The First Commandment

Because councilmen Kevin W. Johnson and Rich Saddler are reportedly trying to get the city to convert the Marting building into a city hall, I am  reposting "The First Commandment" from 2006 to remind readers that when it comes to unloading property off on taxpayers, some things never change.

The First Commandment of Portsmouth’s over-privileged is “Local government shall not construct a new public building when a doctor, lawyer or businessman has a worthless old building that can be turned into a public building at great public expense.”

Here are five recent examples of the First Commandment at work:

Thatcher House 

(1) First Ward councilman John Thatcher and his wife, a former trustee of Shawnee State U., owned an unoccupied old house on Franklin Blvd that they had trouble selling in Portsmouth’s sluggish real estate market. The solution? They sold it, for much more than market value, to SSU as a “temporary” house for the SSU president. When the temporary president’s house was later sold, to a doctor, SSU and the tax-payers of Ohio took a $50,000 loss, not counting the furnishings and redecoration and the loss of taxes for the years the house was off the tax rolls.

Camelot Drive

(2) A doctor had an unoccupied aging Camelot Drive house, with serious structural problems, which he was having trouble selling in Portsmouth’s chronically sluggish real estate market. The solution? He sold it to Shawnee State U. at an inflated price as the permanent home for the president of SSU, even though the house is far from campus, has inadequate parking space, requires large expenditures for repairs and refurbishing, and is unstably situated on the side of a hill down which it is inclined slowly to slip. The sale was “negotiated” by the chair of the SSU board of trustees, George Clayton.

Adelphia Building

(3) Herbert Singer, an absentee landlord, living in Los Angeles, had an unoccupied building on Washington St., the former Adelphia building, on which he owed back taxes. The prospects of any business wanting to rent or buy that property were very remote. The solution? He got the city to accept the worthless Washington St. building as the next headquarters for the Portsmouth Police Dept. That way the absentee landlord in L.A. would not be responsible for real estate taxes, past and future, and he could claim a tax write off. Neil Hatcher, the absentee landlord’s agent, would get his cut. Chief Horner, always willing to play ball in a crooked game, readily agreed to this arrangement.

Welcome Center

(4) George Clayton’s Kenrick’s catalogue store on Second St. went belly up when the Grant Bridge went down, and he was stuck with an old, empty building that he had no hope of renting or selling but still had to pay taxes on. The solution? With his political connections, he unloaded it on the county, which obtained it with pork provided by Rep. Rob Porkman and the Dept. of Agriculture. The building, on which millions have now been spent, is named The Welcome Center, but tourists complain it is seldom open and when it is it is unwelcoming. What it really is is the headquarters for the Southern Ohio Growth Partnership and the illegitimate and ugly architectural offspring of the marriage of pork and political corruption.

Marting Building

(5) The Marting Foundation, a speciously philanthropic front for Portsmouth’s boss, Clayton Johnson, a cousin of George Clayton, had a large white elephant on its hand: the empty Marting building, a former department store, at the corner of Sixth and Chillicothe St. The problem is a familiar one in Portsmouth: the property is unsellable and unrentable but the taxes on it still have to be paid. “It ain’t worth anything,” as councilman Mohr told a reporter for the Columbus Dispatch. The solution? Get the city to buy it for nearly $2 million and convert the now 124-year-old department store into a municipal building. The city bought it, at the inflated price, but the sale was ruled invalid by the courts. Then the Marting Foundation arranged a fall-back deal whereby the city would keep possession of the building, provided the city met certain conditions laid down by the Foundation. Imagine a con artist dictating the terms under which he will return the money he has fraudulently obtained. Like the Old Maid in the card game, the Marting building is last thing the Foundation wanted to end up in its hands. If it gets approval in a special referendum that will take place on May 2, our corrupt city government plans to go ahead and convert the former department store to a municipal building.

What these five examples demonstrate is how Portsmouth’s over-privileged classes faithfully adhere to the First Commandment: “Local government shall not construct a new public building when a doctor, lawyer or businessman has a worthless old building that can be turned into a public building at great public expense.”

Snuffy's Sugjestonions for New Sitty Seal

                 Official Portsmouth City Seal

     which our officious First Ward councilman

            Kevin W. Johnson wants to change

   

        Kevin, how do you feel
        About this new sitty seal?
        Do you think it duz the trick,
        Or am I just a redneck hick
        Who really duzn’t know
        His ass from Ohio?









  What Porchmuth needs is more class,
  More wine tastin’ and less grass,
  More Scarlit Tan’gers,
  Less fly-by-night shitty man’gers.
  In short, less sons-off-guns
  And many more Kev’n Johnsons.







“The devil is running Scioto County.”
              Ohio Governor John Kasich




         While we’re at it, Kevin,
        Talkin’ ‘bout Porchmuth as heaven,
        Lets keep things on the levil
        And not furget the devil
        Witch Kasick & Co. feel
        Should be on our sitty seal.









A sitty seal should have a hero,
But on that score we’s come up zero.
Greeks had Hurlculies, Romuns Ceesar,
Persha had Irksies, Russya the Zar.
‘stead of Promeeth’us, the fire bring’r,
We got the guy who gives us the fing’r.








