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MiddletownCity Manager Douglas Adkins

www.cityofmiddletown.org

WCPOand Sweeps Week

OCTOBER30, 20171COMMENT

WCPOis looking for ratings during sweep week and they are upset thatChief Muterspaw and I wouldn’t participate in their gotchajournalism on area police departments.

Thelead in for their story shows a great picture of me sitting atCouncil where Craig Cheatham shoves a microphone in my face andappears to be surprised that I’m not going to talk to him byambush.  I think the closed caption says “We’re not going todo this tonight.”

Letme expand.  We’re not going to do this anytime we getmicrophones shoved in our faces to go on a witch hunt for Middletownemployees.  I don’t do interviews by ambush, and I don’tparticipate when media are looking specifically for ways to makeMiddletown look bad.  This isn’t reporting news. It’s creating newsfrom incidents that happened 1-3 years ago.

Ianswer to City Council and the residents of this community.  Notto WCPO.

Ihope when the story runs, the story will haveextensive coverage of all of MPD’s activities including:

Lastweekend’s Candy with a Cop, where Middletown Police Department andcommunity partners distributed Halloween candy to young children toosick or disabled to go trick or treating this week.

MPDparticipation in Halloween without Heroin, where Police and thecommunity joined together to meet, eat and share stories andsolutions to the drug problem in Middletown.

Ourquarterly Coffee with a Cop, where MPD, dispatch and jail employeesmeet with the community quarterly to update the residents on MPDactivities and to answer community questions.

ChiefMuterspaw’s outreach to area churches on Sunday mornings todiscuss opiate addiction.

Chief’songoing quarterly meetings with local pastors to discuss how thereligious community can partner with law enforcement to improve thecommunity.

Thegreat work being done by the MPD Citizens Advisory Board.

Theextensive participation of the community in National Night Out eachAugust.

Ourseries of community dialogues over the past two years with theAfrican American community to discuss race relations in the city andparticularly ways to collectively improve communication between MPDand the community.

Therecruitment and expansion of our Neighborhood Watch program inMiddletown.

Thegreat work MPD has done as part of the Heroin Response Team, gettingover 250 opiate addicted individuals into treatment over the past 18months.

Thegreat work MPD has done in reducing the opiates coming into the citywith a 40% increase in felony drug arrests in 2017.

Icould go on and on, but you get the idea….

Wouldn’tit be cool if we also reported on all the things MPD does right everyday?

Myguess is that you won’t see any of the above on WCPO as part ofthis story.  That won’t win sweeps week.

Dowe make mistakes?  Of course.  Chief Muterspaw has been thefirst to point out that as we handle so many things during the courseof the year, human officers in stressful situations, willoccasionally fail in their duties.

Solet’s play the hand WCPO wants to play.

Let’sstart with the definition of discipline.

OnDictionary.com, the first definition of disciplineis:  training to act in accordance with rules;

That’sthe goal.  Behave appropriately.  My guess is that the WCPOstory will have little to do with training or conformingbehavior to the rules.   I could be wrong.  You watchand see.

WCPOlooked at several years of discipline records to get their story. I’ll just look at 2015 forward.

FromJanuary 1, 2015 through September 30, 2017, MPD responded to 108,409calls for service.   Those calls for service resulted in17,060 arrests.  During that time, the City received 38 citizencomplaints against MPD.  8 of those complaints were found to belegitimate complaints with improper conduct by MPD in some fashion.

Wedefinitely make mistakes.  But according to our citizens, wedon’t make too many of them.  Using the 8 sustainedcomplaints, we make an average of approximately 13,551 calls betweensustained complaints.    I’m not sure human beingsin daily stressful situations can do much better.  When itdoes happen, we use discipline where appropriate, to correct thebehavior and to prevent recurrence of the improper conduct. Where appropriate, we also remove officers from duty.

Myunderstanding is that WCPO wants to focus on two complaints theybelieve were not handled appropriately.  That takes us to 2incidents, more than a year old, in 108,409 calls for service inwhich WCPO believes we acted inappropriately.  Said differently,using WCPO standards, even when we made mistakes that requireddiscipline, we correctly handled 108,407 out of 108,409 calls forservice.

