River Vices Election Issue

Vote No on the Marting Building, aka the City Center!

Click the link below to see a pdf version of the special election edition of River Vices, which is being distributed as a newspaper to homes in Portsmouth.

http://portsmouthcitizens.info/RiverVices/11-08ElectionEdition.pdf

Depending on your browser, you may have to lower the scale down to 75% or 50%. It is best viewed in the Google Chrome browser.

Errata: The blurred lines at the bottom left of page 1 should read "Kalb probably felt like he had been stabbed in the back by the other members of the Building Committee. Kalb got even by forming another committee . . ."  The date on the bottom right of page 1 should read "May 2006," not "May 2004." The percentages in the second paragraph on page 11 should read ".7 to 3.8 mills . . ."

 

440%

     All over Portsmouth, people have begun wearing a button that indicates the percentage of increase in taxes that the city government, with the support of the so-called Progress Portsmouth  Committee, is trying to put over on property owners.  The city auditor Trent Williams and the Progress Portsmouth Committee deny that it is an increase; they claim the 440% is simply a continuation of the existing property tax. They are not telling the truth. 

     The  current 2008  property tax in Portsmouth  is .7 mills. If the voters approve the City Center/Justice Center  projects on November 4,  the property tax will increase to 3.8 mills. That is more than a   440% increase, and that increase  will continue for 30 years, from 2010 to 2040. Don’t let the city government and the Progress Portsmouth Committee bamboozle you into thinking otherwise. Vote No on the Marting/Adelphia projects, as in the sample ballot below:

The Two Centers Scam

Harold Daub testifying before Ohio Elections Commission

 

     On Thursday, October 16, 2008, in Columbus, Ohio, in a face-off between Harold Daub, representing the reform-minded citizens of Portsmouth, and Austin Keyser,  representing the Progress Portsmouth Campaign Action Committee (PPCAC), the Ohio Elections Commission voted unanimously in a preliminary hearing that Daub had just cause, which is to say he was justified  in charging that the  Progress Portsmouth is not telling the truth in ads that claim  that the $12 million dollar cost of the City Center and Justice Center (the “Two Centers I will call them) will not require an increase in property  taxes.

 

     Those claims by Progress Portsmouth, made in mailings  and in numerous radio ads, are  gross distortions, if not outright lies. In a scheme that could only have been concocted by a couple of cleverly crooked Portsmouth lawyers, the Portsmouth City Council has  increased city property taxes for next year, 2009,  from the current .7 mills to 3.8 mills, a 440% boost. That increase is  to pay for a fire truck and other improvements in the Portsmouth Fire Dept. While a worthwhile acquisition, the  fire truck, in my opinion, is a stalking horse, or maybe  I should say a Trojan horse, because what the crooked lawyers have got  the city council to  do is to promise to extend  that one-time, one-year, 3.8 mills  Fire Dept.  property tax for 30 years to  pay for the Two Centers project,  provided the voters approve that project  on the Nov. 4 ballot.

 

      If the voters of Portsmouth don’t approve the “Two Centers,”   the tax rate will remain at .7 mills. So for Progress Portsmouth to say that the voters’ approval of  Two Centers will not result in an increase in taxes is a dishonest campaign claim. The 3.8 mills that will be in effect  during 2009 is not the base mark Progress Portsmouth, or the city council  should use. That 3.8 mill is a one-time extraordinary tax that would automatically expire at the end of 2009. The base line Progress Portsmouth and the city council  should use is .7 mills, not 3.8 mills.

 

     In addition to finding probable cause at the Oct. 16 preliminary hearing, the Elections Commission called for an expedited  full Commission hearing of the case, so that it may issue a formal public decision before the Nov. 4 election. The reason for the full Commission hearing is that the preliminary hearing uncovered several puzzling claims and inconsistencies in a formal statement Portsmouth City Auditor Trent Williams had issued on October 13. What follows is the relevant paragraph from the Auditor’s memo:

 

Earlier this year, the City incurred debt to pay for much needed fire safety equipment and included retirement of this debt in its 2009 tax budget with the allocation of approximately 3.1 mills with the Bond Retirement Debt Service fund. This existing millage will be collected from property taxes regardless of whether or not there is a Justice Center/City Center project. However, this millage will be reallocated, continued and used to retire bonded debt that will be issued to fund the cost of the Justice Center/City Center project if it is approved or will be used for the construction of an alternate facility if the proposed project is not approved (emphasis added).”

