A "Trap" Of His Own Making

There was a brief but revealing exchange at the December 21 marathon city council meeting that leads The Martin Chronicles to believe that Mayor Martin has finally woken up to the fact that his Open Records stonewalling has landed him in some serious trouble.

The Chairman of the City’s Code Enforcement Board (CEB) has been requesting documents the board needs to properly perform its job for months. Over those many months Martin and his interim city clerk have been telling the chairman that those records don’t exist. The interim city clerk even sent an official letter to the chairman telling him that. Sources tell us the interim city clerk may end up regretting the day she signed and sent that letter. More about that shortly.

Back to the December 21 exchange. Martin told the chairman that after an “eight hour search” in the city building the requested documents had finally been located. When pressed about why it took so long to produce the documents, Martin resorted to his, “I’m the CEO. I located your documents. Get over it. We’re moving on.” But Martin may soon find this incredible delay in the release of the documents just isn’t that easy to brush off.

Have you ever driven by the Villa Hills city building? It is a converted tri-level home. How many rooms do you think it has? Maybe 8? Could it be 10? Certainly not many more than that. How many storage areas? How many filing cabinets? How many desk drawers? Aren’t there four clerks falling over one another in that building who should have been searching for the requested documents for these many months? It ain’t The Pentagon-or is that The Octagon?

A reasonable person would have every right to wonder how it is possible that important public documents could go missing for many months if that many clerks were searching in a building that size with limited storage capacity. That same reasonable person could also wonder why the mayor waited so many months to launch that “eight hour search” for those important public documents. If for no other reason than that Kentucky Open Records statutes require a government agency to produce requested documents in three business days or provide an explanation and a reasonable time frame for when the documents will be made available.

Here’s the key. A government agency is certainly not expected to produce records it does not have in its control. That is common sense. But by trying to play the hero, Martin walked into a trap he set for himself. You see, he has now proven that the City absolutely had the requested records in its control. So, what defensible reason is there to have taken many months to produce those records?

There has been a story floating around town for many months that Martin indeed had the documents in his possession and made the conscious decision not to provide the information. What possible motivation could he have to commit such a flagrant act of official misconduct? It could be something as simple as “the CEO” resenting his “broad powers” being challenged in any way. Whatever the reason, it flies in the face of state statute.

Council voted to give Special Counsel Phil Taliaferro the authority to interview every city employee. That process will begin shortly. When the clerks are questioned about the Open Records issues, and specifically the whereabouts of the documents the CEB chairman had been requesting for months, what will the employees say? And if it turns out that there was a willful decision taken to withhold those documents, how will the interim city clerk explain her signature on the official letter stating the records didn’t exist?

A-VOID-ing The Real Issue

The Martin Chronicles has found the December 21 cincinnati.com article about the expansion of the investigation of Villa Hills’ Special Counsel Phil Taliaferro to be a treasure trove of Mayor Martin’s clumsy sleight-of-hand.

Taliaferro has been asked to take a look at the mayor’s voiding of tickets. Martin said, “I want to say it’s been 15 (vehicle sticker fees waived). It could be more. It could be less”. Martin continued, using the reflexive defense he and his cronies have been employing since the early days of his administration. “I find it interesting that they’re investigating me when the previous mayor and all the clerks waived them. Since I took office, I changed that so that it would be just me or the police chief.”

But of course Martin is (intentionally) missing the point. The Martin Chronicles believes Martin has every right to void tickets. He is absolutely correct about that. But here is the real problem. Why has he been lying about it?

All one has to do is go to tbnk.org and watch an archived council meeting from a few months back when Martin was being questioned about the ticket voiding. The mayor gave a tortuous answer, explaining that he waived a ticket given to someone who was “visiting from Florida”. If true, that is fair enough. One of the councilmen asked for a copy of the voided tickets and Martin said he would produce them. The troglodytes at the Civic Club and the boorish Steve Arlinghaus probably mouth-breathed a sigh of relief.

Then Martin reverted to form. Suddenly there were no copies of the voided tickets. The interim city clerk (who spent years specializing in police department work) “officially verified” that the voided tickets didn’t exist.

Hmmm. So how does Martin now know there were “15 voided tickets-could be more-could be less”? Did the interim city clerk somehow manage to find them? Or, was this another case where requested documents were being intentionally withheld? The interim city clerk may want to consider putting the shovel down before she digs a hole so deep she’ll never be able to climb out.

The Martin Chronicles wonders if Special Counsel Phil Taliaferro baited a hook for Mayor Martin. Perhaps Mr. Taliaferro believed that Martin would never sit down to talk about all the allegations. Just maybe Mr. Taliaferro wanted to find another way to get Mayor Martin to publically comment on the elements of the investigation. Did Mr. Taliaferro understand that Martin simply couldn’t resist spinning his less-than-truthful version of events to the cincinnati.com reporter? Has the mayor now made public statements that Mr. Taliaferro can refute as evidence of official misconduct?

2012 could be an interesting year in tiny Villa Hills.

Time For A New "Tall Tale"

In the early days of Bill Clinton’s presidency, White House Communications Director George Stephanopoulos bitterly complained that his boss was constantly being caught in fibs because of “Lexis-Nexis” searches of the president’s previous statements. The Martin Chronicles is sure that the Clinton White House regularly rued the day that Vice President Al Gore invented the internet.

The Martin Chronicles also uses the internet as one of its means to track down “interesting” comments by local politicians. A recent interesting comment comes from the December 23 cincinnati.com post on the expansion of Special Counsel Phil Taliaferro’s investigation into the questionable activities of Mayor Martin. Martin is trying to defend his failure to enforce the contract he and $47.50 per hour clerk/bookkeeper Cordelia Schaber signed requiring her to have Errors & Omissions insurance.

Martin says that he received “feedback” that she didn’t need the insurance because Schaber “doesn’t sign checks nor does she cash checks or make deposits.” First of all, Martin is confused. His defense may provide a flimsy explanation for why Schaber doesn’t need to be bonded. But not signing or cashing checks or making deposits is no reason for the clerk/bookkeeper not to have Errors & Omissions insurance. He needs a new cover story for that part of handing out this taxpayer-funded patronage job to his friend Cordelia.