A pritty flour don’t need no gildin’
But a sitty seal should have a bildin’.
I mean what’s a seal wif out an edifuss?
Its like a hernia wif out a truss.
I’m nom’natin’ Martings, I am,
Our sitty’s greatist hystorical scam.

Heers D’rek, folks, Mr. Kleen Gov’ment.
Who was surely heaven-sent.
But his resyoumay left out somethin’:
His crime and suspendered sentencin’
‘bout witch the search commitease
Sed knot a word—what a sitty!










The best and brite-test should be on the seal,
Like Kalb who closed the Ameresco deal.
With Kalb and Malone to help with math,
The sitty wont have to take a bath,
And D’rek Allen, if he’s not to dense,
Wont get ‘nother suspendered sent’nce.









‘bove all The Mall must be on the seal
‘cuz we believe The Mall wuz the reel deal.
Youse knows yur from Porchmuth if youse b’lieve
In The Mall, for who’s death we greeve
Even tho’ it finely came a cropp’r
In the mind of owr fingerin’ d’velop’r.










Speekin’ of suspendered sent’nces
And crooks who didnt do penences
And who us’n wants on the sitty seal,
I’m gonna nom’nate Tom Bihl
‘cuz wen alls sed and done
Toms a real crooked sun-of-a-gun.









Jes’ like we furget the drawers and hewers,
So we furget the sitty’s overflowin’ sewers
And the local awffall that flows threw ‘em.
Oh, how we wish we never knew ‘em!
Shure, we want sewers on our seal
‘long with the afourmenshunned Tom Bihl.









Iff’n you turn back the old clock
Shure, Plimuths got its hysterical rock
But thay says every dogs got its bone
And we’ve got a rock of our own.
Shure Jim Kob stole it from Kentucky,
Frum where’s it wuz a layin’ in the mucky.








Dont think we got sumpin’ to hide.
Shure we got our Bonnie ‘n Clyde,
As soon as plug some won as steal.
We’s proud to have ‘em on are seal.
There mobs the infumus S.O.G.P.
Bin robbin’ us since 1963.

Snuffy Smith Chooses Chaw Over City Manager

Deer Reeders,

Thay’se toll me thays dont allow chaw so's I seys no thank ya pleeze pollightly I dont want the shitty man'ger job that bad cuz I got more 'portant things too doo than takin' ordures from those ded beets an loosers an dui's an adullterators an faled antic deelers on that shitty clowncil so let won of those disparate final lists make a fool of thererself by taking ordures frum the likes of that con kob  feller whose bin milkin' the cash cow that's all ways grazn' outside the shitty bilding sins he qwit steelin' dimes frum the til at Croakers. Them fire peeples the wons runnin' that place. Jus take a sqwint at this  Porksmuth Times clippin' I foun' in the owthous that warn't never used sins 1987 wen them fire peeple went roun’ Porksmuth in thare admirable younifoms (everone of thems an admirable from the cheef on down) scarin’ the bejeesus out a old fokes haf to death buy fires so's they cood get a fore present tax increase "the proceeds of which are to be used exclusively  (I'm qwoting the Times heer now witch is why it maybe hard to unnerstan’) are to be used exclusively for the salaries of police and firefighters." Say dint thay pass anuther so-called saftee tax increese again just a cupull of yeers ago to finenance the same fire and please?  An that’s not awl they got passed bak in ‘87 cuz they changed the shitty charter to (let me qwote agin) mandate (that’s the word in the Times) a staff of 44 for each of the departments." Aint that a kicker? Pritty soon they’ll bee man dating same sex benefits jus you weight and sea. I’m gonna send the clippin’ to the three final lists for them to reed how long this changin’ bak and fourth from mare to shitty man’ger’s been goin’ so they no how much insecuritease cums with the terrortory. I’m also gonna send  a cupple of lynx to River Vices by this furry fellow witch they ken reed more ‘bout this shitty man’ger busyness.

Yourse trewly,

Snuffy

Clik on Reedin' List fur Candydates

All Aboard the Twentieth Century Limited

City Manager for Portsmouth: Deja Vu All Over Again

Gerlach Says No to City Manager

Citizens for Bitter Government

from the front page of the Portsmouth Daily Times, Nov. 3, 1987

From Pill Mills to Counseling Centers

For a new post, "Doctors and Drug Dealers Battle for Addicts," click here.

Seventh Heaven, Seventy Virgins

For the latest post, switch to River Vices 2  (click here).

Shit Happens

For the shitty way the city council is treating

our unelected Mayor,  click here

TRASH TALK: THE RAT AND THE UNELECTED MAYOR

The Rat and the Unelected Mayor

The new post can be found on River Vices 2, at

http://rivervices2.blogspot.com/2013/06/trash-talk-rat-and-unelected-mayor.html

All Aboard the Twentieth Century Limited!

To read a new post on Kevin W. Johnson and city government, click here.

Kevin W. Johnson: Selling Out

"Kevin W. Johnson: Selling Out": click here to switch to River Vices 2.