 

     It is not clear what legal authority  the city government would have  to continue the 3.8 millage and  to construct  an “alternate facility” if the Twin Centers are turned down by the voters.  Nor is it clear by what authority the Auditor says, in the same Oct. 13 memo, “If the Justice Center/City Center project is not approved, at this point, I cannot confirm that any alternate project would not require an increase in property tax rates.” So the Auditor claims the city has the authority to use the 440% tax increase for another building project, if the Two Centers is not approved by the voters, and, furthermore, that the new building project might require more than a 440% tax increase!

 

     The tone and point of view of Auditor Williams in his Oct. 13 memo makes him sound like the chief executive officer of the city, like the mayor, or even like the mayor on steroids. Knowing Auditor Williams to the limited extent I do, and being familiar with his prose style, I suspect he did not write this memo, or if he did that  it was dictated to him by someone else. Who might that someone else be? It was not the mayor. No, I believe it was written  by a lawyer, but not by the only lawyer in the city government, namely City Solicitor Jones. The lawyer who wrote or dictated the memo  was more likely a “Philadelphia lawyer,” that is a lawyer more clever by half than anyone currently in city government.

 

     Why the memo was written, if not by whom, is clear. As the opening sentence says,  “Over the past several weeks I have had several questions from citizens concerning the financing plan of the proposed Justice Center/City Center and its tax consequences.” But the memo was written  not just for clarification purposes; it was written to respond to mounting criticism of the murky financing of the Two Centers project. So the memo had a political objective, which was to  provide the Progress Portsmouth Political Action Committee with a legal argument when its representative, Austin Keyser,  appeared before the Ohio Elections Commission preliminary hearing on  October 16. At least several times at the Elections Commission preliminary meeting,  Keyser  in defending Progress Portsmouth’s claim that no tax increase was involved, had  referred to the Auditor’s Oct. 13 memo. In an attempt to pass the buck, he said it was not Progress Portsmouth  but the Auditor who first asserted that the  $12 million dollars that was going to be paid for the Two Centers project did not require an increase in taxes.

 

     But those Progress Portsmouth ads were written, broadcast, mailed, and published weeks before the Auditor released the Oct. 13 “clarification” memo. How could a document written after  the Progress Portsmouth ads  be the justification or legal basis for those ads? Whether the Auditor realizes it or not, it appears he is being thrown to the wolves. Now that the Elections Commission has found probable cause, Williams may be left holding the bag. If the "clarification" the Auditor signed his name to in the Oct. 13 memo is contradictory, murky, or deliberately misleading, it is he who will be held responsible by the people and possibly by the courts. Auditor Williams will have some explaining to do after he receives a subpoena to appear before the Elections Commission.

Auditor Trent Williams: 

Will he be left holding the bag for the lies of Progress Portsmouth?

Gutter Politics: Update

     Back in June of  2005,   as I was driving past the offices of Johnson and Oliver, I noticed then Senator Mike DeWine standing in the gutter in front of a DeWine for Congress sign. The DeWine running for Congress was his son, Patrick, who was embroiled in scandal and controversy at the time, having left his children and pregnant wife for his girlfriend, a Republican lobbyist. Thanks to his father’s connections,  Patrick DeWine had more campaign funds at his disposal than his three Republican  rivals combined, but he finished a distant fourth in the race for the nomination in the Second Congressional District. Republicans, to their credit,  rejected a gutter candidate. 

     But some Republicans  are still in the gutter.  The desperate handlers of John McCain, as he slips farther behind in the polls,  are waging a nasty, dishonorable,  gutter campaign, playing the race card, as George Bush, Sr. did against Dukakis with the Willie Horton ad, and as George W. Bush  did against John McCain in North Carolina in 2000, spreading the rumor McCain was the father of an illegitimate black baby. The rumors that are being spread now are that  Obama is a Muslim and a pal of terrorists. In Wisconsin, at a McCain-Palin rally, a man said,  “I’m mad. I’m really mad. And what’s gonna surprise ya is not the economy. It’s the socialists takin’ over our country. . . . When you have Obama, Pelosi and the rest of the hooligans up there gonna run this country, we gotta have our head examined.” Joe Klein of Time magazine called the tactics of the McCain campaign, which fanned these kind of reactions,  “a national disgrace.” Even conservative Republican columnists, such as George Will and David Brooks, were disturbed by the red neck fury of the McCain campaign and by his choice of the unseasoned and not too sharp  Sarah Palin as his running mate. 

