JANE MURRAY VS. MUHAMMAD ALI ???

One of Ms. Murray's major claims is that she is taking on the Good Old Boys of Portsmouth----even though she never really says who those good old boys are or exactly how she is taking them on. So far, it seems like the only good old boys she has taken on are the EPA, ODOT, and the A-Plant.

But there was a time in her career that she took on a very famous "good old boy." His name is Muhammad Ali.

On Jane Murray's website, http://www.janemurrayformayor.com/, she makes the following claim:

She says she was "project manager" for "Round One," a special exhibition on the life of Muhammad Ali for Muhammad Ali Center (in Louisville, KY), but she gives us no date for this project (or any others). This is quite a resume' enhancer. Of course the average citizen, conisidering who to vote for as mayor, would be suitably impressed.  

However, also on her website, we find this:

We know she worked for Scotty Baesler in Lexington from 1986 to 1993, and in Washington from 1993 to 1995. Jane did not leave Baesler's office until sometime after September 1995. So just when did Jane work for the Ali museum and what did she really do?

The Muhammad Ali Center did not even open until 2005. Up until then it was in various stages of site selection, fund-raising, and planning. In 1996, the museum was an idea without a home, still struggling to meet its financial obligations. The following story about the Ali Museum's progress appeared in June of 1996.

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Jane didn't leave her job in Washington until after September 1995, but this article says in June 1996, she was a bill collector for Lord Cultural Resources of Toronto, Ontario "which did some early museum planning and research." But Jane's resume says that, as JVA, Inc., she was the "project manager" for "the first phase of the Muhammad Ali Center." Which is it?

Project Manager sounds a lot more impressive than bill collector. Again we ask. Where are the references? Where are the recommendations by the museum board or pictures of Jane with important people involved with the museum, to verify that Jane truly has the impressive credentials she claims? As usual we have to take her word for her claims.

Unfortunately, we were unable to determine if Jane was able to collect the $23,000 owed to Lord Cultural Resources.

The TRUE Story of Jane Murray's "LEXINGTON CULTURAL MASTER PLAN"

(The SECOND OF A SERIES OF ARTICLES
about Jane Murray and the Future of Portsmouth ) 

Anyone who followed the Portsmouth Mayoral Campaign last year heard a phrase repeated over and over by candidate Jane Murray. At every appearance and each debate, Murray referred to the "Cultural Master Plan" that she developed for Lexington. She assured the voters of Portsmouth that she would use her skills, abilities and contacts developed in Lexington and Washington to create a similiar cultural master plan for Portsmouth that would bring museums, visitors and 1000s of jobs to our area....IF she were elected. The Lexington Cultural Master Plan was and is featured prominently on Jane's website. This was a very impressive-sounding promise! After all, it didn't seem likely that Jim Kalb or Jerry Skiver would ever be able to create such a plan!



(Click image to enlarge)

 One of the tragedies of the 2009 election campaign was that the truth about Murray's plan's colossal failure in Lexington was never revealed to the public. This was information that was fairly easily available, that the citizens should have been informed of well before the election.

Murray's "UK Basketball Museum Scandal" that we wrote about on Monday was tame compared to the other embarassments she caused for Lexington and her former boss, Mayor and Congressman Scotty Baesler. The UK BB Museum fiasco could be written off as someone with great ambition reaching for a difficult goal and failing, and certainly that would be no cause for ridicule or shame.

But the museum failure is just one of series of failures that the citizens of Portsmouth need to be made aware of, especially since she is trying to sell the same snake oil in Portsmouth that she sold in Lexington.

JANE MURRAYS "BEN SNYDER BLOCK" DEVELOPMENT SCANDAL

During the mayoral election in 2009, Jane Murray made repeated promises that she would make Portsmouth "a regional cultural center" and implement a "cultural master plan" for Portsmouth. This master plan would include museums, and parks, and historical centers, as a part of her plan to "restructure" our entire city.

On her website, Murray lists the following achievements in her statement of qualifications:

Lexington Cultural Master Plan – project director for planning, coordinating, and implementing final plan which included more public monies for the arts, an arts & culture district, a children’s museum, and a new cultural center

Lexington Children’s Museum – project director for design/build and grand opening of KY’s first children’s museum; worked with a public committee and design team on planning and design

Lexington Cultural Center – director for project planning, design, and operations; headed team of museum planners, theatre consultants, architects, engineers, community members

University of Kentucky Basketball Museum – director for feasibility study; organized and directed professional consulting team, all meetings, functions, reports

At first glance it is an impressive list. However, as we reported a few days ago, there is much more to the story. Murray's responsibility for the UK Basketball Museum failure was a true financial fiasco for the City of Lexington and the University of Kentucky, which remains as $100,000 a year burden to the University to this day. We are amazed that she would even include the Museum on her resume. The only sense in which the museum was ever a success was the amount of money that Murray earned from her services in connection with the now-bankrupt museum.