Then Martin goes on to try to further justify the hiring of his friend. Martin is quoted saying Schaber “helped the city investigate and acquire more than $35,000 in unbilled back taxes, or tangible property taxes from utilities that had not been billed by the city”. While the armpit-scratchers at the civic club and the loutish Steve Arlinghaus probably let out a big sigh of relief when they read that, the internet tells us something else again.

The Martin Chronicles went back and watched Martin’s talk from the 2010 Civic Club Candidate Forum at www.tbnk.org. Yes, it was brutal. But Martin said something very interesting in that talk. While admitting that he didn’t know how he did it, Martin said that as Administration Committee Chairman, he “found more than $30,000 in unbilled back taxes the city had not been collecting.” Sounds incredibly familiar doesn’t it? Perhaps Martin needs a new cover story for that part of handing out this taxpayer-funded patronage job to his friend Cordelia as well.

The sorry state of the city’s financial reporting provides all the evidence we need to grade Martin’s decision to hand over the city’s important accounting work to a personal friend. The internet provides us with the means to uncover Martin’s malarkey when he tries to justify that decision.

That danged Al Gore!

"Spare Computers Nobody Was Using"?

As The Martin Chronicles has already reported, Villa Hills’ city council voted at the marathon December 21 meeting to expand the scope of Special Counsel Phil Talaiferro’s investigation into Mayor Mike Martin’s “questionable” activities. Always running behind, cincinnati.com posted an article about the investigation’s expansion on December 23. The cincinnat.com story contained several Martin “inaccuracies”. We are going to write about more of them in upcoming posts.

One of the expanded areas of inquiry involves Martin’s inexplicable removal of computers from the city building after council hired Special Counsel Phil Taliaferro. The Martin Chronicles first reported on this odd move by Martin in a November 3, 2011 post.

Well, never passing on an opportunity to tell a whopper, Martin told The Enquirer that he only removed “spare computers that nobody was using”. Is that a fact? So the computers Martin took off the desks of the clerks that they used every day were considered to be to be “spare computers nobody was using”?!? Oh, and that computer in the police department was “a spare computer nobody was using”?!? Uh-huh.

Martin obviously didn't know, or maybe care, what the Special Counsel has already learned about the computer removal before he started making excuses to the Enquirer.

Perhaps Martin was trying to convince the vine-swinging mouth-breathers who populate the civic club bar and the brutish Judge Executive Steve Arlinghaus that he was just “cleaning out the city closets”. Because the special counsel and anyone else with a triple-digit IQ who has been paying any attention to Martin’s antics aren’t buying it.

What Martin has managed to do with his “misrepresentation” to The Enquirer is increase the very justified suspicion that the computers were removed for nefarious reasons.  Martin’s unusual actions and the “fabrications” he is telling about them are increasing the odds that the Special Counsel’s investigation will evolve into a Special Prosecutor examination of possible criminal activity.

Hiding something are we, Mr. Martin?

The Twelve Months Of Martin!

One of our intrepid reporters reminded us this morning that it is the time of year to celebrate a famous Christmas tradition brought here from Europe long, long ago. Our reporter has even prepared a ditty to help us celebrate. It is destined to become a Holiday Classic, titled "The Twelve Months Of Martin". Sing along-and enjoy!!!!

In his first month in office,

Mayor Martin gave to us:

A safe opened by a backhoe.

In his second month in office,

Mayor Martin gave to us

A $47.50 per hour “clerk”

And a safe opened by a backhoe.

In his third month in office,

Mayor Martin gave to us:

Less police protection

A $47.50 per hour “clerk”

And a safe opened by a backhoe.

In his fourth month in office,

Mayor Martin gave to us:

Caused a lawsuit ‘gainst the City

Less police protection

A $47.50 per hour “clerk”

And a safe opened by a backhoe.

In his fifth month in office,

Mayor Martin gave to us:

A five-sided octagon

Caused a lawsuit ‘gainst the City

Less police protection

A $47.50 per hour “clerk”

And a safe opened by a backhoe.

In his sixth month in office,

Mayor Martin gave to us:

6 PC’s taken “offsite”

A five-sided octagon

Caused a lawsuit ‘gainst the City

Less police protection

A $47.50 per hour “clerk”

And a safe opened by a backhoe.

In his seventh month in office,

Mayor Martin gave to us:

Even less protection

6 PC’s taken “offsite”

A five-sided octagon

Caused a lawsuit ‘gainst the City

Less police protection

A $47.50 per hour “clerk

And a safe opened with a backhoe.

In his eighth month in office,

Mayor Martin gave to us:

ANOTHER contract clerk

Even less protection

6 PC’s taken “offsite”

A five-sided octagon

Caused a lawsuit ‘gainst the City

Less police protection

A $47.50 per hour “clerk

And a safe opened with a backhoe.

In his ninth month in office,

Mayor Martin gave to us:

No open records

ANOTHER contract clerk

Even less protection

6 PC’s taken “offsite”

A five-sided octagon

Caused a lawsuit ‘gainst the City

Less police protection

A $47.50 per hour “clerk

And a safe opened with a backhoe.

In his tenth month in office,

Mayor Martin gave to us:

Voided police citations

No open records

ANOTHER contract clerk

Even less protection

6 PC’s taken “offsite”

A five-sided octagon

Caused a lawsuit ‘gainst the City

Less police protection

A $47.50 per hour “clerk

And a safe opened with a backhoe.

In his eleventh month in office,

Mayor Martin gave to us:

Lots and lots of antics

Voided police citations

No open records

ANOTHER contract clerk

Even less protection

6 PC’s taken “offsite”

A five-sided octagon

Caused a lawsuit ‘gainst the City

Less police protection

A $47.50 per hour “clerk

And a safe opened with a backhoe.