Duncan's Brain

I am in the process of changing the layout of River Vices. Until those changes are finished, I have created River Vices 2 for new postings. To see "Duncan's Brain,"  the first posting on River Vices 2, click here.

City Council Appointees: Portsmouth’s Perennial Problem

Mark Twain showed river towns have more than their share of vices. RIVER VICES shows Portsmouth, located at the confluence of the Ohio and Scioto Rivers, is no exception.

Mike Mearan: the Most Notorious Appointee

The Portsmouth  Daily Times reported (18 May 2013) that a second candidate, Lance L. Richardson,  is going to throw his hat in the ring for the Third Ward council seat being vacated by Nick Basham. Does that mean he wants to be appointed by the council or that he wants to be a write-in candidate in the regular election? As far as I know, Richardson has previously shown no interest in becoming a member of city government the old-fashioned way, by running for office. That is often the case with appointees. They run for office the way Rosie Ruiz ran the 1980 Boston Marathon, by skipping the grueling race but showing up at the finish line. The “ring” Richardson threw his hat into consists not of Portsmouth voters but the remaining five Portsmouth city council members whom the city charter authorizes to appoint replacements to the city council. Back on 26 June 2006, Richard Noel, president of the Concerned Citizens Group, wrote a letter to the Portsmouth City Council requesting that a measure be placed on the ballot calling for the term for city council members be reduced from four to two years. Up until 1985, Portsmouth City Council members served two-year terms, but then that provision was changed in that year by charter amendment. The council rejected Noel's proposal and declined to allow the voters decide whether to go back to two-year terms. 

       City Council = House of Representatives

The Founding Fathers intended that the U.S. House of Representatives be “the people’s house,” the body of the federal government that would be directly elected by, and therefore most accountable to, the people. It was to be the most representative and the most held-accountable body of the federal government. In the Federalist Papers, Hamilton and Madison wrote, “As it is essential to liberty that the government in general should have a common interest with the people, so it is particularly essential that the branch of it under consideration [the House of Representatives] should have an immediate dependence on, and an intimate sympathy with, the people.” The best way they could think of to insure that the House of Representatives would remain “the people’s house,” was frequent elections. “Frequent elections are unquestionably the only policy by which this dependence and sympathy can be effectually secured” [emphasis added], they wrote in number 52 of the Federalist Papers. In regard to frequent elections, they quoted, in number 53, the proverb “that where annual elections end, tyranny begins.” But that proverb was an old one, and conditions had changed since ancient Greece. Elections every year were impractical when many voters were spread over large areas. Somewhat reluctantly, because they preferred annual elections, the Founding Fathers decided that the maximum term for a representative should be biennial, that is, two years.

                               Local Government in Ohio

When Ohio designed its state government, it closely followed the federal model, with a General Assembly that consisted of a House of Representatives and a Senate. Following the federal model, terms for the Ohio House, the “people’s house,” were two years. Most local governments in Ohio usually followed the state model. In local governments, the legislative body, the counterpart to a House of Representatives, is the city council. Following the example of the House of Representatives, two-year terms were the general rule for city councils. But a number of cities and towns have shifted to a mixture of two-year terms for ward representatives and four-year terms for at-large council members; other communities have shifted to a four-year term for all council members. The Columbus City Council has four-year terms, but the city councils of Cleveland and Cincinnati retain two-year terms. While there are exceptions, generally smaller communities are more likely to have four-year terms for city council, the larger ones two-year terms. Why the difference?

Possibly because larger urban areas with a history of municipal corruption and machine politics see two-year terms as a way of removing those council members who turn out to be bad apples before they spoil all the apples in the barrel. Cities and towns that have been plagued by corruption and that distrust politicians as a class want city councils to be on the short leash that two-year terms represent. A political machine or, in the case of Portsmouth, a clique, would more likely arise and persist in a city where members of city council had four rather than two years in which to scheme, collude, and corrupt. Communities that don’t have a history of crooked politics don’t want to go through the trouble and expense of having elections every two years. But large cities like Cleveland and Cincinnati may have learned that biennial elections are worth the trouble because they make the city council more accountable. They learned from experience, as we have bitterly in Portsmouth, that at least some politicians are not to be trusted. The same thing that makes four-year terms seem sensible in some communities makes them seem unwise in others. The Concerned Citizens believed four-year city council terms is asking for trouble, which is what Portsmouth got when it changed to four-year terms in  1985.

                                     Checks and Balances

The late Howard Baughman entering Marting Building
during an open-house for the public

The three branches of government that the Founding Fathers established—the legislative, the executive, and the judicial—were intended  to serve as checks and balances on each other. The counterparts of those three branches of government are discernible in local government in the mayor or city manager (executive), the city council (legislative), and the city solicitor and city courts (judiciary). Unfortunately, too often at the local level, the three branches of government, rather than checking and balancing each other, are in cahoots, forming a tyranny that, with the connivance of the local media, represses and exploits the public they are supposed to be serving. If you want to see a cornpone version of the kind of tyranny our Founding Fathers were concerned about, Portsmouth provides a textbook example.  The Portsmouth city council, the mayor, the city solicitor, the auditor, with the collusion of long-time city clerk Jo Ann Aeh,  would regularly meet illegally in her office just before council meetings like a gang of safe-crackers planning a job. It was at one of these illegal backroom meetings that Marty Mohr orchestrated the appointment of Jerrold Albrecht to the city council as Austin Leedom reported online  in The Sentinel, dated 6 May 2007 (click here).  (For other Mohr antics, clear here.) While attending one of these closed-door illegal meetings, then councilman Marty Mohr was photographed through the city clerk's open door Joe Ferguson. The mugging Mohr responded defiantly by clenching his teeth for the camera. 