Seeif the story tonight looks like that.  99.998% correctlyhandled, even when an officer was disciplined as part of a sustainedcomplaint.

Thatdoesn’t win sweeps week, I suppose.  Is it any wonder thatpeople are not lining up to be police officers anymore?

Onethought on “WCPOand Sweeps Week”

1. roy gordon

   October 30, 2017 at 2:33 pm

   Make sure you tell them “I dont know” You should be used to be telling the people of Middletown that by now.

Themicrophone, so descriptively, “got shoved in your face” MrAdkins, because you reneged on an agreement with WCPO to beinterviewed along with Chief Mutterspaw. Having second thoughts onhow to avoid telling the truth?

Itwas too easy to shut down TV Middletown and stop recordings of thePlanning Commission and other meetings, which were the residents onlysources of unbiased information on the city’s business. Fortunately for Middletown citizens, you are not capable of gaggingor eliminating regional news media. How can the news media’spresence at a public meeting of city council be considered an“ambush”? You, Mr Adkins, are “not going to do this anytime”to discuss anything with the media or the citizens when you know youdon’t have answers for the questions they are going to ask. Whenis the last time you answered to a resident in a council meeting oropen forum? Council doesn’t ask you any questions because youtell them what to think, what to say or not to say, howto vote and who knows what else.

Itis the purpose of the news media to report the truth; they did not“create” the incidents which you so desperately want to avoiddiscussing. Remember when Nixon resigned? Many were ofthe opinion that the cover up was worse than the crime!

Apparentlyour city manager is way out of touch with reality and remains totallyoblivious of the facts and figures concerning the fiscal condition ofour sad, debt ridden city; OR he is trying to hide his own heavilydedicated involvement in our continued downfall. This becomesobvious if you compare the article, “Middletown bond ratingdowngraded” in the Friday, July 28, 2017 Journal News, to MrAdkins’ numerous rosy pictures of Middletown that he paints in hisCity Manager’s Blog on the city’s website.

TheJournal article is by staff writer, Ed Richter, a long time ally ofcity hall. In my opinion, most, if not all, of his reporting onMiddletown is biased and slanted for the purpose of covering up theugly truth with rosy rhetoric dictated to him by Adkins/City Hall. The article has no direct quote from Moodys’ report of the bondrating downgrade. Instead, the Journal News article reinterpretsMr Adkins rosy interpretation of the report. You see, weare already twice removed from the unvarnished truth ofthe report. I believe that a copy of the actual report is notavailable on the city website, so we must rely on the evidence athand to determine the reason for the bond rating downgrade:

Youwill find, in the minutes of the July 25^th councilmeeting, that three ordinances were approved torefinance a total of more than $13 million in bonds. That will help trigger Moodysto lower the city’s credit ratingagain. As a result, thecity will pay a higher interest rate for subsequent bondsales and/or refinancing. This is not the firsttime those bonds have been refinanced, in fact, this is at least thethird time and probably several more. Meanwhile, very little hasbeen paid on the principal. That means that over time we pay ahigher interest rate on close to the original amount of the bond, andwe will pay higher interest on new bonds. Moodys has lowered ourrating several times over the last couple years. And it will likelyhappen again! Moodys has also pointed outa poor outlook for replenishing city funds,due to the lack of jobs and income tax revenue, asreason to downgrade Middletown’s rating.

