On The Fourth Day of Grinchmas

On the fourth day of Grinchmas, the Grinches want to see... Fourth Ward Foolishness... Three Evil Websites... Two-Faced Bloggers... And the Portsmouth Times in bankruptcy.

 
 In 2007, the citizens of Portsmouth dodged a bullet, fired by the Portsmouth CAVE People. The bullet's name was Wayne Nichols. He was the the CAVE People's chosen candidate to run to be the Fourth Ward Councilman. As you will see below, Nichols may have been the least qualified candidate ever to almost be elected to Portsmouth City Council. As Robert Forrey said, in promoting Nichols' candidacy:



FOURTH WARD FOOLISHNESS Jerrold Albrecht currently represents the Fourth Ward of Portsmouth. He is a decent, well-respected, genuinely nice man. A family man. A public servant and asset to our community. A man who everyone likes.

Well, everyone except for the CAVE People. These people have decided that anyone who does not agree with their little self-stimulation society is obviously a pawn of some sinister cabal that wants to destroy Portsmouth. Albrecht became a target of these moral pygmies early on. The list of hateful things they said (and continue to say) about this decent fellow on the internet is long and shameful. We won't repeat them here.

The CAVE People, who video tape every second of each council meeting, like to play childish games to try to make their victims look bad. They select individual frames to catch someone with their eyes closed or looking at the ceiling or with a strange expression. (Heaven forbid one of them might scratch his nose!) They picked a picture of Mr. Albrecht looking down or blinking. Now their mean-spirited mantra about Albrecht is that he is an old man who can't stay awake during council meetings. The picture at the left, from the River Vices site, is just one of multiple examples of this cheap, contemptible smear tactic. (We have noticed they have never produced a video of the man actually dozing off in a meeting.)


When they were unable to recruit an intelligent, capable and decent candidate, who would vote the CAVE way, to run against Albrecht, they scraped the very bottom of their nasty little barrel to find one. They foisted the most unqualified, undignified candidate imaginable to run in the Fourth Ward: Wayne Lee Nichols. The following ad appeared on Austin Leedom's and Teresa Mollette's website.

Nichols had already proven himself to be a danger to the community. According to the Portsmouth Times (10/23/2007), in 2002, Nichols "was arrested and charged with aggravated menacing and inducing panic." Police say he pointed a gun at someone he was arguing with and threatened to shoot her. But Nichols said the gun actually was a BB gun that did not work and the charges were dropped. According to Nichols, the problem started when eight or 10 people started a fire near his house." (If we were using the innuendo techniques of Forrey, Mollette, or Leedom, we would say something like: "We hear it was a drug deal gone bad." or "It's common knowledge that he pointed a pistol at a prostitute." Instead we'll give him the benefit of the doubt. We'll just say he was taking a 'hands-on' approach to drugs and prostitution.)

Nichols' home was called a serious menace by the City Health Department. In 2007 they cited Nichols for having “recyclables, scrap wood, scrap metal, etc., in [his] yard and on his porch.” The house was a firetrap. The house was so piled up that he often slept in broken down camper in his driveway. He parked a truck on the street that he moved a few feet every day or so (to keep from being ticketed.) The truck was as piled up with trash as his house. The owner of the Star Dry Cleaners next to Nichols on 8th Street rightfully feared that Nichols' trash was a fire hazard and threatened his livelihood, and complained to the police and the Health Department.

The City tried to force Nichols to clean up his property, but the CAVE People complained that their innocent candidate was being harassed. They wrote letters to the editor and spoke out at council meetings in defence of this poor "disabled veteran" who was being picked on by the City and a heartless business owner.

Possibly due to the relentless criticism, the City ultimately failed to enforce the clean-up of Nichols property.

Despite Nichols' neighborhood endangerment and gun brandishing, the CAVE People stood by their man against the "corrupt" incumbent. Fortunately, despite their best efforts, Albrecht won the election, but by a frighteningly close margin. And Albrecht remains in office, thank God.

But Nichol's continued to make himself a menace in other ways. Actually the view at the left is the view of the man that citizens are treated to at most city council meetings. (This drawing does not do justice to the dirtiness of this man or his odor.) There was time when lunatics like him were locked up for their own safety. The list of his statements and accusations before city council is long and bewildering. Here are few examples:

• Every single shopping cart in Portsmouth should be required to have a GPS tracking device attached.
• The Fire Department should purchase used fire trucks on e-bay.
• Every house is Portsmouth should be fitted with a sewage meter. (Apparently no such meter exist.)

Perhaps, his most outrageous statement came after a terrible house fire in Portsmouth with multiple fatalities, including children. The firemen who fought the fire and had to recover the bodies were devastated. The whole department was affected. At the next City Council meeting, Nichols came to the podium to address "items not on the agenda." He used his "free speech" rights to claim that the department had too much equipment and they were lazy. If they were better at their jobs "those babies wouldn't have died," Nichols said. This was too much even for some of the CAVE people present, several of whom stood up to speak in support of the firemen and Nichols' idiotic statement.

In July of this year, the former candidate for the Portsmouth CAVE Party was arrested for "aggravated menacing." Once again, Nichols' victim was a young lady from the neighborhood with dubious intent. (For details, click in the documents below.)

On 10/21/2009, while awaiting trial for this case, Nichols was arrested and jailed for theft, forgery, and receiving stolen property. He was released pending a pre-trial hearing on 1/5/2010.

If you ever wonder if the CAVE People really want what's best for the City, just remember this man that they tired their damnedest to foist on the City, in 2007: Wayne Nichols.

P.S. Nichol's house, with all of his "recyclables," and the camper where so many strange rendezvous took place in his driveway, burned to the ground in November, destroying the dry cleaning business next door, just as the business owner had feared. All courtesy of the Portsmouth CAVE People.

Wayne Nichols, this pawn of the CAVE People, a man whose "most serious offense," according to Robert Forrey was "not his procrastination in cleaning up his premises but rather his attending city council meetings and speaking up in those periods set aside for citizens to address the city council," is now homeless and facing jail, thanks to the CAVE People "protecting him" from the malicious enforcement of health department regulations. What irony.

Make no mistakes. The charred rubble of 2018 Eighth Street and the likely defunct business next store stand as monuments to the goals and tactics of the CAVE People.

Merry Grinchmas, Portsmouth.