     Here in Portsmouth, supporters of the City Center (Marting’s) and Justice Center (Adelphia) projects are resorting to gutter politics. Clayton Johnson was reportedly overheard  saying at the now defunct William’s Restaurant, where Mike Mearan owned the liquor license, that maybe it was time for another campaign like the one in 1980, when most of the city was mobilized by Johnson and others, including the  newspapers and radio stations, to harass and intimidate  three  councilmen who wouldn’t play ball on the Downtown Mall Scam. That was the proposed mall that was going to restore prosperity back to downtown Portsmouth, just as the Marting/City Center is supposed to do, and just as the $38 million dollar bridge to nowhere was supposed to do. 

Voice of Ignorance and Prejudice

     Gutter politics are being conducted at the county level as well. A hotheaded ignoramus who is on the payroll of the Scioto County government  has circulated by means of a Scioto County computer  an anonymous email that  claims atheists, homosexuals, and domestic terrorists are trying to take over local government. After forty years of teaching English, I think I can recognize by his  paranoid style and telltale problems with the possessive case,  who the particular emotionally disturbed, substance-abusing  anonymous emailer is. His accusations are the similar to  those at McCain-Palin rallies  where  Obama is denounced as a  “Muslim traitor”  and Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi as a “socialist.” 

     Practicing gutter politics, the Progress for Portsmouth PAC is using dishonest tactics in urging yes votes for the City Center and Justice Center. In a recent mailing, they claimed  that a Vote for the measure “will NOT increase your taxes.”  The “NOT”  is capitalized and underlined. WHY ARE THEY USING CAPITALS AND UNDERLINING?  Because they have something to hide. They are increasing our property taxes, but they are doing it in an underhanded way. On May 27, 2008,  the Portsmouth City Council  passed, on an emergency basis, $680,000 for the fire dept., for a new fire truck and for repair of the central fire station wall.  To pay for the $680,000 for the Fire Dept., the city council increased property taxes for the year 2009 from .70 to 3.1 mills, a 440% increase. What they are going to do, if they can get the voters to approve  the City Center/Justice Center project, is continue that   3.80 mills, or 440% increase,  for thirty years, from 2010 to 2040,  to pay for that project. City Auditor Trent Williams has admitted that property taxes are going to be increased substantially to pay for Marting and Adelphia property projects. “That is correct,” he responded when asked it 440% was the correct figure, according to the Portsmouth Daily Times. 

     In the face of a dire national and international financial crisis,  and in the throes of the worst economic meltdown since the Great Depression, they are trying  to  stick the property owners of  Portsmouth with a  $12 million dollar tax increase  to renovate the otherwise unmarketable Marting building  and the Adelphia properties. The Tanner Stone pornographic architectural drawings of these “phantom” buildings are in windows in downtown Portsmouth. Some businesses reportedly have put up the drawings reluctantly, under pressure from the “Progress Portsmouth” people, including Neal Hatcher and Terry Ockerman. Who is this character Ockerman? He  is the  Rocky Costellano of the Kalb administration. Costelano was the cigar-smoking Cincinnati fitness expert  with the Mafia shtick who, before he was arrested in Portsmouth for a DUI and dropped out of the local scene, claimed he had plans that would help bring prosperity to Portsmouth. What do we need the Mafia for in Portsmouth when we have the Chamber of Commerce and the SOGP, and now the Progress Portsmouth Committee? 

