In a revealing interview in the Portsmouth Daily Times (Nov. 7, 2007), Marty Mohr said a number of foolish things, as he so often has done in the past when he shoots his mouth off, illustrating the point that one of the reasons Portsmouth is in such bad shape is our local politicians are not only dishonest they’re also dumb. What follows are seventeen New Year’s resolutions Mohr might make to make up for his dumb and dishonest mistakes.
1. I will not say Marting’s is “an extremely sound building,” as I did in the Nov. 7, 2007 Daily Times interview, when I had earlier said, in an interview in the Columbus Dispatch in June 2004, that the Marting building “ain’t worth anything.”
2. I will not say “They [the voters] really didn't vote it [the renovation of the Marting building] down,” because every damn fool including one as big as Jim Kalb knows they did.
3. I will not say that the Marting referendum “didn’t have nothing to do with stopping the building or using the building,” when everyone in the city, including my crooked cohorts on the City Council, acknowledge that the referendum did do just that.
4. I will not say that the accomplishment I’m most proud of is that I helped “negotiate a settlement with the Richard D. Marting Foundation to return the building and $1.4 million from the 2002 purchase of the former Marting’s Department Store,” because that “settlement” was in fact the most dishonest and stupidest act of my political career and guarantees that I will be remembered as one of the most crooked nincompoops in Portsmouth’s political history.
5. I will not say that I plan “to be part of the decision making” process, because the man I hoped would enable me to be part of the decision making process was defeated for the Sixth Ward council seat by Rich Noel, who is going to be his own man on the council, not a stooge of Clayton Johnson’s.
6. I will not say that I am getting out of politics for my wife’s sake and then in the same interview announce that I plan “to be part of the decision making,” because how can I be part of the decision making without being involved in politics?
7. I will not make the City Council a forum in which I defend myself against adultery charges because council meetings should be for official business.
8. I will not say “Politics sometimes can be a little cruel to you and your family,” when it has been me who has been cruel to my family by responding to those adultery rumors, directly and indirectly, over and over again, in public, long after those rumors started and long after they would have been forgotten if I had ignored rather than repeatedly denied them.
9. If the shoe fits, I will follow the example of Second Ward Councilman, Rev. David Malone, who admitted he was an adulterer, asked forgiveness from the Lord and from his wife, and right went on speaking in tongues and acting like nothing had happened.
10. I will not “vehemently deny the [adultery] accusation on repeated occasions,” as the Portsmouth Daily Times reported, since vehemently denying it on repeated occasions suggests I have a guilty conscience.
11. Because of those adultery rumors, I will find some smarter way of saying what my wife would do to me if I did not get out of politics than “I will have to find someplace else to sleep.”
12. I will not say that I hope “to have the public comment portion of City Council meetings banned before I leave office” because I don’t want to be remembered as the councilman who put an end to free speech.
13. I will not say again that “Every progressive city in the country has stopped that,” meaning stopped free speech, because that statement, like so many other stupid things I have said, is without proof or foundation.
14. If I ever hold public office again, I will not act like a member of the government in Rome during the reign of Mussolini or in Karachi during the reign of military dictator Pervez Musharaff.
15. I will not butt in if I overhear “people who are interested in doing business with city” talking about the Shawnee Sentinel, telling them, “These [Sentinel] guys are crazy,” because those people who are considering doing business with the city may just decide it is me, not the Sentinel people, who is crazy, and that they would be foolish to do business with a city that has a loudmouth fool like me on the City Council.
16. I will not call citizens who take the time and trouble to attend City Council meetings “crap.”
17. To summarize, I will not in 2008, since so many Portsmouth citizens already find me an embarrassment to the city, continue to bring up the subject of adultery, continue to accuse my critics of being crazy, continue to lie about the Marting building, continue to try to stifle free speech, continue to call people crap, and continue to make a public fool of myself.