In his twelfth month in office,

Mayor Martin gave to us:

Meetings lasting two days

Lots and lots of antics

Voided police citations

No open records

ANOTHER contract clerk

Even less protection

6 PC’s taken “offsite”

A five-sided octagon

Caused a lawsuit ‘gainst the City

Less police protection

A $47.50 per hour “clerk

AND A SAFE OPENED BY A BACKHOE!

Martin's Second Big Lie

The Martin Chronicles continues its periodic looks back.

Mike Martin was arrested for forgery in 2007. He had been signing his deceased mother’s name to child support checks from an ex-husband and then cashing them. During Martin’s trial, the judge granted several continuances allowing time for Martin to properly structure his role with his mother’s estate. Several people thought the judge was missing the point. Martin had not been arrested for theft. Again, he was arrested for forgery.

Then the judge made the inartful comment that because Martin had finally corrected his role with his mother’s estate, there was no longer “probable cause” to continue the case. Martin immediately seized on the judge’s comment, found an attorney in Lexington who was willing to represent him and filed a $1.505 million lawsuit against the taxpayers and the two police officers central in the forgery investigation.

Martin’s claim? He had been the target of malicious prosecution because he was uncovering corruption in city government. Martin said the judge admitted there was “no probable cause”. Martin’s claim of malicious prosecution was more than a phony flight of fancy. This tale was Martin’s Second Big Lie.

But several groups lapped up the lies. Civic Club types could assuage their collective conscience after recently going through an embarrassing embezzlement scandal. Maybe there was no embezzlement, they thought. Maybe the civic club was also the target of a government conspiracy designed to steal their property. If it happened to poor Mike Martin, maybe it happened to us too.

The crowd who didn’t like one of the two police officers named in the suit was falling all over themselves with joy. It didn’t matter to them that he was simply following up on an inquiry from Hamilton County, Ohio where the child support checks originated. The officials in Hamilton County were questioning why child support checks continued to be cashed after they learned the intended recipient had passed away years before. Can you imagine the firestorm if this officer had declined to investigate a city councilman? It was a no-win situation.

The Tea-Partiers and Liberty-Leaguers soaked it in as well. Why? That’s easy. It provided them yet another reason-with no basis in fact-to hate government. Look what they did to that poor little Christian fellow Mike Martin.

One local drooling loon, who himself had multiple lawsuits against the city for a disorderly conduct arrest, was so enthralled with Martin’s fantasy that he erected a “Fire Island” fluorescent pink billboard . . . yes, billboard . . . in his front yard to profess his deep love.

Martin’s mayoral campaign was largely based on this second big lie. Martin’s cronies distributed libelous literature door-to-door and a Martin-rallied lynch mob hammered candidates at the 2010 Civic Club candidates’ forum over the so-called “malicious prosecution”. Cordelia Schaber did so well questioning Councilman Greg Kilburn that she was later rewarded with a $47.50 per hour patronage job.

The worst part of Martin’s second big lie? It totally destroyed some long-standing friendships. You see, there were actually some very smart people who believed Martin was being unfairly targeted by the city’s administration. The facts would prove their thinking off-base, based on a misconception that Martin was a generous, Christian do-gooding zealot for good government. But to this very day, the damage has been done. Martin is a remarkably skilled liar. He is probably the only one who is still happy about this sorry turn of events. That is the “Martin way”.

Four separate judges gave Martin’s case a thorough and fair review and dismissed it as baseless. All the judges agreed that Martin’s actions fit the definition of forgery and that the police officers were guilty of doing nothing more than their job.

To increase the magnitude of his lie after his lawsuit was embarrassingly dismissed in appellate court, Martin actually told The Enquirer that he and his wife prayed and decided to “drop” their lawsuit.

Oh, by the way, every single one of the local drooling loon’s (of the fluorescent pink message of love billboard) lawsuits have also been tossed out of court. What a humorless joke.

We're Back And Ready To Roll

We hope you had a Very Merry Christmas! We all did. But now we’re back on the Villa Hills beat. We’re working the phones and the e-mails are flying back-and-forth. The staff has renewed vigor, fully restored after being worn out from the five-plus hour debacle of a council meeting on December 21^st.

2011 has been a wild year for Villa Hills’ city government. Mike Martin has transformed the city into a chaotic street-brawl chock full of corruption and cronyism. His vengeful actions have triggered a serious lawsuit and promoted Open Meetings and Open Records violations aplenty. Why, even the loutish Judge Executive Steve Arlinghaus has decided to join the mayhem!

Do you realize that it’s now only 316 days until the 2012 council elections? We will give you a blow-by-blow account of a campaign that will surely have the same sour flavor of Martin’s 2010 mayoral campaign. We expect Martin, Pope and Noll to cobble together a slate of like-minded candidates committed to finishing the job of changing Villa Hills into West Crescent Springs. We hope they face at least token resistance.

We are also already getting word that the special counsel investigation is really picking up steam. A number of people have agreed to give sworn statements that Martin’s handyman business did unlicensed electrical work for them. If you are wondering why that is a big deal, unlicensed electrical work carries with it stiff fines and potential jail time.

There are also new lawsuits brewing. One is for libel. Another is for sexual harassment. We’ll give you all the details as these stories unfold.

We’ll also be watching to see how many free-roaders now pay their license fee when they go to the county for their annual registration renewal. Bet it’s going to be a ton. We’ll also keep a running tab of all the smiling faces of people who live in Villa Hills and drive company vehicles or have out-of-state plates. We also wonder how many people are going to start registering their cars to Uncle Fred’s address in unincorporated Boone County.  This is going to be fun!

If you love Villa Hills, you really need to stay informed. Tell your friends and neighbors to read The Martin Chronicles. An apathetic, ill-informed public put Martin and Noll in office and re-elected Pope in 2010. Will the same thing happen again in 2012?

Merry Christmas Everybody!

Just to prove that a publisher’s job is 24/7/365, I’m in The Martin Chronicles headquarters getting ready for the return of my staff bright and early tomorrow morning.