Marty Mohr mugging for camera

Just as Mayor Bauer predicted chaos would reign if he was recalled from office, and just as council president Carol Caudill said, “God help the city of Portsmouth” after she was recalled, the president of the city council in 2006, Howard Baughman, who was facing a recall, warned of the consequences if the  city council returned to two-year terms. Baughman remarked at the 25 June 2006  city council meeting, “There’s a learning curve when you become a city councilman.”  He did not think council members could possibly come to understand budgets in only two years. The real reason Baughman and others opposed two-year terms was not learning curves. Two-year terms were unacceptable because they might have  helped loosen the grip of the clique of lawyers and developers who controlled  the city through their puppets on the city council.  

The only other defense beside “learning curves” Baughman offered against two-year terms was that, “It would just be constant turmoil and turnover every two years.” Though all council members would run for election at the same time, it is unlikely that they would all be defeated. And if they were, that might be the best thing for the city. If biennial elections bring constant turmoil, how have the U.S. House of Representatives, the Ohio House of Representatives, and the city councils of many cities in Ohio managed to survive for as long as they have with two-year terms? Where is the turmoil in the following two-year term Ohio cities: Alliance, Amherst, Athens, Blue Ash, Chillicothe, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Cuyahoga Falls, Lorrain, North Royalton, Norwood, Parma, Silverton, Warren, Wilmington, Wyoming, etc? There has been a lot of turmoil in the Portsmouth City Council since 1985  and much of it has been the result, directly and indirectly, of four-year terms and the recalls that would not likely have taken place if council members had faced the electorate every two years.     

Honest capable people in public office have no reason to object to two-year terms, because they can be assured of reelection if they do a good job. It’s the dishonest council members, and especially those who began their careers by being appointed rather than elected, who want the four-year terms to continue. Four-year terms for city council members helped perpetuate the political clique that controlled Portsmouth on behalf of the now discredited Southern Ohio Growth Partnership (SOGP).  I don’t know whether  Lance  Richardson  would turn out to be a good or bad councilman, but why did  he throw his hat in the ring only now, as a potential appointee, rather than run in a regular election, as I would think anyone not trying to cut corners  and short-change democracy would prefer to do? Let us hope Richardson, a self-proclaimed tax expert, is not another of those shipwrecked characters who save themselves from drowning in a sea of insignificance by clambering aboard the raft of city government that is already crowded with other failures, dreaming no doubt that the game of musical chairs might result someday in their becoming mayor, as Malone did when he won the booby prize as a result of Mayor Murray’s recall.

When you consider the council members who began their careers as appointees, the list is not encouraging.  Baughman was originally an appointee, when his friend and his next-door neighbor John Thatcher, conveniently resigned as Fifth Ward councilman. And then Baughman himself resigned before he could be recalled, making the appointment of John Haas possible in the endless appointee game of musical chairs that is orchestrated by Portsmouth’s powerful, unelected clique. Jerrold Albrecht first got on the council by appointment, and so did the notorious shyster Mike Mearan. James R. Saddler is the most recent appointment. Saddler had not shown any interest in city government previously, except when he had to appear in court for numerous speeding violations, including a DUI for which his license was suspended. For all those who prefer to begin their political careers by applying to the council for a vacated position rather than run in an election, we should have buttons that say not “I Voted,” but rather “I Applied.” But in any campaign to reduce the terms on city council to two years, Mearan should be the poster boy and he should be proudly wearing an “I Applied” button. 

Current First Ward councilman Kevin W. Johnson tried to begin his political career in Portsmouth when he applied to council to replace Tim Loper after Loper was forced to resign his seat when it was proved he was not living in the First Ward, the ward he represented, in violation of the city charter. To replace Loper, the city council appointed Mearan, arguably the most scandalous appointee in the history of the city,  rather than Kevin W. Johnson. 

I find the political jockeying to become council president that takes place among those council members, some of  whom were originally appointees, unseemly. When Jane Murray was recalled, David Malone, as president of the council, replaced her in spite of the fact he had finished fourth behind her in the previous mayoral election. Malone had been elected to the presidency and next in line to be mayor, by appointees such as the lawyer John Haas, his fellow bankrupt, who is yet another council member who was appointed  after  failing to succeed in his chosen field. It is almost as if there is an unwritten requirement that candidates must be failures, if not bankrupts,  before they will be considered as appointees. Who with any self respect would want to owe their presence on the council to an appointment by such a council? To revise the famous quote by Groucho Marx, “I don't want to belong to any city council  that would accept me as a member.”

