And why is that? Well, Martin was emboldened by the unjustified survival of his October, 2012 removal hearing. The corrupt commissar only remained in office because former councilmembers Mike Pope and Jim Noll ignored the fact that Martin was convicted on seven of nine counts of Official Misconduct and Neglect of Duty and both took a dive for their pal.
Then the voters bought in to Martin's 2012 dishonest council election promise that if they only gave him a new council to work with he could really show them what he could do. Come to think of it, that is exactly what's happening.
Look at the make-up of the new council. At least three of them have become active participants-wittingly, or otherwise-in Martin's full-scale assault on Villa Hills City Government.
Mary Koenig was returned to City Council after twelve years. Why? Many voters were just frustrated. Many voters came to town well after Koenig's previous misadventures. Other voters simply forgot her history.
But Koenig came back to council carrying the baggage of a long-and well-documented-history of divisiveness, duplicity and deception. An archived stack of e-mails clearly prove that Mary Koenig was actually the principal architect of the unjust termination of then-Police Chief Michael "Corky" Brown right before Christmas, 2000. That episode resulted in the resignation of a mayor. Given her words and actions since returning to council in January, 2013, she has not changed. Except that she might actually reside in Taylor Mill.
Holly Menninger-Isenhour and Brian Wischer are probably more useful idiots than masterminds in Martin's vendetta. But their comments about the Villa Hills Police Department and other City employees at Villa Hills council meetings have been reckless and incendiary. They need to go in the upcoming election if for no other reason than that they are both far too stupid to be effective public servants.
Let's examine another unfortunate opportunity the voters presented Martin beginning in 2013. Martin was able to convince a majority of the new council to hire the miniature mullah's personal attorney, Toad V. McMurtry to serve as the taxpayer-funded City Attorney. Then, Martin convinced that same "golden moment" council to approve the appointment of Craig T. Bohman to City Clerk. To say that the results of those two council-approved appointments have been disastrous is an historic understatement.
First, McMurtry. You know McMurtry. Martin's personal attorney who called Police Chief Dan Goodenough "unethical" and Assistant Police Chief Joe Schutzman "a baboon". Most Villa Hills residents would probably think less taxpayer-funded billable hours from their City Attorney is a "worthy goal". Given the fact that the new City Council approved a 138% increase in taxpayer-funded legal fees in December and then the City's Finance Committee announced that the 138% increase wasn't enough less than one month later, Martin will certainly miss that "worthy goal" by several miles. Some attorneys just have to love those "billable hours" conducting investigations of investigations of investigations of mismanagement.
Next, Bohman. Despite high praise from people like former Covington Mayor and current Villa Hills resident Butch Callery, Bohman started his first week on his new job in Villa Hills photographing Villa Hills City employees in a controversial attempt to catch them in some imaginary wrongdoing. Then, in May 2013 Bohman gave a statement claiming that he was a victim of unfair traffic enforcement by Assistant Chief Joe Schutzman. This despite the fact that Schutzman never ticketed-or even stopped-Bohman. Most recently, Bohman has been the target of a complaint resulting from his odd penchant for filing Open Records requests for information he is statutorily-assigned to maintain. Oh, brother.
Then there is that promise the mendacious Martin made way back during his dirtbag 2010 mayoral campaign. You know the one. Martin pledged to repeal the UNFAIR $40 PER CAR STICKER TAX. In an August, 2010 Community Recorder article, Martin callously claimed he could find more than enough money to maintain the City's street repair and replacement program out of "the current City budget".
The voters sure changed all of that in November, 2012. After being given the new council he begged for, Martin stepped out from behind his lies and began pushing for his UNFAIR NEW ENERGY TAX. More recently, Martin's new City Council has jumped in to the effort to push Villa Hills' taxes higher. The Finance Committee is suggesting an increase in the SNEAKY INSURANCE PREMIUM TAX, an $80 per parcel add-on to every resident's property tax and looking at other ways to dip in to the taxpayers' ever-lighter wallets.
Oh, its worse than that. Have you been paying attention to what is going on at the City's Finance Committee meetings? Time and time and time again they make it abundantly clear that they simply aren't getting the answers they need from Martin or HIS CRONY-HIRE, FORTY-SEVEN DOLLARS AND FIFTY CENT PER HOUR TAXPAYER-FUNDED BOOKKEEPER to approve the flimsy City financial reports. It is now a certain fact that these complaints were not the fault of the previous council. The fault lies completely with the misdirecting Martin.
Way back in 2010 Martin made the false claim that he wanted to make Villa Hills' City government more "transparent". Then he began illegally destroying existing City records, tampering with City computers, failing to properly fill Open Records requests and then even providing the previous City Council with a doctored document falsely claiming to represent a complete list of the records the malfeasant mayor had illegally destroyed.
In part thanks to the fact that the voters adhered to Martin's plea for a new council in 2012, the emboldened Martin recently went so far as to refuse to post a simple spreadsheet on the City's website detailing his wasteful legal expenses. Yes, its shocking. But the voters created this monster when they elected Martin in 2010 and then surrounded him with willing accomplices in 2012.
Recently, Martin's misdeeds have generated yet another lawsuit. The remarkably "opaque" Martin now drags his "golden moment" council behind closed doors to lie to them about a complaint without "merit". Martin is most certainly ignoring the recovered emails from his sister and his wife that were designed to further Martin's mudslinging against members of the Villa Hills Police Department. Martin is also most certainly ignoring the strong rumors that someone has stepped forward and provided a statement that Martin and "others yet unknown" actually orchestrated the supposed "anonymous" effort to bring in the State Auditor's office to provide false evidence supporting the misdirecting Mayor's bogus claims of wrongdoing. It's a voter-created mess.
Martin has also decided that it's a perfectly fine idea to shake down the children who play sports on the Villa Hills Civic Club ball fields to the tune of "twenty to thirty dollars" per child. That step might have been justifiable except for the fact that Martin has otherwise wasted tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars reimbursing himself excessive legal fees and launching an already well-documented effort to dismantle the Villa Hills Police Department that has necessitated the hiring of several "hired gun" attorneys.
Besides, Martin is wasting taxpayer money employing four-yes, FOUR-administrative clerks. To put it in perspective, Martin has more clerks on duty than the City's police or public works department ever fields in a single work shift. It makes no sense. So, instead of justifiable step, Martin's pickpocketing of children is simply an abject disgrace.
But, as fate would have it, the voters who helped create this terrible mess in 2010 by electing the mismanaging Martin and in 2012 by surrounding the small sultan with a mostly-compliant council he is better able to bamboozle, will get yet another chance to fix the terrible mess they helped create. Isn't it great that we live in America, where even the most inattentive voters get even a third chance to fix a problem they helped to create?
These same inattentive Villa Hills's voters who were willing participants in creating this current mess will get yet another chance to throw Martin, Koenig, Menninger-Isenhour, Wischer and even McMurtry, Bohman-and yes, a few others-out on their butts in just about 290 days.