Have a great day today celebrating with family and friends. Don’t spend even a fleeting second worrying about Mike Martin’s Villa Hills. I’ll keep an eye on everything for you today and we’ll all be back to work tomorrow.

Here’s hoping Santa Claus has been very good to you today. And please be very good to everyone else!

So this is Christmas

And what have you done

Another year over

And a new one just begun

And so this is Christmas

I hope you have fun

The near and the dear one

The old and the young

A very merry Christmas

And a happy New Year

Let’s hope it’s a good one

Without any fear

Merry Christmas!

A Christmas Message From Our Publisher

I am very pleased by the rapidly growing readership of The Martin Chronicles. In less than three months we have become one of the most read blogs in the Blogger.com community. Not bad for a blog reporting on a city that is only about 3.5 square miles in size.  You, our audience, are a true year-round Christmas present to us.

Even for non-believers, Christmas is a time for family, friends and the spreading of peace and goodwill. For believers like me and my staff, it is also a time to commemorate the birth of Our Savior. So, we are going to take less than 48 hours to celebrate with our loved ones and to contemplate the incredible mystery of God made man. Arriving on Earth in the humblest of circumstances, Jesus came to sacrifice himself to forgive the sins of everyone-past, present and those not yet born.

We’ll be back reporting right after Christmas. 2012 will be a pivotal year in the short history of Villa Hills and we’ll bring you all the bad and yes, the good.

All of us at The Martin Chronicles hope the next couple of days bring you and yours nothing but good. In fact, the very best! Have a very Merry Christmas.

Random Ramblings Regarding The Recent Council Meeting

The Martin Chronicles staff sat around the conference table, exhausted from just 77 days of covering the fiasco that we laughingly refer to as the Martin Administration, sharing observations about Wednesday’s dreadful meeting. Then our publisher is gracing us all with a couple of days away from Martin’s mess to enjoy Christmas with family and dear friends.

·         You don’t need to be a weatherman to know which way the wind blows with Special Counsel’s investigation of Martin’s conduct. There would not have been a two hour-plus executive session if Mr. Taliaferro and his staff had nothing extremely substantive to report.

·         Layer on to that the fact that when council returned from executive session they voted to expand the investigation. Special Counsel will soon be questioning employees. We hope the interim city clerk has retained legal counsel of her own.

·         Wednesday’s meeting provided more evidence-as if we needed any-that the bumbling Martin couldn’t manage a Whippy-Dip shack. How can a city meeting last until past one o’clock in the morning?  

·         County Judge Executive Steve Arlinghaus helped put a big exclamation point behind the sentence, “The Martin Chronicles really doesn’t like you!” by taking the podium, calling the special counsel investigation “a witch hunt” and bloviating that he thinks as a resident “it is a waste of money and I don’t see the big deal about Mayor Martin not having an occupational license for his business.” Yeah, other than the fact that Martin has been evading county and city taxes. Frankly, who gives a rat’s (EXPLETIVE) what Arlinghaus thinks? Isn’t Arlinghaus the guy who threw buckets of questionable mud at long time public servant Scott Kimmich? Talk about a baseless witch hunt. And isn’t Arlinghaus the guy who had to be shamed into paying his very-past due city license fee by The Whistleblower Newswire. Birds of a feather, we guess. What a (EXPLETIVE)(EXPLETIVE)!

·         Everyone agreed that no one has to squint to read between the lines to understand Councilman Kilburn’s statement about the audit. Kilburn used the qualifier, “based on the information we have been given (by Martin, Schaber and Pope), this is a clean audit”. This is quite a departure from Mr. Kilburn’s effusive statements about previous audits.

·         While we are on the topic of Mr. Kilburn, The Martin Chronicles is convinced he is frantically trying to position himself as a reasonable successor to Martin. Kilburn’s problem? He is trying so desperately to straddle the fence he has emasculated himself. He has turned a lot of people off. Mr. Kilburn should remember that most critters playing in the middle of the road simply get run over.

·         So the KLC attorney representing Villa Hills was dead wrong when he opined that the judge would toss out the whistleblower and hostile work place elements of the police officer’s lawsuit against Martin? That’s a big old “surprise”. If council is smart they will minimize the taxpayer’s exposure by settling and leaving Martin and his co-defendant Dale Schaber to fend for themselves on the libel, slander and defamation claims they face.

·         The Martin Chronicles salutes Greg Toebbe and the Ethics Board for publicly admitting their Open Meetings violations. Finally, a group that is willing to walk away from Martin’s Third World Dictator-style of mismanagement. There is hope for a post-Martin Villa Hills.

TOMORROW: A special message from the publisher of THE MARTIN CHRONICLES.

"IT'S A BLUNDER-FILLED LIFE!"

The Martin Chronicles reporters watch every Villa Hills’ council meeting. While it is punishing, it is not meant to be a punishment. It’s done as a public service. And our publisher greatly appreciates the sacrifice. Sometimes it can take a great toll though. One of our reporters recounted what happened at the 1:30am editorial board meeting.

After watching another brutal meeting, our reporter decided to try and take his mind off of all the antics he had witnessed. First, the reporter watched a couple of reruns of The Andy Griffith Show to remember what a friendly city is like. Still unnerved, he played his DVD of the Christmas classic, It’s A Wonderful Life.

Somewhere towards the end of the movie, our reporter finally drifted off to sleep. Then the nightmare began. The reporter’s horrible dream was a combination of the beautiful Frank Capra movie and a twisted Mayberry, North Carolina gone terribly wrong.

The central character of the nightmare was a folksy fellow named George Brunsly. He was upset by the sorry state of affairs in his beloved town of Mayberry. He was so despondent in fact that he jumped into slimy Lake Nutini. He was convinced to climb out of the lake by a mysterious fellow named Phillip. When Brunsly told Phillip he wished he had never gotten involved in the mess, the mysterious man decided to show George what would have happened if he hadn’t.