Prostitution Culture

[In response to “Non-Profits Ruining Neighborhoods,” an important posting on Jane Murray’s blog (click here), I am reposting (below) a 2005 River Vices article “Prostitution Culture.”]

Naked Truths

    Perhaps reacting to criticism that it does not do investigative reporting, that it leaves that to the Shawnee Sentinel while it masters the art of cover-up journalism, the Portsmouth Daily Times ran a four-part series on prostitution in Portsmouth by staff writer Phyllis Noah. The title of the series was “Naked Truths: the Story Behind Portsmouth’s Prostitution Culture.” Wow!

    Let the hooker who is without sin write the first 4-part series on Portsmouth’s prostitution culture. For a reporter on the Daily Times to write an expose of Portsmouth’s prostitution culture is like Winona Ryder writing on the sins of shoplifting or Monica Lewinsky on the evils of oral sex.

   There is a limited definition of prostitution, which is selling one’s body for money, and a general meaning, which is selling one’s soul for an unworthy cause or corrupt group. The phrase “prostitution culture” suggests something more than hookers on John St. It suggests the more general definition of prostitution. Given its notoriety and conspicuousness, prostitution is the best metaphor for the political culture of Portsmouth, and I have used that metaphor a number of times in this blog.

   Perhaps to bolster flagging circulation, the Daily Times marketed the 4-part series by calling it in a touch of tabloid titillation “The Naked Truth.” It sounds like the front page not of the Portsmouth Daily Times but of the New York Daily News. Naked? You would no more want to see the prostitutes of Portsmouth naked than you would want to see former councilwoman Carol Caudill, the Sassy Lassie of the Internet, as the centerfold in Playboy Magazine. Truth? The Daily Times will do everything it can to increase its sclerotic circulation except tell the truth about Portsmouth’s “prostitution culture.” The prostitute culture of Portsmouth consists of far more than the hookers of John St. TheDaily Times fears the truth the way Dracula does the cross because telling the truth about Portsmouth’s prostitute culture would mean ending its role as the prostitute to the over-privileged Johns who control the city. The over-privileged of Portsmouth turn as many tricks as the prostitutes on John St., but they do it in the name of philanthropy and public service.

The Master Plan: The Worse the Better

    The way the master plan for Portsmouth works, the worse things get in the city and the more blighted it becomes, the better it is for the over-privileged who profit from the pork that the city becomes eligible for. As shown on 3rd St., where Hatcher’s abated student dormitories were built, the temptation to declare healthy streets and neighborhoods blighted is too hard to resist when millions of dollars of pork and profits can be accumulated. One of the economic side benefits of prostitution in Portsmouth is that it provides public sector employment for those whose jobs are to deal with the many streetwalkers. It is another illustration of the rule that where Portsmouth is concerned, the worse things get the more public funds will be pumped into the city. The economy of Portsmouth relies heavily on the public funds that can be appropriated to incarcerate criminals, house addicted prostitutes and their children, house the aged and college students, and welcome tourists and, possibly, gamblers.

    There is precious little about prostitutes in the series “The Naked Truth” and a lot about drugs and drug counselors and drug authorities. The message of the series is that Portsmouth’s prostitution problem is really a drug problem. Of the dozen people Noah interviewed, few of them were prostitutes, and those few were discussed in relation to drugs. Honesty in advertising requires that if you are going to run a 4-part series on drugs that you call it a four-part series on drugs, and not try to pruriently imply it has anything to do with nakedness.

Going in Circles

    If you explain the prevalence of prostitution in Portsmouth by drugs, how do you explain the prevalence of drugs in Portsmouth? Noah’s explanation is that prostitution is a serious problem because of drugs. What Noah offers is not an explanation but an excuse of why there is so much prostitution in Portsmouth. But as Municipal Judge Schisler told Noah, the drug problem is no worse in Portsmouth than elsewhere. If that’s the case, then why is there so much more prostitution in Portsmouth? Drugs do not explain why Portsmouth is, per capita, the prostitution capital of Ohio. To explain Portsmouth prostitution by drugs and Portsmouth drugs by prostitution is to go in circles.

   Prostitution is called the world’s oldest profession because it has been around for thousands of years, thousands of years before there was a drug culture. The economic, social and psychological reasons for prostitution – the sexist attitude toward women, the chronic lack of employment in this area, the failures of the public education system, the breakdown of the family, the salaciousness of popular culture – theDaily Times does not consider these among the causes of prostitution. Everything is attributed to drugs, a neat and simple explanation that implies drug dealers are the cause of prostitution.

   Are there no other culprits than shadowy drug dealers? What about real estate developers? Prostitutes play an important role in Portsmouth “redevelopment.” They accelerate the deterioration of declining neighborhoods. Along with eminent domain, they spell doom for neighborhoods in which they are allowed to exercise their constitutional rights. They are already beginning to drift away from the bulldozed John St., which no longer offers much cover for johns or prostitutes. A lonely tree is all that is left for them for soliciting. How many hookers can one tree provide shade for? Hookers are drifting further and further into surrounding neighborhoods, neighborhoods where their constitutional rights are not likely to be as protected as they were on John St. About all that’s left standing on John St. is that tree under which smoking prostitutes wait for Johns. Tobacco dwarfs all other drug problems in the U.S., but because it is legal and highly profitable the news media focus on other drugs.

