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!
