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Below: Dr. Robert Forrey comments
on BIG BAILOUT TAX
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. `
River
Vices
Saturday,
March 19, 2011
I
should begin by saying that public employees are not the cause of
the financial
crisis
the country is
currently
in. The police, firefighters, teachers, sanitation workers and the
unions who
represent
them
have
not caused the crisis. Greedy Wall Street speculators caused the
crisis,
but
instead of being
blamed
and punished for wrecking the economy, the speculators are back at
it again,
making
billions,
while
millions of Americans still cannot find jobs and many thousands have
lost their homes.
But
if public employee unions did not cause the country’s
financial crisis, Portsmouth’s
public
employee
unions contributed
to our city’s
crisis by colluding with our corrupt city officials.
In
return for the
political
support of public employees, corrupt officials “negotiated”
contracts with those
employees
that
the city and the taxpayers could not afford.
With
our city auditor cooking the books and juggling accounts, and with
the mayor regularly
increasing
water rates, the city government hid the fact that it was operating
at a deficit.
But
it
became
clearer as the Great Recession deepened that the city could
not afford the contracts
with
its
public employee unions, particularly the contracts with the
police and fire departments.
Increasing
water
revenues were no longer enough to pay the piper, so now the
Portsmouth city
government,
on
behalf of the public employees union and the police and fire
departments in particular,
is
asking
voters
in the May primary to agree to a six-tenth of one percent increase
in the city
income
tax.
The
city is calling the proposed income tax increase a “Safety Levy” so
that they can accuse
those
who
vote
against it of jeopardizing the safety of the city’s residents.
The city government is
resorting
to s
care
tactics, hoping Portsmouth residents will be panicked
into voting for the levy. But a
more
accurate
name
for the proposed income tax increase would be the Bailout
Levy, for what the city
government
is
trying
to do is bail itself out of the financial mess it has got itself by
providing contracts
that
it couldn’t
afford.
Safety is not the issue, the fiscal irresponsibility of the city
government is.
The
city has been increasing water revenues for about ten years.
Since the city can increase
water
rates
without
voter approval, it did so repeatedly, using the Water Department
like an addicted
gambler
might
an
ATM in the lobby of a Las Vegas casino. Only it is not the gambler
who is depositing the
money
in the
ATM:
it is the taxpayer. According to Austin Leedom, Mayor Bauer raised
water rates five
times
in the
six
years he was in office, and Mayor Kalb raised them five times in the
five years he was
in
office. One
of
the first acts of Mayor-unelect David Malone was to to
increase water rates by 18%,
which
may be
the
largest percentage increase in water rates in the history of the
city.
“
As
long as we have water,” Leedom wrote on the Sentinel website,
“the City Officials,
employees
and
their
friends have an abundance of money. Just raise the water
fees, transfer the money
collected
into
other
funds such as Street Maintenance, Flood Defense, Parks and
Recreations, Service,
Police,
Fire,
Health,
and so on. The only trouble with this type of financing,
transferring and spending
improperly,
is
that it is illegal and someone may go to the prison for a long
vacation.” Prior to raising
water
rates,
Malone
had rehired head of the Waste
Water
Department, Rick Duncan, whom Mayor
Murray
had fired
for
incompetence.
Duncan was one of what I have called the water rats, and his return
to
the
sinking ship
of
city government illustrates Malone’s financial incompetence. Sewer
rates go up as
water
rates go up.
Voters
should reject the Bailout Levy in the May Primary. What the citizens
of Portsmouth
need
is not
a
levy but a levee, a financial flood wall to protect the city from
the water rats who keep
on
raising their
water
and sewer
rates
and now want to increase their income tax rate.
The
biggest water rat is City Auditor Trent Williams, whose official
title should be City
Enabler.
Williams
has
used a bookkeeping system that could be called Borrowing from the
Taxpayer to
Pay
the Rats.
Following
the path of the previous auditor, Tom Bihl, who was indicted for the
misuse
of
public funds,
Williams
has taken funds from the Water and Sewer Departments to help
pay the salaries
and
operation
expenses
of city government, which Austin Leedom claims violates state law.
Williams is
borrowing
from
the
Water and Sewer Departments to help pay his own salary and to help
pay for the new
city
SUV that he
drives.
How in the world can a city auditor justify having a new city
vehicle, especially
during
a
Great
Recession? I can’t imagine what he needs it for, except perhaps to
drive around in t
he
sewers of
Portsmouth
to meet with his prime constituency—those water rats! Williams
is not a
workaholic,
he’s
a waterholic who can’t leave the stuff alone. His favorite watering
hole is not
Dickens
Pub but the
Lawson
Run Sewer.