391% Interest Rates, 440% Tax Increases

     The mailings and radio ads of the  Progress Portsmouth Political Action Committee remind me of the deceptive campaign supporters of payday loans are conducting. The payday loans supporters  never mention in their mailings that they are after  a  391% interest rate on payday loans,  just as the Progress Portsmouth Committee does not admit in their mailings that they are after  a 440% increase in  property taxes. So here we are,  in the worst economic crisis in seventy-five years, and city and state governments all across the country are in desperate  financial straits, including the state of Ohio,  which has one of  the highest unemployment rates in the nation. And we are supposed to believe Portsmouth is an exception, that the city is in pretty good financial shape, that property owners here can afford a 30-year 440% increase in property taxes to pay  $12  million dollars for  the City Center/Justice Center projects. Ironton native  Mike Mearan said at a city council meeting that the 440% increase was really small change, and property owners  who didn’t think they could pay the increase should move out of Portsmouth.

Progress Portsmouth postcard with deceptive claim vote for Justice and City Center "will NOT"  increase  taxes.

Forbes Magazine recently decided Portsmouth was one of the eight worse cities of its size in the U.S. Kalb responded that Portsmouth was a city of progress. Well, maybe it is— for him. He put a 10% raise for himself in the 2008 budget, decided he needed a new city automobile to uphold the dignity of his office, and plans to occupy a corner office suite in the renovated Marting building, if the voters approve the City Center proposal. 

     Just as Republicans in the Second Congressional District did not fall for  gutter politics in 2005 and voted no on   Patrick DeWine, Republicans, Democrats, and Independents  should reject the gutter politics and vote no on the 440%  City Center/Justice Center scam on Nov. 4. Once we get a few more honest people on the city council and get a mayor who is not a puppet of the over-privileged of Portsmouth, as Bauer was and Kalb is, then maybe we can figure out what to do about the Municipal Building, which is really what’s at the heart of, and started, the gutter politics. Gambling is the eight hundred pound gorilla behind the gutter politics of Portsmouth.

Three Little Pigs and the Fire Truck

Once upon a time, there were three little pigs who were trying to waste millions of dollars of public money converting a decrepit 125-year old department store into a City Center. The courts had already declared the city’s purchase of the decrepit store illegal, and a few years later angry voters turned thumbs down on the building by a 3 to 1 margin. That’s when one of the three pigs came up with a great idea.

 

“Hey," he said, “everyone loves a fire truck. Let’s increase property taxes from .7 to 3.1 mills, or 440%, to buy a fire truck.”

 

“A fire truck?” the puzzled second pig said.

 

“Sure. It will be like a stalking horse.  Once we have that one-year 440% property tax increase on the books, we’ll  continue it for another 30 years to pay for the renovation of the department store.”

 

“Brilliant," the second pig said. “We can tell the public there won’t be any new taxes because we’re just continuing the old Fire Truck Tax.”

 

“Right," the first pig said. “We’ll tell them ‘Your vote for the Justice and City Center will increase the value of our city, not your taxes.’ We’ll tell them it’s not going to cost them a dime.”

 

“But do you think they’ll fall for that?” the third pig asked, expressing his doubts.

 

“Sure they will," the first pig said. “People aren’t like us pigs. They’re so stupid they don’t even know how to set an alarm clock.”

 

“You know there’s still something that confuses me," the third pig said.

 

“What’s that?” the first pig said.

 

“What’s a stocking horse?” the third pig asked.

 

“It’s not a stocking horse, you dope," the first pig said. “It’s a stalking horse. S-T-A-L-K-I-N-G.”

 

“What’s a stalking horse?” the third pig asked, still confused.

 

“A stalking horse is a horse you hide behind when you’re hunting," the first pig said.

 

“So you can sneak up on them?” the third pig asked. 

“Yes," the first pig said. “So you can sneak up on them and tax them to death.”

 

A-Marting We Will Go!

Howard Baughman entering Marting building.

(This is a reposting of a blog from Jan. 13, 2005.)

The Marting building is like a Potemkin Village. Potemkin was a Russian Field Marshall who purportedly erected fake facades of villages along the travel route of Empress Catherine II during her tour of the Crimea. Potemkin wanted to impress her by pulling the wool over her eyes. Marting’s is Portsmouth’s Potemkin Village. The eastern and northern sides of the building are covered with a false brick façade. That façade hides the true condition of the Marting building (or the Marting buildings, because there actually three old buildings behind the facade.).

