Building Trouble: 2837 Scioto Trail

[In view of the recent indictment of a SOLACE officer, I am reposting a piece I wrote on SOLACE'S connection with the putative anti-drug crusading Police Chief Charles Horner back in October 2012.]

2837 Scioto Trail, former pill mill, becomes SOLACE headquarters

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

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

The Ladies of Solace not saying no to Horner

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

Adelphia building, on Horner's architectural trail of tears

Derek Allen: From Pigwa to Porksmouth

      Our piggish city manager is at it again. Here is the  overly generous package he received when he was hired in 2013—an annual salary of $105,000; a $50,000 lump sum severance payment when he departs; health, disability, and life insurance benefits; payment for all unused leave days; and a $2500 annual vehicle allowance. He received all this in spite of his spotty work record. He had trouble holding down administrative jobs. In addition to being fired from one job,  he had been convicted of having perjured himself in testimony related to his conflict of interest when he was serving as the Assistant City Manager of Piqua. He received a suspended jail sentence and fined for perjury.

     For the last two years he has as city manager been getting away with highway robbery because he has continued to make his home in Piqua while working part time and receiving big bucks  as Portsmouth’s carpetbagging  city manager. But that has not satisfied him. Now, like a highwayman  he is trying to hold the city up again. What he is trying to do is get the city to provide him with a $250,000 life insurance policy, a five week annual vacation, a $600 increase in his automobile allowance, up to $3100, as well as having the city pick up his annual membership in the Ohio City/County Management Association, which illegally helped him get hired as city manager in Portsmouth and which the city picked up the tab for him to attend its annual conference. In making his latest requests for more money and benefits, I would not be surprised if Allen had learned at that conference how to further gouge the city where he's city manager. 

      The chief argument being made by Allen and  his supporters on the city council  to support increasing Allen’s vacation time and other benefits is that he works like hell. Allen’s chief supporter  is Kevin W. Johnson, the Primary Prevaricator on the city council. Johnson is quoted in the PDT report as saying, Allen needs more time off because he does not want to see him “worn out.” Johnson made similar observations when Allen had not been city manager  very long. “I’m just going to try to take some more time away,” Allen himself is quoted in the PDT. “I am exhausted.” I suspect that Allen is exhausted because he is already spending too much time away from Portsmouth, what with the commuting he is doing  between his job and his home in Piqua, and if it is true that he works long hours on the days he is in Portsmouth it is because of the long weekends and the other days he’s in Piqua, and there is no sign he is going to move. 

The photo of Allen's Piqua home on the Miami County website (2007)

      I just checked electronically again with the Miami County auditor’s office, which still lists Allen and his wife as the owners of 805 Boone Street, in Piqua. The biggest commitment Allen could have made to his job as city manager was moving to Portsmouth, but he rented a pad from Neal Hatcher, which speaks volumes about what his financial priorities and personal preferences are, as Kevin W. Johnson’s announcement that he will run for Scioto County Commissioner, which pays about $55,000 annually, shows what his are.

      To live in the same city where Allen is city manager is to have your intelligence constantly insulted. In response to the report  in the PDT, one longtime Portsmouth resident said, “This guy refused to live in Portsmouth! Now he wants the citizens to pay for his refusal to live in Portsmouth. This guy  must think the citizens of this town are real country bumpkins!”

Relevant River Vices Posts

Derek Allen's Cock-amd-Bull Open Letter. (Click here)

The Carpetbagger from Piqua. (Click here)

Portsmouth's Carpetbagging City Manager (click)

Missmanajin' the Dang Sewers

Iz thare 'nother sity in 'merica

that haz more relijion

and less moral'ty than Porchmuth,

or haz the likes of Kevin W. Jonsun,

who, after messin' up on sity counsil,

throes hiz hat in the ring

fur the county commissioners

where the payz more to his likin'?

Iz thare 'nother sity in 'merica

that 'points a leprechaun imp

to itz corrupp sity counsil,

a notorious drug-deeling pimp

who, when he wuz called a shyster,

sued fur defecation of caricature,

which produced lotz and lotz of lafter.

In any other sity he’d a bin in stir.

Iz thare 'nother sity in 'merica

who’d hire a convicted purjuror,

a carpitbugger from Pickwa,

as itz hi-payed sity manajer?

Iz thare 'nother sity in 'merica

that haz more addicks purr capita,

includin' old ladyz in tennis shoos

and an ordrained won in taffeta?

Iz thare 'nother sity in 'merica

ware bankruptures and crooks govurn,

and ware the Wall of Fame clames

itz hospitil and suthurn

wen we all nose its Applatchin,

fur better or more orphin wurse,

ware McCoys talk only to Kobs

and Kobs do nothing but curse?

Iz thare 'nother sity in 'merica

ware the drawers and hewers,

like in Joshooa 9:23,

cant even manij the dang sewers?

Iz thare 'nother sity in 'merica

that haz more trouble flushing it?  

Iz thare 'nother sity in 'merica

that iz more full of it?

         Snuffy Smith, 2015

Dammit, Dreck Allen, my outhouse washed away!