Floyd the Barber was now in charge of a town whose name mysteriously changed from Mayberry to Martinsville. He had become a corrupt thug who “clipped” everybody in a far more devious way. Floyd was fond of beating his chest and saying, “Umm, Andy! I’m the umm barber, it’s umm my haircut, deal with it, and umm I’m umm moving on to the umm next clip-job!” When asked why he hadn’t clipped everyone, Floyd replied,” I don’t care how umm many times some people umm ask for a good trim, they are never umm going to umm get it!”

Suddenly, Barney was no longer the loveable but shaky deputy. He was transformed into an icy nut-job who was given a fully loaded e-mail box to shoot diatribes at anyone who dared question Floyd’s broad powers. Any time Barney was confronted with an uncomfortable question, he would simply grin and let loose a maniacal laugh and tap his finger on the ”send” button of his e-mail.

And Otis, oh sweet Mother MacCree! Otis now showed up at any town gatherings with a Blackberry in one hand and a glass of Vodka in the other. If anyone dared question his behavior, Otis growled in a drunken stupor, “Mediate this!”

Brunsly was shocked to learn that Floyd had hired Goober’s dim-witted twin sister Fubar to do the Martinsville book-cooking only because she was a personal friend. Boy, were the bank examiners having a field day trying to make sense out of Fubar’s reports!

George was frustrated to learn that Floyd was running rings around an attorney named Uncle Billy, who sat absently-minded by as Floyd, Fubar, Barney and Otis ran roughshod over the entire town of Martinsville. Whenever Uncle Billy was confronted with even the simplest of legal questions his sleepy reply was, “I’m not really as familiar with that area of the law as I need to be. Let me do some $150 per hour research into that.”

Brunsly then stopped by the government building. Normally, Howard Sprague would be mindlessly rubber-stamping documents between naps. Now, Howard was busy hiding those documents from the public. When George said “hello” to Sprague, the overly-long serving clerk just started sobbing uncontrollably.

In his desperation, George ran into the Civic Club to find some people he would still recognize. He was confronted with a group of surly sots surrounding the bar who were drunkenly heaping high praise on the venal Floyd the Barber. Even though the sots had not even the remotest clue what “venal” meant. Okay, we know.  We get it. Not everything in our reporter’s nightmare was fantasy. Pinheads are still pinheads, even in nightmares. And in civic clubs.

Phillip put his hand on Brunsly’s shoulder and said, “See George, you can still make a difference. In fact, you have to. You just have to hang in there and fight for what’s right. I promise I will help you until the job is done.”

Then the reporter’s nightmare ended. But it really hasn’t. Not as long as Floyd the Barber still has a pair of scissors in his grubby little hands.

The Martin Chronicles surely cannot wait to hear that angel’s bell ring.

Martin Flubs Lengthy Police Investigation

Several knowledgeable people have suggested that the Villa Hills’ Code Enforcement Board (CEB) serve as the first resort for appeals of city citations. Being an insecure control fanatic, Mayor Martin has stubbornly resisted this common sense idea. He publicly stated that, “Nobody but me or the Chief can void a ticket (and the Chief better not do it)!”

The Martin Chronicles has obtained paperwork that clearly demonstrates why the decision to void a ticket should be made by the independent CEB and not Martin or perhaps even the Chief. Martin made the decision to void a ticket and unwittingly scuttled a two-month investigation into illegal businesses being run in Villa Hills.

Council had asked the police to investigate several complaints about people driving white, unmarked vans and pickup trucks and using vacant homes in the city to operate illegal electrical, plumbing and other homes services businesses. Among numerous problems, the homes aren’t zoned for business and the business operators are evading city, county and state taxes.

One of the illegal business operators had a company van ticketed for failure to comply with the city “sticker tax”. Shortly thereafter, the van received a second ticket for the same offense. The police would then have been able to tow the van and question the owner about his illegal business operations.

But Martin foolishly injected himself into the picture and sent two months of police work circling down the proverbial drain. The operator of the illegal business came to the city building and told the facile mayor that he “hasn’t moved into the house yet”. You don’t say? Is that a fact? How did Martin confirm this wild claim? Well, he didn’t. He simply voided the ticket and destroyed a lengthy investigation being carried out by the already spread-too-thin Villa Hills Police Department.

Perhaps council should renew their push for the Code Enforcement Board to serve as the arbiter of city citation appeals before Martin can lay waste to any more police investigations. 

The Nightmare Before Christmas

The Martin Chronicles would like to think that a council meeting right before Christmas might be cause for a temporary cease-fire between the Martin Gang and, well, everybody else. Unfortunately, that isn’t likely to happen. Instead, we expect more pathological lie-telling, blame-laying, excuse-making, chest-beating and all manner of embarrassing behavior by Martin and his motley crew of venal back-stabbers. For that reason alone you should watch tomorrow night's council meeting.

There will be an executive session for a report from the Special Counsel on the progress of his investigation, so that the only person outside the session who will know what was discussed is “Dr. Martinstein”, being fed all the sordid details by Councilman Fritz Pope.

Oh, and we’ll probably get to hear a lecture by a councilman about why it isn’t a good idea to shoot a deer in your backyard despite the fact that 99.8% of the people have already figured that out.

So what will the fallout from the December 21st, pre-Christmas meeting be?

·         Of course the raised-pinky drinking, Chablis and brie crowd will feign a civic-minded level of disgust about all the “bickering”, wonder why council doesn’t go forward with mediation and then ask Jeeves to bring them a snifter of Brandy.

·         An outgoing Ethics Board Chairman will once again whine about the councils’ “mob mentality”, wonder why the council doesn’t go forward with mediation and then smoke a cigar and throw back a Keystone Light or ten at the Civic Club.

·         The Occupy the Bar at the Civic Club (OBCC) sots will claim the meeting provided further evidence that “the city wants to take over the civic club” and then ask what “moving forward with mediation” means.

·         The tri-cornered hat-wearing, Tea-Partying, Liberty-Leaguing, government-hating pinheads will say the only way to solve the problem is to vote to return Villa Hills to unincorporated Kenton County, the way “the Founders” intended and say that the US Constitution contains no provision for “moving forward with mediation”.