Mayor Kalb was quoted in the Portsmouth Daily Times (4/22/06) on why he changed his mind about the Marting building, which he said he was against, even though he voted for it, and then he changed his mind again and was for it. “I thought we were talking about a wood-framed building," he said. "We’re not. We’re talking about a concrete structure.”  “Don’t take any wooden nickels,” is a popular expression, only for Kalb it was “Don’t take any wooden buildings.” If a building has a brick and concrete structure, it is much safer than a wooden one.

 But wait a minute. If concrete is so good, how come the Municipal building is falling down? It’s not that old, compared to the Marting building. The Municipal building was built in 1934. The Marting building was built in 1883. That makes the Marting building 51 years older than the Municipal building. The concrete in the Marting building is 51 years older than the concrete in the Municipal building. Concrete technology had come a long way in the half century between 1883 and 1934. In 1883 concrete was primitive compared to 1934 concrete. In fact, “concrete” may be a misnomer for the structure of the Marting building. Structural engineers had learned how to strengthen poured concrete, to reinforce it and make it more resilient. But 1883 predates poured concrete; the foundation of the Marting building is brick and mortar, not poured concrete.

Let me see if I’ve got this straight. Mayor Kalb wants the city to move out of the Municipal Building because it is falling apart and is unsafe even though its not wooden.

Howard Baughman, now president of the Portsmouth City Council, testified that the reason the council rushed through the purchase of the Marting building, in 2002, was not because they were trying to pull a fast one on the public but because it was dangerous for city employees to work a day longer in the Municipal building. To quote his testimony in court, “it is important to get out of the building we’re now in because it’s unsafe and it’s not healthy for the workers that work there. And I believe it was important for that reason to do it as quickly as possible.”

As Mayor Kalb told Times reporter Jeff Barron, the reason he was initially opposed to purchasing the Marting building was because he thought its frame was wood. If the mayor sounds like he doesn’t know what he is talking about when he talks about structural engineering, remember his only previous experience was as a grocery clerk at Kroger’s. We shouldn’t expect him to know about the fine points of wooden and concrete structures, not even the fundamentals.

But buildings are not only about what materials they are made of but also about whether they contain asbestos, mold, and other harmful pollutants. Asbestos was one of the original concerns about the Marting building. Mold was also. But then the public was told there was no problem with asbestos or mold.

The photo above shows what’s behind the walls in the interior of Marting’s. The foundation of the building is brick and mortar, rather than poured concrete. This is what the “foundation” of the 125-year-old building looks like. This is what is behind the Potemkin facade of the Marting building, one of the hidden nooks and crannies where danger may lurk. The moldy, unhealthy air around the brick and mortar foundation smells like it is 125 years old. An Egyptologist, who explores inside pyramids, not a structural engineer, is what Marting’s needs. This is the kind of foundation city officials want to build a City Center on at a cost of millions of taxpayer dollars. The City Center plans show how ignorant its promoters are of the past and how little regard they have for the future and for the health and safety of the public and of city workers. For them, the Marting building must be the site of new city offices at all costs. The public must be persuaded there is nothing wrong with the building that millions of dollars in renovation costs won’t cure.

Phantom Gallery, Con Artists

The recklessness of the promoters of the City Center were evident in their plans to hold a “Phantom Artists" exhibit in the Marting building the first weekend in October, which was  a month before the election that will decide the fate of the building. Somebody tipped off the State Fire Marshall, who put the kibosh on the building being used for anything. “We certainly would not want to place anyone's safety in jeopardy, nor would we want the city to have to pay for expensive and time-consuming repairs," responded the director of the Portsmouth Area Arts Council. Encouraging local artists is a good thing but using them as political pawns, as the promoters of the City Center are doing, is not. The Phantom Artists exhibit is being put off indefinitely. That’s what the voters should do on Nov. 4: Vote No in the City Center and put off doing anything with the Marting building until the current con artists in city government are either recalled or voted out of office and replaced with honest public servants.

