Monday, December 29, 2014

Importing Misery Part 1 . . . a.k.a, Economic Development - Portsmouth Style

Paul Vernier and his Community Counseling Treatment Service Center, Inc. in Portsmouth, Rosemount, and Ironton got the attention of the feds and the state and looked what happened to him . . . raided and investigated for engaging in a pattern of corruption activity (federal RICO charge), Medicaid fraud and trafficking in prescription drugs.

But he may be a "piker" compared to the really slick boys.

What:

The Counseling Center, Inc., Compass Community Health Care Center, Compass Point Housing (d.b.a., who knows what else?)




How:

Importing drug addicted people from all over the state and surrounding states to live, receive treatment, have drug addicted babies at SOMC, parcel the drug addicted babies out into the community (at least for awhile, perhaps) and work (at least some times . . . perhaps for a while) in our community - and then what?
  • Move in down the street? Next door? In someone else's neighborhood?
  • Steal from us?
  • Deal drugs in our community?
  • Further tear down our poor town?

Who pays and from what sources?
  • You and I and all people who pay taxes here, in Ohio and the U.S.
  • The source - Medicaid
______________________

We have been hoodwinked, deceived, misled. We should feel guilty if we don't pity the poor, addicted person who is trying to get help . . . if we don't support the efforts of the Counseling Center.

HOGWASH!!!!

Instead, what we got was:

  • more than a decade of nothing being done about the pain clinics, the pill mills (just WHO made money from this scourge anyway?)
  • slum lords moving the drug addicted, public assistance imports from one slum property to another. . . doesn't matter . . . he/she (the slum lord) still gets HUD money (government payments) for rent
  • we get new neighbors in the form of slum tenants
  • the city's water bills go unpaid and the city's deficits increase because the slum lords were successful in getting the corrupt city council to make the tenant responsible for water, sewer, and garbage collection deposits and payments instead of the property owners . . . and, guess what? Our water, sewer and sanitation rates have gone up and are going to go up again and again because the city council and poor excuse for a city manager can't figure it out!
  • a hospital that over-built and wrongly built (a heart wing that now has one heart surgeon) and created misery for the residents around it through sewage backups and a decline in quality of life from increased, run-away, and cut-through traffic
  • a hospital that had to join the importation of misery and drug addicted pregnant women with Medicaid just to pay bills (and not really serve the community)





Its leaders:

 
President & CEO Ed Hughes


Medical Director (and state representative)
Dr. Terry Johnson



Chief medical and "all around" flunky (i.e., attorney
accountant, etc.) Dr. Wayne Wheeler
 



Not sure what he is doing at this moment. It varies month-to-month, year-to-year. This particular directory shows him as one of 5 physicians located in Portsmouth who use suboxone to treat opiate addictions.