    I first began talking to people in the John St. area several years ago. They were reluctant to talk to a stranger, because they feared that they would be targeted for retaliation by the police and the powers-that-be. Many residents had moved out of the area by that time because prostitutes and drug-dealers had moved in, making life impossible for ordinary families. Count on it, there will be near zero tolerance for prostitution and zero support for constitutional rights in the John St. area once ground is broken there for Neal Hatcher’s shopping mall.

    One resident of John St. told me several years ago that it appeared to him the police and city officials were turning a blind eye to the prostitution and drug-dealing in that neighborhood because it served developer Neal Hatcher’s purposes. Drugs and prostitutes were being ignored, this resident suspected, because their activities supported Hatcher by driving down property values and driving out residents. If this resident had expressed his views to a Daily Times reporter, I doubt they would have gotten into its pages. When it comes to these kinds of “naked truths” about the over-privileged of Portsmouth, or about the shenanigans of the SOGP, or SSU, or the SOMC, or its other clients, the Daily Times prefers a cover-up, or at best one side of the story.

Exploiting Prostitutes by Protecting Them

  The respect that law enforcement officials have for the constitutional rights of the prostitutes of Portsmouth, as reported in the 4-part series, is nothing short of astonishing. Who would have thought that the Portsmouth police department and the local courts were such hotbeds of civil libertarians? If only the police and city officials were as determined to protect the constitutional rights of those who attempt to exercise the right of free speech at city council meetings where citizens are ejected by the dictatorial president of the city council if they so much as mention the name of a particular councilman or a particular developer or a particular lawyer. If only they were as determined to protect the rights of those who attempt to exercise their right to recall elected officials, and of those who offer themselves as candidates in recall elections, as they do to felons who are advised of their right to run for and hold public office by the city clerk and the city solicitor, even when those rights are reportedly misrepresented and misinterpreted.

    If there were a Pulitzer prize for cover-up journalism, for not unearthing local corruption and incompetence, for not exposing Portsmouth's prostitution culture, the Daily Times should have won one by now for reporting like that in “Naked Truth.”

Nick's Career of Musical Chairs

Nick’s now the pride of Lawrence County,

He moved in the band’s van fast.

But how long will this move last

Before he starts throwing chairs,

Before he moves to another county,

In his career of musical chairs?

Portsmouth, Ohio: Best and Worst

It’s the best of cities,
It’s the worst of cities;

It’s the city of upright people,

The city of the toppled steeple;

It’s the city of the crucifix,

The city of the cocaine fix;

It’s the city of churches and chimes,

The city of the rotten Times;

It’s the city of chronic crisis,
The city of river vices;

It’s the city of piety,

The city of notoriety;

It’s the city of squeaky clean,

The city of blatantly obscene;

It’s the city of the punctual,
The city of the dysfunctional;

It’s the city of the midnight oil,
The city of the wacky Doyle;

It’s the city of concerned citizens,

The city of crooked politicians;

It’s the city of crusading bloggers,

The city of pettifoggers;

It is the city of Christers,
The city of shysters;

It’s the city of floodwalls,
The city of pitfalls;

It’s the city of antique shops,
The city of chop shops;

It’s the city of old coots,
The city of young prostitutes;

It’s the city of work,
The city of shirk;

It’s the city of on-the-go,
The city of who-you-know;

It’s the city of the first brewery,
The city of  Mountain Dewery;

It’s the city of blue skies,
The city of meth highs;

It’s the city of hospitals,
The city of pill mills;

It’s the city of aspirin,
The city of Oxycontin;

It’s the city of hope,
The city of dope;

It’s the city of new schools,
The city of old fools;

It’s the city of pork-rind heiresses,
The city of Temponerases;

It’s the city of every kid passes,
The city of remedial classes;

It’s the city of the evangelical,
The city of the ungrammatical;

It’s the city of right principles,
The city of wrong past participles;

It’s the city of drawers and hewers,
The city of backed-up sewers;

It’s the city of live wires,
The city of suspicious fires;

It’s the city of the opera singer,
The city of the slumlord Singer;

It’s the city of black and Jew,
The city of Klan residue;

It’s the city of Scottie’s potties,
The city of Mearan’s hotties;

It’s the city of the father’s dereliction,

The city of son’s addiction;

It’s the city of drug-dealers on the run,
The city of the chief’s drug-dealing son;

It’s the city of the dedicated teacher,
The city of the adulterous preacher;

It’s the city of okey dokey, 
The city of kin in pokey;

It’s the city of Meals on Wheels,
The city of drug deals;

It’s the city of whites and blacks,
The city of mansions and shacks;

It’s the city of Good Will,
The city of ill will;

It’s the city of cooked books,
The city of unbooked crooks;

It’s the city of in the tank,
The city of American Savings Bank;

It’s the city of tightening the belt a notch,
The city of the state imposed Fiscal Watch;

It’s the city of solvency,
The city of bankruptcy.

