Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Marting's and Other City Buildings

If "they" succeed in court, we may be paying higher property taxes for new city offices at the Marting's building. One thing I can confirm is that there is insufficient space at the Municipal (city) Building to house all offices. Here is a run down of the plan my directors and I devised but never got the time to bring forward for public discussion:

1) Buy the property on Clare Street for around $460,000 and move the police department there.
2) Gut the basement of the city building and make improvements to house probation and other court functions.
3) Continue with the masonry work on the west and north sides of the city building.
4) Continue repairing and restoring the city building.
5) Build a two-story new building on the parking lot behind the city building for secure offices and courtrooms for the court and offices for city solicitor. The municipal court judges thought it was a very good plan and agreed to contributing court funds toward such a plan.
6) Move Community Development into city building and invite Main Street Portsmouth to move its offices to the city building.
7) Use courtrooms for dedicated council chamber and public meeting space.
8) Gut and renovate Adelphia building to house public utilities payment offices (with drive thru for public) and storage and operational space for water distribution crews.
9) Cease operation at the former naval reserve buildings on Charles Street; let Fire Department secure property and utilize for training.
10) Move remainder of tax collection to city building after probation moves from basement to new building.
11) Make additional parking between city building and bridge; improve green space to a more park like environment; build "smoke shack" in style complimentary of buildings.

Payment method:

Infrastructure Bond to be repaid from the various fund sources (annual debt service payments): 

1) No new capital purchases for police department for one year plus additional funds from law enforcement trust fund to acquire building and accommodate move (one time money).
2) $100,000 - $200,000 annual funds from court
3) Water fund revenues
4) Annual Capital 301 funds for building maintenance and repairs

The city solicitor opined that infrastructure bonds that were repaid from restricted or other funds would not be a violation of the charter amendment prohibiting the city from issuing bonds with repayment from property tax increases.

Further, I attempted to "donate" the Marting's Annex to Habitat for Humanity (at a request and suggestion from one of their board members) but they eventually declined. I also attempted to donate the Martings' building, annex, and Babcock buildings on 6th Street to various developers and non-profits (including SSU) for development.

One of the developers interested in the Marting's annex is Mr. Ockerman. Though I think he could make a good development out of that building, I don't feel the public through property tax increases should put that building's "infrastructure" in order. That should happen at the developer's expense or else the city should find grant funds to cover those costs.

What kind of "plan" will we hear now? One of the main and continuing problems of the city government is the total lack of planning. One might suspect that rather than a plan, we will get the Marting's building again.

Friday, May 20, 2011

Take Their Money…What Has the Portsmouth Police Department Been Doing All These Years?

A former federal law enforcement officer told me last week that, “With probable cause, and they had plenty of that, the police could have walked into the pill mills every day and taken their money.”

It doesn’t take a mental giant to understand how quickly they would have left town.

We did that with a pill mill that opened last fall. I learned of it from people who worked at the Quik Stop at U.S. 23 and Coles Blvd. They knew what was going on. As soon as I learned of it, I called Police Chief Horner and asked him if he knew about it. He said, “Yes, we learned of it recently.” And that was all he said.

As I drove to my office the next morning, I drove by the pill mill and saw all manner of people from Ohio and out-of-state waiting. I then saw a man open the door and motion them in.

I called Horner and told him and asked about sending a uniformed police officer in a marked car to watch and take license numbers. He said o.k. and an officer was dispatched. In no time, as reported to me later, the doctor and his nurse came out to ask him why he was there. The sergeant told them we didn’t want them in the city. The doctor stated he thought they were in the county and they would be gone that afternoon…and they were.

A federal law enforcement officer read about the incident and called me to congratulate me and the city on running them out so quickly. I thanked him and then asked, “Why did it take my initiative and understanding of how effective the action could be when I’m not a law enforcement professional?” He said, “Good question.”

I also reported to another federal law enforcement officer that the Commissioner of Health told me the owner of the building who rented to the pill mill called her to ask could a property be seized if it is used by the tenant for a pill mill or other type operation. Interestingly, when I found out who owned the property, I knew that he and his son had circulated petitions calling for my recall. The son lives near Horner.

After this incident, I stopped at the pill mill on Findlay Street as I drove to the office one morning. I saw people come and go with Kentucky, West Virginia and Ohio license tags. This pill mill and the one on 11th Street had been raided by the FBI in the spring. I called the police department and requested that once again they send an officer to do the same as was done on Scioto Trail. I sat there another 20 minutes and no officer came. When I questioned Chief Horner about it, he said his drug enforcement officer thought it wouldn’t have the same effect because the people running these two operations had been in business a long time and were pretty sophisticated.

One day I stopped in to speak with personnel from the business next to the 11th Street pill mill. The manager gave me all kinds of information and told me their “customers” sometimes parked across the street and in the back so as to not draw attention. She also said that they opened it at irregular hours including night time. She offered her help in closing them down. This building is owned by someone out of town.

If I could do what I did, ask the questions I asked, and have citizens call me all the time to inform me of drug buying in their neighborhoods, why were the local law enforcement officials, city and county, not able to do more to stop the prescription medicine epidemic from growing?

Even before I took office, I started meeting with federal officials to ask for their help. I continued to talk with them and pass on any information I thought might be helpful. It was the FBI and DEA that lead all the busts last year, this week, and in the Volkman case.

I called a meeting in the spring of 2010 with numerous local officials to ask what we could collectively do about drugs, prostitution and crime in our city and county. Attending that meeting was the chief of police, the county sheriff, a state police officer, city prosecutor, county prosecutor, two city drug enforcement officers, a municipal court judge, three members of city council (including Malone), and several citizens. I wanted the officials to hear from the citizens too.

As the meeting progressed, Horner made the following statement: “Crime is down in the city of Portsmouth. We don’t have a crime problem. The problem the city police department has is with you and your lack of support.”

I looked back to one citizen (a former police officer too) and he was obviously shocked. I stared at the chief and told him that if he had a problem with my administration that was between him and me. It had nothing to do with the drugs, prostitution and crime in the city which was in fact epidemic well before I took office.

Horner told a friend of mine in 2009 about the investigation on-going of Dr. Margy Temponeras whose office was raided this week. The friend told me and I informed federal authorities of Horner's breach of confidentiality of an on-going investigation.

Also, I was informed by members of the regional drug task force that the first thing Horner did when he became chief was to remove the Portsmouth police from the drug task force.

Now we have Chief Horner taking the credit for the prosecution of the pill mill operations. He’s on NPR, quoted in major newspapers, asked to be on national TV shows, panels, etc., etc. The former governor appointed him to a statewide task force.

Nothing was done last year. It took a new governor, a new attorney general, and a new legislature to pass something to start tackling the problem and to support this week’s local raids.

It was at my suggestion, that the city solicitor asked council to add a clause to an ordinance regulating pill mills to require that they be associated with an accredited hospital or university. I made that suggestion in February 2010 to the area drug action team. The federal law enforcement officials said they and the local authorities had to have laws they could enforce. Why did it take a whole year to get new state legislation?

As mayor, I had first hand knowledge and experience with what I consider to be corrupt, self-serving, and incompetent elected and appointed officials. It is important that the public become aware of what has been and is going on with its local government and officials. Only then can real change be effected.

It is my opinion that the Portsmouth police department will remain basically ineffectual until it has a new chief and, hopefully, one that truly has the interests of the public at heart. If a chief like that had been in charge, I think it quite possible that many of the people who died from easy prescription pills might have been spared.