Mayor Jane Murray's Latest Embarrassment

The sad, strange, embarrassing story of our new mayor continues to get more and more bizarre. She is by far the most incompetent mayor that we have had since the charter was changed in the late 1980s to return the city to a mayoral form of government. She is even worse than we expected...and that is saying a lot! She continues to rampage through our beloved city like a cow in a china shop! But Her Highness's latest fiasco amazes even us at P-Town Underground. Sources who claim to be connected with the City started emailing us, beginning about a week ago, that Mayor Murray was trying to hire YET ANOTHER felon to be in charge of an important position with the City of Portsmouth. But that seemed unbelievable, even for this mayor! However, we can now verify that Murray is trying to hire a man who was charged in a Toledo Courtroom, in September of 2009 with attempted murder. JAMES P. SCISSON: Class III Wastewater Operator Our sources told us that two weeks ago, Murray and Jeff Peck interviewed a Class III Operator named Jim Scisson from Toledo, Ohio to replace fired Wastewater Director, Rick Duncan. Scisson was given a tour of the Wastewater Plant and introduced to several City employees.

Based on a story in yesterday's Portsmouth Daily Times (2/3/2010), we can now say that our sources are right. The paper reported that in Murray's disastrous meeting with the Ohio EPA, Peck and Murray revealed that they have been trying to recruit Scisson (who the Times refers to as "Sisson.") to run the city’s Wastewater Plant.

From the Portsmouth Daily Times:

Peck talked about hiring James Sisson as an operator for the city’s Wastewater Plant.

Peck said... “We’ve actually got someone who is willing to come on board right this minute for the salary that the city has allotted. This guy is actually a class III, (referring to Scisson) and it is my understanding that he has just submitted the paperwork to get his class IV.”

“That would be news to me that he (Scisson) applied for his class IV. As of yesterday, we had not received the application,” Barienbrock said.

Peck is obviously lying (as he and Murray did throughout the Times story), and Mr. Barienbrock, an official with the Ohio EPA, calls him on it.

Also, it is obvious that, once again, the Mayor and her staff have not done their homework. Surely they would not have knowingly offered a job to a man who just recently plead guilty to a reduced charge after being prosecuted in the Lucas County Courthouse with ATTEMPTED MURDER!! (But with these people you never know!)

According to court records, Scisson pled "not guilty by reason of insanity" of the charges and was placed on "electronic monitoring." In December, Scisson pled guilty to a charge of "aggrevated menacing" and was placed on 2 years probation.

If you want to check it out for yourself, go to http://www.co.lucas.oh.us/index.aspx?nid=99, and type in Scisson James.

Mayor Murray continues to blow us away. What is it with Murray's attraction to felons and lunatics? Murray is supposed to get the criminal element out of our City, not import them from Toledo!

God help our city!