·         Councilman Fritz Pope will launch e-mail attacks against all enemies, real and perceived, for daring to question the “broad powers” of CEO Mike Martinstein and then hope that council moves forward with mediation as a first step towards unconditional surrender.

·         The St. Joe’s Heavy-Drinking Men’s Society will make a request to do a fundraiser at Martin’s impeachment hearings, selling draft beer and pizza by the slice. They will also take a “pro-moving forward with mediation” position.

·         The folks who don’t pay their license fee will demand that Martin live up to his campaign promise to repeal the license fee before he is imprisoned for tax evasion. Or at least expect Martin to create a provision to mediate their refusal to pay the dreaded $40 per car sticker tax before he leaves in an orange jumpsuit.

·         The folks who do pay their license fee will ask that the people who don’t pay their license fee also be imprisoned for tax evasion with no provision for mediation.

Yup, it should be quite a night. You should tune in tomorrow night as part of your own move towards mediation.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a heavily mediated or perhaps, medicated good night!

The First BIG Lie

As we approach the end of 2011, The Martin Chronicles is going to take a few looks back over our shoulders to see how the events of the last 18 months or so has brought Villa Hills’ city government to the sorry condition it’s in today.

First stop, then- mayoral candidate Mike Martin’s incredible claim that he was not suing the taxpayers of Villa Hills. Martin felt compelled to write in his libelous campaign literature that he was, “happy to tell you that I (Martin) am not suing the city.”

Mike Pope has most willingly played the role of “Fritz” to Martin’s “Dr. Frankenstein” now for years. Helping Martin build the hideous monster that Villa Hills city government has now become, Pope even sarcastically asked how Martin’s 2010 opponent could “tell people that Mike Martin was suing the taxpayers with a straight face” on the odd councilman's alternative reality website.

While we don’t mean to speak for Martin’s opponent in the 2010 mayor’s race, The Martin Chronicles feels comfortable writing that the reason he and many others were perfectly comfortable telling the residents that Martin was suing them is obvious. Martin was suing them for $1.505 million. The lawsuit stemmed from Martin’s forgery arrest in 2007.

Some of you might be thinking, “Who is the Martin Chronicles to say that Mike Martin wasn’t telling the truth?” Our answer, after doubling over with laughter, is to tell you that our assertion isn’t a matter of opinion. It is a statement of fact.

No less an august body than The Supreme Court of the United States has twice ruled that a lawsuit against any government employee is a lawsuit against the government agency that employs them. This is the case even if the government agency (in this case The City of Villa Hills and the city’s taxpayers) is not a named party in the lawsuit.

Martin’s lawsuit against the taxpayers was dismissed as baseless in late 2009. Martin immediately appealed the judge’s decision. On June 7, 2011 (Villa Hills’ 49^th birthday and the 38th anniversary of the untimely passing of the city’s first mayor, Tom Braun) Martin’s appeal was embarrassingly drop-kicked out of court. The judges opined that “Martin is barking up the wrong tree” in their scathing Order of Dismissal. In his typical Elmer Gantry fashion, Martin told the media that he went and prayed then “dropped” his lawsuit. We wonder if he was able to say that with a straight face.

Martin and others are now being sued for libel, slander, defamation and other offenses. Sources tell The Martin Chronicles that it is highly likely that “Dr. Frankenstein” and “Fritz” are going to get a harsh, courtroom lesson on the difference between a “public figure” and a “private citizen” before this mess is over as well.

The whole lawsuit issue is important because it is an object lesson on how easily Martin lies. We have reported numerous Martin lies since launching on October 8, 2011. Given the number of bold-face falsehoods we have discovered, we believe it is most fair to say lying is a way of life for Martin.

If all of this is too complicated for the Tea Partiers, Liberty Leaguers, Civic Clubbers and the other various and sundry tri-cornered hat-wearing government haters, The Martin Chronicles will simplify it. Consider this. If Martin was not suing the taxpayers of Villa Hills, why was the city’s insurance carrier providing the legal defense against Martin’s lawsuit? Can you hear that? It is the sound of light switches flipping as incandescent bulbs finally start to glow over the heads of at least a few folks who have been previously groping around in the clueless dark.

The VHPD And Mike Martin's "New Math"

Are you as concerned as The Martin Chronicles is about Mayor Martin’s recent comments in a December 14 nky.com article titled Villa Hills Still Without Needed Officer? We are concerned for several reasons. Two of the many are Martin’s self-delusion and his grasp of math. He is responsible for overseeing the city budget after all-despite the fact that the city really doesn’t have a "legitimate" budget for the current fiscal year.

First let’s examine Martin’s self-delusion. In the article Martin says he doesn’t know why the two prime candidates-undoubtedly seasoned police officers- “nixed” an interview for the job. Martin attributes the two brush offs to the potential salary the new officer would earn.

Martin completely looks past the grim fact that he and Councilmen Mike Pope and Jim Noll have launched a well-publicized assault on the Villa Hills Police Department over the past year. Martin’s mistreatment of the police department has been so egregious that one officer has filed a lawsuit against him.

Worse yet, the entire department is so upset with the mayor that they declined Martin’s invitation to join him at a “Christmas luncheon” on December 19. It’s pretty bad when a group of guys who have to wear bullet-proof body armor to work every day decline an opportunity to share a free lunch with their itinerant-handyman mayor.

How about Martin’s grasp of math? In a ham-handed attack on the city’s Civil Service Commission, Martin is quoted as saying the salary range for the new officer as laid out by the 2010 Civil Service ordinance would be between $35K and $55K annually. So, Martin says that if an officer “with 15 years of experience” wanted $48K a year, the civil service ordinance would not allow it!!!

Hello? Is anybody in there? The last time The Martin Chronicles checked, while $48K is indeed greater than $35K, it is still less than $55K. So, as we understand very basic math, the requested $48K salary the mayor refers to does fall within the civil service guidelines. Several sources confirm that the reporter replayed Martin’s quote numerous time before moving ahead with the article, so he wasn’t misquoted. Can you say, “five-sided octagon”?