                              II

It’s the city of the river breeze,

The city of radioactive retirees;

It’s the city of the beauty queen,
The city of the pregnant teen;

It’s the city on the dole,

The city of the doughnut hole;

It’s the city of Crispie Creams,

The city of Jones’ schemes;

It’s the city of poverty,
The city of obesity;

It’s the city of exercise classes,
The city of fat asses;

It’s the city of Waller and Massie,
The city of sassy lassie;

It’s the city of the Welcome Center to greet you,
The city of estate planners to cheat you;

It’s the city of real bingo halls,
The city of imaginary malls;

It’s the city of Clayton’s tools,
The city of Mearan’s mules;

It’s the city of Kalb gone to pot,
The city of Bihl, who got caught;

It’s the city of Hospice,
The city of injustice;

It’s the city of Pampered Pets,
The city of unlicensed vets;

It’s the city of the opportune knock,
The city of the pilfered rock;

It’s the city of the proud American,
The city of the Ku Klux Klan;

It’s the city of restaurants starting,
The city of prohibited farting;

It’s the city of the appraisal sham,
The city of the Marting scam;

It’s the city of Kalb on his three-wheeler,
The city of the wheeler-dealer;

It’s the city of preacher and parson,
The city of incest and arson;

It’s the city of priest and minister,
The city of lawyers who’re sinister;

It’s the city of winks and nudges,
The city of inebriated judges;

It’s the city of praying for prosperity,
The city of the chronic austerity;

It’s the city of food stamps,

The city of hungry tramps;

It’s the city of honorable pursuits,
The city of crooks in suits;

It’s the city of flood wall murals,
The city of pork-lined urinals;

It’s the city of Southern hospitality,
The city of redneck hostility;

It’s the city of he who has, gets,
The city of he who hasn’t, bets;

It’s the city of bingo and lottery;
The city of gambling and besottery;

It’s the city of crying need,

The city of undying greed;

It’s the city of speaking in tongues,
The city of smokers’ lungs;

It's the city of scarlet tanagers,
The city of fly-by-night city managers;

It’s the city of bikers collecting for toys,
The city of bikers making too much  noise;

It’s the city of victory torches,
The city of sagging porches;

It’s the city of dreams,
The city of schemes;

It’s the city of fame,
The city of  shame; 

It's the city of two-faced Sallie S,
It's the city of sanctimoniousness;

It's the city of the Counseling Center,
The city of naysayer and assenter;

The city of unctuous and pious ooze,
The city of the Samaritan Ed Hughes;

It’s the city of do-and-dare,
The city of I don’t care;

It’s the city of  integrity, 
The city of S.O.G.P.;

It’s the city of enough is enough, 
Its the city of the fall-guy Huff;

It’s the city of the Master Plan,
The city of the can-can man; 

It’s the city of shoes and shoelaces,
The city of heels in high places;

It’s the city of vegetarian fruits,
The city of councilmen in cahoots;

It’s the city of the Golden Rule,
The city of hobbling Home Rule;

It’s the city of the mythic mall,

The city of the bingo hall;

It’s the city of churches and chimes,
The city of the lying Times;

It’s the city of the champion of freedom,
The city of Austin Leedom;

It's the city of the doughty Daub,
The city of the redneck Kalb;

It’s the city of no respect,
The city of Jeff Albrecht;

It’s the city of the blessed and cursed,

It’s the city of the best and worst.

                                                                         Robert Forrey, 2010-2014

Scioto County and the "Portsmouth Boys"

Ohio's  88 counties color coded according to health rankings 

Scioto County and the “Portsmouth Boys”

The health rankings which the Health Policy Institute of Ohio, with the support of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, makes about Ohio's 88 counties, on the basis of available statistics (click here),  is probably  about as comprehensive an evaluation of an Ohio county’s overall health, or quality of life, as we can get. Ohio’s health rankings,  include a lot of categories. It is based on statistics regarding, among other things—to list them alphabetically—air quality, alcoholism, diabetes,  drug use, exercise,  health insurance,  junk food, level of education, obesity,  poverty,  premature death, quality of drinking water, recreational facilities, sexually transmitted diseases, single parent families, smoking, teen pregnancy, unemployment, vehicular deaths, and violent crime. If it is not complete, it covers a whole lot of things, because a  whole lot of things affect the health of a county.

Which Ohio county is first in the most recent (2013) Health Policy Institute health rankings? Gauega, up in the northeast corner of the state. (Just as Scioto is a native American word, meaning deer, Gauega is  also a native American word, meaning raccoon.) I had never heard of Gauega until I saw it ranked as the  healthiest county in Ohio. In 2008, Forbes magazine rated Gauega the fourth best county in which to raise a family, fourth not in Ohio but in all of America.

Which Ohio county is at the bottom of the most recent health rankings? If you haven’t already heard, and you’re from Scioto County, you might be able to guess which county is  88th. Yes, Scioto County.   When all the categories are averaged out, Scioto is at the bottom. Why? No one factor could account for why. There are lots of factors—economic, cultural, ethnographic, political— some of which go way back in time.