Williams
has deceived the public about the size of the deficit, and even
denied that there
was
a deficit in
the
past
two years. If the state auditors determine that there were deficits
in 2009 and 2010,
and
if the 2011
budget
also shows a deficit, which Williams has publicly admitted it will,
then state law
requires
that a
municipality
with three consecutive deficits be put on Fiscal Emergency, which
requires
state
surveillance
and
supervision. Scioto County has already been declared in Fiscal
Emergency, so it
would
not be a
surprise
if Portsmouth, the county seat, is also. If the city is placed
on Fiscal Emergency,
the
poster
child
should be City Auditor Trent Williams, the best friend the water
rats ever had.
The
Hidden
Costs
Governments
at all levels, in Ohio and throughout the country, are in a
financial crisis,
and
the costs
connected
with public employees are being scrutinized. The cost of
Portsmouth’s public
employees
are
larger
than the public might be aware. On her informative blog on 7
Feb. 2011(
click
Jane
Murray pointed out that it is not the salaries of city employees
that are blowing holes
in
the city budget,
it’s
the benefits; in other words, it’s not the obvious but the hidden
costs that is the straw
that
is breaking
the
taxpayer’s back. Murray used as her example an unnamed captain on
the Portsmouth
police
force.
His
2009 base salary was $33, 988, but when she added up the benefits
and other hidden
costs,
the
captain
cost taxpayers over $90,000 for that one year. The captain may be
well worth the
$90.000
plus,
but
it is not just what an employee is worth but also what the city can
afford to pay him
that
needs to
be
taken into account.
Murray
could have used as an example somebody on the force making twice
what the
captain
made,
but
choosing the captain provided her with an approximation of the
average of the force
as
a whole.
Murray
calculated that the captain cost the taxpayers $92,670, at a minimum, but I
will
be even
more
conservative, ignoring some of the other minor expenses connected
with him,
such
as sick
leave,
funeral leave, education expenses, etc. By my conservative estimate,
the captain
cost
the
taxpayers
just a little over $90,000 in 2009. Using that conservative figure,
I made the
following
pie
chart to illustrate the breakdown in percentages of the cost of the
captain to the city.
His
base salary,
it
should be noted, represented only about one third of his
complete cost to the taxpayers.
His
pension and health insurance combined made up about another
third. And the third
third
consists of
overtime,
vacation, etc. (A similar chart should be made for the full cost to
the taxpayers of
members
of city
council.)
What one police captain cost the city of Portsmouth in
2009: $90,000+
Until
Mayor Malone and the Portsmouth City Council begin to reduce the
hidden costs
of
public employees
to
Portsmouth taxpayers, voters should not increase taxes by a dime. A
case can be made
that
the city must
increase
taxes to help balance the budget, but only if the city
government also makes painful
cuts
in city
expenses,
which Mayor Un-elect Malone is not prepared to do.
Passing
the buck as usual, the city council asked Mayor Malone to submit a
2011 budget
that
reduces
the
cost of city government by 20%. By the Council’s calculation, that
was the reduction
needed
to balance
the
budget. But Malone came up about 3% short of the figure, which
translates into at the
very
least
a
$1.4 million dollar deficit. ((Malone is notoriously mathematically
challenged, so we will
have
to wait
and
see if it is just $1.4 million. Those are not the kind of
figures he’s good at.) Malone
said
he
would
not furlough or discharge anybody in the police or fire department
because of his
“concern
for
public safety.” The city of Camden, New Jersey, which has among
highest crime rates
in
the country,
discharged
half of its police force, but Dana Redd, was not recalled. Having
since got a
handle
on
Camden's
budget, she recently rehired some of the police and fire
personnel.
Murray’s first act as mayor was to discharge not half the
police force, but three department
heads.
Malone’s
first act as mayor was to rehire the controversial Rick Duncan whom
Murray
fired
for
incompetence.
She was concerned about the safety and well being of residents who
repeatedly
got
sewage
in their homes, and she fast-tracked a basement protection program
in a matter
of
months.
Though
he had been in government for more than 10 years, Duncan
had done nothing to help these
same
residents. We might ask, why did he circulate recall petitions
when he reporte
dly
had a high
paying
job at the USEC site in Piketon? Maybe it had to do with the fact
that, according
to
a
reliable
source, nowhere in the private sector (nor in most other public
sector entities)
does
an
employer
pay 24% toward an employee’s retirement and all the health insurance
benefits.
Not
in
this
day and age. But that is exactly what Duncan had received. The
city’s annual
contribution
to
his
pension is around $12,000. He contributes nothing. And he reportedly
never paid
any
part of his
insurance
premium until 2009 when he began paying $50/month for a family
plan.
I
don’t think Malone rehired Duncan because of safety concerns.