Given his math “skills”, the fact that Martin is overseeing the spending of your tax dollars should keep you awake at night. We suspect that even if you take a sleeping pill or two, the other fact that Martin has decimated the police department whose dedicated members patrol the streets keeping you safe will still lead to many a sleepless night.

Life Imitates Art

In the movie, A Few Good Men, two Marines are facing court martial because their actions (some would call them antics) led to the death of another member of their unit.

Near the end of the movie, there is an intense courtroom scene where the lead defense attorney presses a high ranking officer (played by Jack Nicholson) saying, “I WANT THE TRUTH!” The officer yells back, “YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH!” Then the officer goes on to justify his attitude and actions. He said WAY more than he should.

The final scene shows the two Marines as they learn they have been convicted. One of them cannot understand that they will have to face any consequences. He even says that they were just following orders. The other Marine rightly points out that they followed an order they shouldn’t have.

The Martin Chronicles can’t help but notice that currently life seems to be imitating art in Mayor Martin’s Villa Hills. (We say it is in Martin’s Villa Hills, because he continually demonstrates that he is NOT acting in the best interest of the community.)

Not unlike Jack Nicholson’s character in the movie, Mayor Martin attempts to justify his actions by boldly saying things like, “I’m the CEO.” “Deal with it.” “We’re moving on.”

The Martin Chronicles will not now go into the “I want the truth!” “You can’t handle the truth!” lines because frankly, we’re not sure which “truth” we would be talking about: Truth based in fact or Mayor Martin’s idea of truth.

We feel at this time it is more important to focus on the two Marines in the final scene. The endlessly interim city clerk seems to be the Marine who just doesn’t seem to understand the difference between following an order and following the law.

Chief among them is her failure to comply with the law when handling open records requests. According to her, Mayor Martin said no documents were to be given to those making requests until he reviews them first (a CODE RED, if you will.) That is not the law. Yet she blindly follows Mayor Martin’s orders.

Does the Interim City Clerk not understand that she cannot be disciplined for failure to follow an order that is unlawful but she can be disciplined for following an unlawful order?

Let us hope all involved don’t have to find out the hard way. After all, this isn’t a movie. It’s real life!

Welcome To West Crescent Springs

The Martin Chronicles watched the video of the December 14 Villa Hills Administration Committee meeting posted on You Tube. It provides another glimpse into the minds of Mayor Martin and his cronies. We suspect that Villa Hills Tea Party-types and other government-haters will consider the move Martin is about to make is a wonderful thing. We don’t agree.

Almost from the moment Martin joined city council in 2005, he pushed to have employees pay a portion of their health insurance. What Martin never seemed to be able to understand is the fact that health care cost increases were already being controlled by significant increases in employee deductibles and co-pays each year. So, in effect, the rising cost of health insurance was already being shifted to the employees. Just not in the form of a payroll deduction.

Council listened to Martin’s ideas and asked him to develop a comparison of the Villa Hills employee compensation package to those in similar sized cities in Northern Kentucky. Martin agreed to do so. But he failed to produce one for two embarrassing years. Each time he was asked he simply said he believed “the associates” (Martin’s term for employees) should pay just like people in the private sector do. Quite compelling.

Flash forward to the December 14 Administration meeting. Committee chairman Jim Noll is now asking that the employees have $100 a month deducted from their pay for health insurance. Noll said he did a comparison to other cities. When an employee asked for a copy of the comparison to share with co-workers, Noll got highly agitated and refused to produce his study. The truth is no work was done to justify Noll’s proposal. Noll is simply following Martin’s marching orders.

Then, Noll fell back on Martin’s rationale that he and his wife work in the private sector and can’t get a plan like the Villa Hills’ employees have. The Martin Chronicles isn’t exactly sure what point Noll was trying to make, but he looked terrible on You Tube trying to make it. Two Administration Committee members expressed concern that the insurance rates were not bid out and no effort had been made to communicate the proposed changes to the employees. Noll had no defense. It doesn’t matter. He is simply doing Martin’s bidding.

Noll also shrugged and said this change would only impact “eleven people”. Well, those eleven and all their family members. Again, we know Tea Partiers and other government-haters won’t care, but the $100 monthly deduction means a whole lot more to the employees and their families than it does to a city operating without a legitimate current year budget.

The good employees may very well leave. Given Martin’s failure to find a seventh police officer, can any good replacements be found? Then what happens?

The Administration Committee deadlocked in a 2-2 vote on whether or not to recommend the $100 monthly deduction to the rest of council. That really doesn’t matter. Because it’s Martin’s decision. The Martin Chronicles is convinced that, after all these years, Martin will finally get his way. The great thing for him is he won’t have to justify it this time. He is the “CEO”. It’s his decision. We’re moving on. Get over it. West Crescent Springs does have a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?

Missing The Point By Several Miles

The Martin Chronicles wants to take a look back at something that took place several months ago to add perspective to the current turmoil in Villa Hills. It involves a proposed meeting and the kicking around of everybody’s favorite whipping boy-news source, The Whistleblower Newswire.

We went back through the archives and found a Whistleblower report of an e-mail from the now-resigning chairman of the Villa Hills Ethics Board proposing the board meet in the back room of a bar outside the city limits. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss complaints that had been brought against Mayor Mike Martin.

The Martin Chronicles believes that the chairman made an innocent mistake. He was surely not aware that such a meeting would have been a gross violation of Kentucky Open Meeting statutes. The chairman’s suggestion simply took place in the current Martin era of running fast and loose with the rules and facts. The fact that his e-mail was leaked to The Whistleblower prompted an intervention by the normally sedentary city attorney that prevented the meeting from taking place. All in all, the turn of events was very positive and caused only minor embarrassment.

But here is where it went wrong. At the very next council meeting, a long-time council member launched into an attack on “anonymous blogs” (re: The Whistleblower Newswire) and “reassured” the public that no such meeting ever happened. Hello in there?!?!? Did it ever occur to the councilman that the only reason the meeting was never held was precisely because it was tipped in The Whistleblower? Perhaps the council member needs to reflect on the root causes of all these problems. That would be Mayor Mike Martin.