Scioto County’s economic problems are profound, and the chronically depressed economy may be the most important reason why it  is at the bottom of the health rankings.  After the Second World War, the development of the so-called global economy led to  the wholesale migration of American industries abroad, where the cost of labor and raw materials were much cheaper. The global economy was the death knell for the industries in south-central Ohio, particularly for the steel and shoe industries of Scioto Country. But the cultural, ethnographic, and political  factors worsened the county’s  economic problems.

From my observations of almost a quarter century residency, the culture in southern Ohio, usually called Appalachian, is exclusionary rather than inclusionary, collusive rather than competitive. The people tend to be independent but not especially industrious, to be creative and colorful but not particularly enterprising. Clayton Johnson was reportedly overheard to say the locals never learned how to use alarm clocks. The culture of south-central Ohio tends to keep everything in the family, using the term family in its broadest sense.  That culture is distrustful of outsiders, to new ideas and methods. It is, in the language of anthropology, endogamous, which is the tendency to marry within the group, as opposed to exogamous, the tendency to marry outside the group. But “married,” sociologically speaking, means keeping things within the group, not just the family, and not just women but opportunities and advantages, and especially in the last half century, the money and pork government provides to the poor and unemployed of Appalachia.   If Grapes of Wrath dramatizes the predicament of the Oakies in the Great Depression, Taps for Private Tussie (click here) does the same for Appalachians in the early 1940s, during the Second World War.

Portsmouth Boys

The “Portsmouth Boy,” to borrow a term from Frank Lewis, is at the apex of the endogamous, if not incestuous, culture of Scioto County. Economically and politically, rich, gray-haired Portsmouth Boys control Portsmouth, the county  seat. Because of chronic depression, Scioto County has been on the dole, directly and indirectly, for about a half century. The Portsmouth Boys decide for what and to whom government money is distributed. The Marting Foundation is the most influential and notorious of the local private organizations distributing government money.

The Scioto County Welcome Center is the unofficial city hall  created by and for the Portsmouth Boys with government money. I liken it to the social clubs that the Mafia (who play poker instead of bingo)  created in lower Manhattan (where I once lived). The social clubs were fronts for rackets and for the laundering of money derived from those rackets.  The Scioto County Welcome Center laundered government money. Bob Huff was chief executive officer of the Welcome Center, but he was not a Portsmouth Boy and he ended up being the  fall guy who was blamed when the racketeering and the laundering of government money came to light.

On the day the new Grant Bridge was opened in October 2006 (click here), after taking longer to build than the Golden Gate Bridge, the cut-up Steve Hayes reported on WNXT that Bob Huff was outside giving passing motorists the finger (a photo shows Huff waving, not giving the bird, as if he was taking credit for the bridge). Bob Huff, not a Portsmouth Boy,  was the one who ended up getting the finger after which he got out of town, pending prosecution, assuming that ever happens.

Bob Huff waving, before he got the finger

“He Who Pisses”

Instead of Scioto, an Indian word meaning deer, a more appropriate native name for the county might be, Squunck, a native word  for skunk.  Squunck means, literally “he who pisses,” which is what the former redneck mayor Jim Kalb said I was not worthy of—not worthy of being pissed on. Our current black, philandering, unelected mayor, the Rev. David Malone, is not much better. Both of them in their parasitical careers, have declared bankruptcy, a fact that Frank Lewis, of  the Daily (except Mondays) Times (PDT), does not mention. Kalb and Malone are just the kind of unsuccessful Portsmouth Boys, the kind of moral bankrupts, that the rich Portsmouth Boys help get elected to public office. Kalb and Malone, the dregs of the Portsmouth Boys, found in public office a refuge from the shame and failure of their insignificant lives, failure being  the unpardonable sin of American life. Kalb would have long ago been fired from Kroger’s, where he was a lowly grocery clerk, if it had not been for the protection provided by the Teamsters, the union founded by a former Cincinnati  Kroger employee, Jimmy Hoffa. Kalb’s second wife at one time got a restraining order against him. If only we could take out restraining orders against  the rich Portsmouth Boys. That might at least begin  to improve the health, the quality of life, in Scioto County.

The impassioned Austin Leedom’s has denounced the most recent general manager of the PDT, Mike Messerly, as a tool of the Portsmouth Boys. Since he is not a Portsmouth Boy himself, Messerly’s job is no more secure than was that of  any of his many predecessors. Although it is  only a shadow of what it once was, the local media, with Steve Hayes blatantly at WNXT and Frank Lewis more insinuatingly at PDT, have been instrumental in helping the rich Portsmouth Boys remain in control of the county and city. The consequence of  the rich Portsmouth Boys remaining in control is that  Scioto County will remain 88th, at the bottom of Ohio’s health rankings and we will continue to live in Skunk Holler. The county map above, with the color coding, shows that most of the bottom tier of the counties are concentrated in south-central Ohio, with Scioto (abbreviated SC) at the bottom of the map and in the rankings (see below), suggesting what part of the human anatomy it is analogous to. In Scioto County we are married not to the Mob but to the Portsmouth Boys.

Ohio County Health Ranking