He rehired him for
political
reasons
and
at a cost to the taxpayers of more than $90,000. Why did
Malone do that? Because if
Malone
has
any chance of being elected in the next mayoral campaign,
he knows he cannot
alienate
public
employees,
especially members of the police and fire departments. Malone
cares more
about
staying on
the public payroll than he does about public safety. Malone doesn’t
want
the police and fire
unions
campaigning
against him. He would rather risk the city being put on Fiscal
Emergency
than
jeopardize
his
chances of continuing as mayor of Portsmouth. He doesn’t want to go
back to
having
his wife,
who
is also on the public payroll, being his chief means of
support. The problem is the
losers
of Portsmouth
who
gravitate to politics get elected with the help of the rich white
trash who control
the
city. The
losers
then do everything to stay in office, including becoming the
lapdogs of the
rich
white trash.
Instead
of negotiating with public employee unions, the politicians
throw money at them.
The
money
they
throw is the public’s, of course,
not their own, which is why they throw so much of it.
Contrast of City and University
Contracts
As
an officer of the Shawnee Education Association, I was involved in a
number of
negotiations
between
faculty
and Shawnee State University. Unlike the city employees, the faculty
had to
negotiate
with
administrators
whose jobs did not depend on whether or not the faculty liked or
voted
for them.
The
administrators were not voted into their jobs by the faculty. The
faculty might
have
a representative
on
a search committee, and might even have a vote, along with half a
dozen other
committee
members,
but
the recommendation of a search committee about whom to hire
was just that—a
recommendation.
Decisions
were always subject to the approval of the trustees. The trustees
had the final
say in everything,
including
hiring and firing. They were very tough to negotiate with, and
much bitterness
developed
between
the two sides in negotiations, with frequent threats of strikes and
on two occasions bitter
strikes.
The
trustees were often business and professional people who had
succeeded and made their
money
not
by being philanthropists
and saints. Nobody would have ever mistaken trustee and
local
business
woman
Kay Reynolds for
Mother Teresa,
Contrast
the situation at the university with the situation in city
government.
Too
often the
chief
executive officer
in city government, namely the mayor, is someone who, not to
mince
words, is a failure.
In
Portsmouth, politics is the last refuge of failures.
Mayor Bauer was a failure
as
a small
businessman,
Kalb
was a failure as a grocery clerk, Trent Williams, who ran for
mayor,
was
a failure as a music teacher;
and if Malone was not a failure, it was because
he
never tried to
succeed.
Malone early on
apparently decided working was not the path to success.
He
believed
praying
(or preying, as Wayne
Allen might say) was the way to prosperity.
If
Malone deserves an honorary doctorate in
anything, it is not in philosophy but in
philandering.
But
he had the support of the crooks who run
the city, who knew they could count on
him
to do
nothing
in public office that would interfere with
their economic and political control
of
the city.
He
might be an embarrassment because of his
philandering, but the kept media
prostitutes,
like
Frank Lewis, could be counted on to keep the
public from knowing. But count on
Lewis
and
the
Daily Times to be critical of those who don’t
play ball. On those infrequent occasions
when
honest
and very able people are elected, the
whole system is programmed, including the
public
employees
unions, to drive them out of office, if
not out of their mind.
So
voters in the May primary should just say no to the
politicians, just say no to the
water
rats,
just
say no to the unelected mayor, just say no to the drone who is
the city auditor; a
nd
above
all
just say no to the income tax levy, because it will probably
perpetuate rather than
put
an end to
Portsmouth’s
budget crisis, making the city even less safe for democracy
than i
it
already is.
(Ccopied from Bob Forrey's posting of 19 March 2011 by Austin
Leedom ---updated 21 Mar
2011)
Another
Supre
me Court Disciplinary Counsel
Ethics Complaint
may have been filed against
appointed First Ward
Councilman
Mike Mearan who is an attorney with many
questionable
acts to his
dishonor.
Austin Leedom- 7July,
2007---
MICHAEL HUGH MEARAN
First Ward Councilman/Attorney
Mearan is the lead man in the most recent attempt to defraud the
taxpaying citizens of Portsmouth by attempting to get the City
Government moved into his client's old Adelphia Building so his
client can take a massive write-off on his taxes. In order for
Mearan's client to claim a write-off the city must be using the
building for some governmental purpose.
Mike: That old building
could be used for storage and accomplish the same purpose without
putting the honest real-estate tax payers of this city in debt for
11.4 Millions the next twenty years.
Many of the wealthy
over-privileged real estate owners in Portsmouth pay little tax;
their properties are tax-abated.
If the gangsters are able to
proceed with this scandalous project, the least that could be fairly
done is that a small income tax increase pay for the
construction.
That way, all who benefit from
the use of the building would pay; the minority of
the honest home owners that pay real estate taxes should not bear
all the burden for this rip-off they do not need
and do not want.
NOTE: Mike Mearan does not
pay his taxes. The Scioto County Clerk of Courts records show
three liens against Mr. Mearan for non-payment of
taxes, one lien is fifteen years old, and Mike Mearan is the
chief mouthpiece for the Adelphia building.
He will pay nothing, but will gain a handsome attorney's fee
from our loss.
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