Would it have been better for The Whistleblower to sit on the e-mail it had obtained and release it after the meeting had happened? Maybe it would have. Maybe an open meetings violation explosion then would have put the brakes on all the violations that have occurred since.

Would that have made the councilman happier?

In Search Of: "president Paul DePaul"

One of our favorite TV shows from the late 1970’s featured a post-Star Trek Leonard Nimoy looking for answers to many of the world’s great mysteries. It was titled In Search Of and in it Nimoy explored the mysteries of The Bermuda Triangle, Bigfoot, The Loch Ness Monster, the real fate of Amelia Earhart and UFOs.

The Martin Chronicles has uncovered a mystery that is worthy of exploration by Mr. Nimoy. In our December 7^th post “It’s Everyone Else’s Fault” we reprinted a Mike Martin e-mail in which he advised council to “call NKAPC and talk to president Paul DePaul and some of the members” to learn what Martin’s bumbling presentation to the Area Planning Commission really meant.

But what Martin suggested lead us to a great mystery. Namely, who in the world is “president Paul DePaul”? We searched the Planning Commission’s website in hopes of finding a phone number to call DePaul. Here’s where it gets weird. The Planning Commission doesn’t have a “president” and there was nary a trace of anyone named Paul DePaul.

A Google search lead us to DePaul University, St. Vincent DePaul and finally, a Paul DePaul LinkedIn page. The plot thickened when we read that Paul DePaul ran a company in California. Suddenly, NKAPC “president Paul DePaul” was becoming more elusive than D. B. Cooper!

As Leonard Nimoy might describe it, we talked to some Martin “theorists” who speculate that the bungling mayor may have been referring to the Planning Commission’s Chairman Paul Darpel. But none of the “theorists” were willing to say that is definitely who Martin was referring to.

One theorist put it this way. “How can you expect any of us to know with certainty what Martin is talking about when it is quite clear that even Martin himself doesn’t know what the (EXPLETIVE) he is talking about?”

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Mayhem

DISCLAIMER: The Martin Chronicles loves the Christmas season. We believe it is a time to commemorate the birth of The Savior and to enjoy the company of family and friends. We are simply reporting events as they have been recounted to us.

Now-

With all due respect to the hilarious, gremlin-like character “Mayhem” from the Allstate commercials, it appears he may have been hired as the chief consultant for the recent Villa Hills’ tree lighting ceremony. To describe what took place at the tree-lighting as a fiasco is a disservice to some very fine fiascos throughout history.

It’s always a good idea to invite two school choirs and all of their families to a tree-lighting ceremony and yet be woefully ill-prepared to handle them. The Martin Chronicles has received several reports from attendees that Mayor Martin expressed inexplicable surprise by the turnout of approximately 100 people. This despite the fact that there has been a crowd of roughly that same size for the past several years.

Martin feebly attempted to get the attendees out of the bitter cold. But only about 40 of the 100 were able to squeeze in to the council chambers. The rest were left to fend for themselves and quickly left in disgust. The lucky ones who made it inside fought over a few tins of unopened cookies, dealt with the odd fact that there was nothing to drink and carped about the disorganized nature of the event.

Several people recounted the comments they heard. “Man, I’m freezing my (EXPLETIVE) off!” and “Why the (EXPLETIVE) wasn’t this held indoors?” and “How do you (EXPLETIVE) up a tree lighting ceremony?!?” "Did you see (EXPLETIVE) Santa Claus? I didn't see him!"

The second best comment that was reported? “I know they call this guy MarTAX. But I think we need to start calling him MarGRINCH!”

The very best comment? “How does a guy who used to be a Keebler elf not know how to organize a Christmas event?!?”

Had Mayor Martin been one of the ghosts who visited Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol’s Ebenezer Scrooge, the old codger would still be pinching every tuppence and making Bob Cractchit fight the bitter cold at his drafty work space with just one lump of coal!

God Bless Us, Everyone.

A Fish Rots At The Head

“A fish rots at the head” is an expression that dates back to at least 17^th century England. Simply, it means that when an organization or government fails, its’ leadership is the root cause. The saying is apropos in Mayor Mike Martin’s Villa Hills.  

Look at what has happened over the past year. City government has deteriorated into chaotic name-calling and stonewalling. No direction has been set by a coherent budget. No course has been charted by positive new programs or initiatives. No case was made by city leadership for the residents to vote themselves a forty percent property tax increase to repair streets. The result?  Complete annihilation at the polls leaving the entire street repair program now in danger of lapsing into irrelevance.

Martin says his first order of business was to look at the police department. Look at the result. The department is now down 25% from proper staffing levels. The city has been struggling for weeks to find a replacement for an officer that retired in large part because he grew tired of the mayor’s bullying and mindless meddling.

Given recent comments by the interim city clerk in writing and at an open council meeting, it seems certain now that the growing lack of transparency in Villa Hills’ city government stems from a conscience decision taken by Mayor Martin. The result? Open records and open meetings problems that have placed even the city’s Ethics Board in legal jeopardy. It will now take great effort to restore credibility to even that board.

It has become clearer by the day that Martin and his surrogates have instead decided to play mischief with their perceived enemies by signaling that their views are meaningless and no attempt at compromise will be attempted. Instead they have initiated a strategy of character assassination, obfuscation and blame-laying. And then there is the famous, “I’m the CEO, It’s MY decision. Get over it! We’re moving on.”  That one will come back to haunt. To what end does any of this benefit the community-at-large?  

The voters should have seen this coming in the 2010 election. Saying “it wasn’t in my best interest” to debate the issues, Martin instead conducted a horrendous mud-slinging campaign that triggered a serious lawsuit and, more importantly, should have served as a window into how he would govern. But a slim majority of voters ignored all the warning signs.

Now this mess is going to have to sort itself out. It is going to be an ugly process.