We willnot gain ground nor avoid slipping deeper in debt if we can’t evenbegin to pay it off! The city’s source of monies forpayment of bonds is the General (slush) Fund which isoften illegally replenished with fundtransfers from Enterprise Funds. There’s that old shell gameagain! VietVet has aptly described this as ‘voodoo finances’in his last post on this topic. Enterprise Funds, Auto and Gas TaxFunds and Storm Water Sewer Capital Reserve are being clandestinelytransferred, misused or drained away. (The evidence is there, butwell hidden, on the city’s website in the ‘FinancialTransparency’ checkbook.) City administration regularlyclaims that we don’t have enough funds in the Storm Water SewerFund (a protected enterprise fund) forthe EPA mandated, separationof sanitary sewers and storm water sewersdowntown. The city set up that EPA mandatedenterprise fund beginning about the 1970’s, by adding to ourwater bills, a charge designated for the purpose of separatingthe sewers. That fund, the Storm Water Sewer Fund, shouldhave a balance of many millions of $$ but instead has nearly beenbankrupted by illegally transferring it’s funds to thenon-designated, unprotected Storm Water SewerCapital Reserve Fund. There the protected funds lose theiridentity and are used illegally to pay for NEWsewer installations PLUS any expensewhich might be remotely related to each installation, likelandscaping, road paving, etc. For example, Storm Water SewerFunds were used in partial payment of a purchase of land on HookDrive purportedly for development. Using these funds to purchaseproperty is a blatant misuse. In order to continue the misuse ofStorm Water Sewer Funds, Mr Adkins had Council approve continuallyincreasing charges on our water bills to replenish the Storm WaterSewer (enterprise)Fund. Up goes the water bills. You can bet that those designated enterprise fundswill be illegally drained away again, having never been used fortheir EPA mandated, original purpose of separating the sewersdowntown.

Also,speaking of the misuse of funds, there are all sorts of illegaltransfers among dissimilar city funds. For example, City Councilalways approves Mr Adkins’ repeated requests for transfers TOTHE INCOME TAX FUND fromvarious unnamed funds. The Income Tax Fund isthere tobe drawn upon for city expenses andnot tobe a receptacle of unrelated funds of unknown source. Whywould any funds ever be transferred TOthe income tax fund??? Tohide the fact that the Income Tax Fund is bankrupt???

Thestate auditor’s office is closely watching the repeated drop inMoody’s’ ratings. And city hall knows it.

Now,compare the facts with Mr Atkins’ many posts on the city websitethat claim everything is wonderful. He falsely claims (see theprevious paragraph) that income tax revenue is up and our coffers arefilling, but he doesn’t tell you that it’s a temporary boost infunds due to income tax derived from construction jobs which have orwill soon come to an end. There is now little or no new constructionactivity. Construction on Nicolas Place “luxury” apartments mayhave slowed or halted. They recently lowered the rent and madespecial offers/rebates to attract renters to occupy the completedbuildings, which may result in considerable loss for that investor.

A lot of incentiveis needed to capture people who are willing to live in Middletown’sjobless, bombed out housing void that Mr Atkins continues toembellish upon and from which it is impossible to recover bysubsidizing a handful of individually owned, downtown storefrontsthat provide one or two jobs each… Over the last 20 years thecity has lost about all of its major industry and withthem the jobs and the income tax revenue thatentails. Those that left torelocate are:AK Steel Corporate Office(with300 high level jobs), Black-Clawson, Square D, etc. Morehigh income tax revenue waslost when Mr Adkins/CityCouncil displacedthe lawyerswho’soffices were located in upperfloors of the former CG&Ebuilding and First National Bank building. Manyof those lawyers are now located in West Chester andAustin Landing.

Ourformer CG&E building isnow “occupied”by thenearly defunct Middletownlocation of CincinnatiState, which is alsoin possessionof (agift from the city) theFirst National Bank building (PARID:Q6511008000063) thatnow stands empty and unused. Shall thisbuilding go the way ofabandoned projects to the point of neglected ruin and be torn down? A $1Mgrant went to HEP toremodelthe former CG&Ebuilding intoclassrooms for Cincinnati State,but theyabandoned theproject.There went a million$$$. The Senior CitizensBuilding (PARID:Q6511011000034)which had been givento HEP-CSTCCOHIO LLC was soldback to the cityfor $30,000+because itwas a HUD subsidizedproperty which couldonly be transferredto a non-profit enterprise. Yes, the city lost $30,000 on this deal and is now stuck withanother empty building which has not been re-purposed andmust be maintained by the city orlet it go to ruin and tear it down. Thecity could use it as office space instead of paying rent for officesin Goetz Tower. And, if thecity needed office space, why is one floor of the city buildingoccupied by the Board of Education?

Othercompanies just shut down their Middletown location, suchas Champion Paper andWest Carrollton Parchment (in the former St Regis building). Homeowned businesses likeDillman’s, our premierlocal grocery chain, shutdown due to lossof customer base … aresult of city hall’sthoughtless and irresponsible governing with extreme fiscalstupidity.

