and for the moral rejuvenation of our river city.

Anniversary of Bauer Recall

Front Page of Daily Times, 06/23/04

One year ago today, on June 22nd, 2004, the voters of Portsmouth recalled Mayor Greg Bauer from office by a 2 to 1 margin.

Several months earlier, around April 2004, I began using my new DV video camera to make a record of the recall process. I worked on editing the video as my teaching schedule permitted in the fall and winter of 2004. On March 16th, 2005, I showed Recall to the public in Flohr Hall at the Shawnee State Clark Memorial Library. Prior to that showing, the Communications Office of SSU put out the following publicity release based upon answers I had provided to their questions:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 11, 2005

Robert Forrey’s video essay Recall to premier at SSU

Shawnee State University’s (SSU) Robert Forrey, Ph.D., professor of English, has created a video essay, entitled Recall, regarding last June’s recall of Portsmouth Mayor Greg Bauer. A showing of the 60-minute documentary will take place on Wednesday, March 16, at 7 p.m. in the Flohr Lecture Hall, located on the first floor of the Clark Memorial Library on the SSU campus.

According to Forrey, the recall movement apparently began when Bauer summarily rejected Lee Scott’s attempt to get city assistance for the restoration of the old Columbia Theater, located on Gallia Street in downtown Portsmouth.

“Scott began an intensive investigation of city government and concluded it was rife with favoritism and corruption,” said Forrey. “However, the seismic event of the recall movement was the controversial sale of the Marting’s department store building to the city, for which Mayor Bauer was responsible.”

Forrey said he had audited a course on videography taught by Michael Barnhart, senior instructor of music at SSU, in order to learn the basics of making videos.

“Though I still have much to learn about the technology, and remain a novice about the art, I proceeded on my own, contacting those involved in the recall movement and members of the city government,” he said.

Incidentally, the key figure, Bauer, declined to be interviewed, in addition to his assistant, Jamie Tuggle, who is an SSU graduate, according to Forrey.

“I am embarrassed at how little I knew about local politics after living in Portsmouth for 15 years,” he said. “I suspect that many at the university know very little about the problems and politics of Portsmouth. One senior professor in business [Larry Essman] told me that until I learned about Portsmouth, its history, and its politics, I could not really understand the university. I now appreciate the wisdom of his observation.”

Forrey has spoken to representatives of Adelphia cable about showing the video essay on cable access, but no date has been set. [Adelphia is not going to air the video.]

“I have been reluctant to call what I created a documentary,” he said. Most of what are called documentaries are not, if by documentary is meant an objective record of something. What I have created and what most so-called documentary makers create is a video essay. Essays have a thesis, a point. I didn’t start out with a thesis; I thought I was just going to record on videotape what others said and felt and what the facts were about the recall. I was being naïve. There is no overall truthful objective record about anything, especially about something as heated and contentious as politics. There are just various people, parties, and points of view, competing with each other for a share of the truth.”

The showing will be followed by an open forum on the issues that led to the recall. [Most of that forum was later added to Recall.]

“Dr. Forrey’s video essay is an interesting look into the politics of Portsmouth,” said Jennifer Phillips, president of the Shawnee Liberals Association, the student group that is sponsoring the event. “People who live and work in the area should be interested in seeing it, and SSU students wishing to learn more about the city they live in will find it worth watching. The discussion that is to take place after the video is shown should be interesting and informative as well.”

DVD copies of the final cut of Recall (approximately 80 min.) are now available for circulation at the Shawnee State Library and the Portsmouth Public Library. A limited number are also available free through The Sentinel, the editor of which can be reached at aleedom@adelphia.net.