The Marting Building:

Portsmouth’s Potemkin Village

The Marting building is like a Potemkin Village. Potemkin was a Russian Field Marshall who purportedly erected fake facades of villages along the travel route of Empress Catherine II during her tour of the Crimea. Potemkin wanted to impress her by pulling the wool over her eyes. Marting’s is Portsmouth’s Potemkin Village. The eastern and northern sides of the building are covered with a false brick façade. Just as that façade hides the true condition of the Marting building (o the Marting buildings, because there actually three)

Mayor Kalb was quoted in the Portsmouth Daily Times (4/22/06) on why he changed his mind about the Marting building., which he said he was against, even though he voted for it, and then he was for it. “I thought we were talking about a wood-framed building. We’re not. We’re talking about a concrete structure.” He was first following the expression “Don’t take any wooden nickels," only for him it was “Don’t take any wooden buildings.” If a building has a brick and concrete structure, it is much safer than a wooden one. But wait a minute. If concrete is so good, how come the Municipal building is falling down? It’s not that old, compared to the Marting building. The Municipal building was built in 1934. The Marting building was built in 1883. That makes the Marting building 51 years older than the Municipal building. The concrete in the Marting building is 51 years older than the concrete in the Municipal building. Concrete technology had come a long way in the half century between 1883 and 1934. In 1883 concrete was primitive compared to 1934 concrete. In fact, “concrete” may be a misnomer for the structure of the Marting building. Structural engineers had learned how to strengthen poured concrete, to reinforce it and make it more resilient. But 1883 predates poured concrete; the foundation of the Marting building is brick and mortar, not poured concrete.

Let me see if I’ve got this straight. Mayor Kalb wants the city to move out of the Municipal Building because it is falling apart and is unsafe even though its not wooden.

Howard Baughman, now president of the Portsmouth City Council, testified that the reason the council rushed through the purchase of the Marting building, in 2002, was not because they were trying to pull a fast one on the public but because it was dangerous for city employees to work a day longer in the Municipal building. To quote his testimony in court, “it is important to get out of the building we’re now in because it’s unsafe and it’s not healthy for the workers that work there. And I believe it was important for that reason to do it as quickly as possible.”

As Mayor Kalb told Times reporter Jeff Barron, as quoted above, the reason he was initially opposed to purchasing the Marting building was because he thought its frame was wood. If the mayor sounds lhe doesn’t know what he is talking about he talks about structural engineering, remember his only previous experience was as a grocery clerk at Kroger’s . He wouldn’t know not only about the fine points of wooden and concrete structures but even the fundamentals.

But buildings are not only about what materials they are made of but also about whether they contain asbestos , mold, and other harmful pollutants. Asbestos was one of the original concerns about the Marting building. Mold was also. But then the public was told there was no problem with asbestos or mold.

The photo below shows what’s behind the walls in the interior of Marting’s. The foundation of the building is brick and mortar, rather than poured concrete. This is what the “foundation” of the 125-year-old building looks like. This is what is behind the Potemkin facade of the Marting building., one of the hidden nooks and crannies were danger may lurk. The moldy, unhealthy air around the brick and mortar foundation smells like it is 125 years old. An Egyptologist, who explores inside pyramids, not a structural engineer, is what Marting’s needs. This is the kind of foundation city officials want to build a City Center on at a cost of millions of taxpayer dollars. The City Center plans show how ignorant its promoters are of the past and how little regard they have for the future and for the health and safety of the public and of city workers. For them, the Marting building must be the site of new city offices at all costs. The public must be persuaded there is nothing wrong with the building that millions of dollars in renovation costs won’t cure.

Phantom Gallery, Con Artists

The recklessness of the promoters of the City Center were evident in their plans to hold a “Phantom Artists “ exhibit in the Marting building the first weekend in October, which is a month before the election that will decide the fate of the building. Somebody tipped off the State Fire Marshall, who put the kibosh on the building being used for anything. “We certainly would not want to place anyone's safety in jeopardy, nor would we want the city to have to pay for expensive and time-consuming repairs," responded the director of the Portsmouth Area Arts Council. Encouraging local artists is a good thing but using them as political pawns, as the promoters of the City Center are doing, is not. The Phantom Artists exhibit is being put off indefinitely. That’s what the voters should do on Nov. 4, Vote No in the City Center and put off doing anything with the Marting building until the current con artists in city government are either recalled or voted out of office and replaced with honest public servants.