SPENDINGMORE MONEYoneverything except the essentials, apparentlydoesn’t matter because DougAdkinssays,onhis blog, that wenowhaveso much revenue pouring in. Thatsupposed revenue must be comingfrom our continually increasing water andsewerbills and/orfromEnterpriseFundtransfersto the General(slush)Fund. MrAdkins’ claims, in his CityManager blog (CityRevenues Year to Date June 30, 2017),that themain source of ahalf a million dollar increase in revenue isdueto an increase in INCOMETAX REVENUE.. Thatkind of income tax revenuecouldnot possibly exist orbe sustained byourcurrent lackof asignificantjobmarket in Middletown. Rememberthat the Income Tax Fund was being pumpedup by transfers from unnamed funds! Atthis rate wemay be bankrupt beforethe end of Mr Adkins” 5 year plan. Maybewe are already.

Andjust to reveal who Adkinsreally is… think about this. Adkins’continues to insist on giving Middletown and himself credit for thework of others in the Middletown-HamiltonSmall Business Development Center, whenhe and Middletown had absolutely nothing to do with the awards theyreceived for theiroutstanding work. (Seehis July 24, 2017 post titled ‘Congratulations”.

From the workbookfor council meeting Wed. July 5, 2017:

Res. No. R2017-10 Auth. Transfers

Resolution No.R2017-10, a resolution authorizing the transfer of monies fromvarious funds to the Income Tax Fund and declaring an emergency wasread.

Mr. S. Bohannon moved to approve Resolution No.R2017-10, a resolution

authorizing the transfer of monies from various fundsto the Income Tax Fund

and declaring an emergency. Ms. D. Bronston seconded.Motion carried. Ayes:

S. Bohannon, T. Moon, D Picard, L. Mulligan, D.Bronston.

Res. No R2017-11 Auth. Transfer

Resolution No.R2017-11, a resolution authorizing the transfer of monies from theIncome Tax Fund to the General Fund and declaring an emergency wasread.

Mr. D. Picard moved to approve Resolution No.R2017-11, a resolution

authorizing the transfer of monies from the IncomeTax Fund to the General

Fund and declaring an emergency. Mr. T. Moonseconded. Motion carried.

Ayes: T. Moon, D Picard, L. Mulligan, D. Bronston,S. Bohannon.

Res. No. R2017-12 Auth. Transfer

Resolution No.R2017-12, a resolution authorizing the transfer of monies fromtheGeneral Fund to various funds and declaring an emergency was read.

Ms. D. Bronston moved to approve Resolution No.R2017-12, a resolution

authorizing the transfer of monies from theGeneral Fund to various funds and

declaring an emergency. Mr. S. Bohannon seconded.Motion carried. Ayes: D

Picard, L. Mulligan, D. Bronston, S. Bohannon, T.Moon.

Do the threeresolutions that were approved as emergencies, appear to be a game of“hide the money?” Why do we even have separate funds if money canflow so freely from one fund to another at Mr Adkins’ whim? Theanswer is it’s illegal.

Notice that moneywent from various funds (are these funds taken from Enterprise fundsor dedicated funds that can not legally be transferred?) to theIncome Tax Fund (Resolution R2017-10). Then from the Income Tax Fundto the General Fund (Resolution R2017-11) and then from the GeneralFund back to various funds (could these possibly be any Enterprisefunds or dedicated funds now made to appear under a general fundcategory?) (Resolution R2017-12). Sounds like a vicious circle tome. What was the purpose of having our money jump through hoops andland in nearly the same spot where it started? Laundry??

Once again thebobble heads were programmed to vote on emergencies with nodiscussion (and obviously with no thought). Is this council’s andAdkins’ answer to the fiscal transparency that Middletown wants andneeds from their government today? This may be just the tip of theiceberg. Though it may be difficult to extract information from theMiddletown financial transparency portal, but with perseverance itmay yield some explosive information about how and where our money isused or misused and why the city’s credit rating outlook (accordingto Moody’s) is negative.