Jane Murray's bankrupt UK Basketball Museum (now defunct)

We believe that the protracted, embarrassing failure of the Basketball Museum, after a string of failures in government and business, was the real reason Jane Murray dropped her married name, Jane Vimont, in favor of her maiden name, and returned to Portsmouth. But the museum story merely opens the door on a much larger story of broken promises, failure, and scandal for the City of Lexington, the State of Kentucky, and Murray herself.

The basketball museum failure had its beginning several years prior with an even bigger fiasco and financial loss for the City of Lexington: the Ben Snyder Block scandal. It remains a nightmare for Lexington officials.

As you follow the story below please note the words in BOLD text and how they are interconnected. (Anyone who believes the Marting's project was a dastardly scheme should really be shocked by the Lexington "Art & Culture District" scandal.)

All information from Lexington Herald-Leader stories is indicated in parentheses. (LHL, date of article.) All Lexington Herald-Leader articles are available on-line for a fee at http://www.kentucky.com/.

BEN SNYDER BLOCK PROPERTY ACQUISITIONS

Baesler

As we described in our previous article, Jane Murray-Vimont worked as Mayor Scotty Baesler's legislative liaison, begining in 1987. In that position, Jane was responsible for the development of the City's "Cultural Master Plan" for Lexington to help revitalize the downtown area. Her responsibility included extensive travel to other cities and meeting with major lobbying and consulting firms.

Another of Jane Murray-Vimont's responsibilities was the acquisition of Downtown property, in an area that came to be called the Art & Culture District. (This district never materialized. The "cultural site" is now occupied by the Fayette County Courthouse. More on that later.)  The major portion of the property was located in the "Ben Snyder Block," the site of the old Snyder downtown department store, a former City landmark. Jane Murray's involvement in the City's acquisition of this property has ramifications that continue to this day.

In 1989, two years after Jane Murray-Vimont joined Baesler's staff and served as his liaison for the planned cultural center, Baesler convinced the State of Kentucky to buy the Ben Snyder block at cost of $9 million dollars. In return Baesler committed the city to build a number of projects on the site, totalling nearly $100 million, or else the City would have to pay the state back the entire $9 million purchase cost. This caused quite a stir in Lexington, due to the enormity of the commitment, which included:

• A $60 million World Trade/Cultural Center with high-rise office tower
• A large parking garage
• 34,000-square foot museum "to celebrate the science and technology of Kentucky"
• A UK Basketball Museum
• Renovation of the Lyric Threater, a traditional Black Theater in downtown Lexington with a historic legacy, and
• Two new theaters, among other improvements

This is the Lexington Cultural Master Plan that Murray takes credit for in her statement of qualifications  on her website, and mentioned frequently during her mayoral campaign.

Lexington Cultural Master Plan – project director for planning, coordinating, and implementing final plan which included more public monies for the arts, an arts & culture district, a children’s museum, and a new cultural center (from Murray's website)

As we will see, Murray's Cultural Master Plan was quite a failure.

For over three years, Murray-Vimont led the City's efforts to recruit developers to build the improvements the City had committed would be built on the Ben Snyder Block in accordance with the Cultural Master Plan. During this time, no developers could be recruited. None of them believed the City's Master Plan figures and projections were accurate (HLH, "Finances May Spell 'Curtains' for Cultural Center," 7/5/92).



(Click image to enlarge)



Murray-Vimont and Baesler went back to the state with scaled-down plans. The state ultimately accepted the new less ambitious plans, but still required certain things to be built as originally agreed.

• Rather than building the proposed "World Trade Center High-Rise," they allowed the City to substitute a much smaller "expansion" of the nearby Lexington Center. (The World Trade group that was supposed to be housed in the new high-rise relocated their staff to Louisville when the new building was scrapped. This was  major loss ann embarassment for Lexington.)
• The state allowed the city to buy an older parking garage nearby as a substitute for a new one, as originally promised.
• They accepted Baesler's commitment to build the basketball museum at the University of Kentucky, instead of at the downtown cultural center site.
• They accepted a children's museum as a substitute for the original museum which was to "celebrate the science and technology of Kentucky."
• They allowed to City to acquire two historical buildings (Embry's and Lowenthal's) which would be renovated and substituted for the two theaters in Jane's first plan..
• The Lyric Theater, a historic black theatre, still had to be restored.

All of these items, except the last one, were major changes (downgrades) to Jane's original "Cultural Master Plan" that the City had committed to financially.

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FEET TO THE FIRE

But despite all of the substitutions, the State still required Lexington to at least build a $14 million cultural center (way down from Jane's original $60 million promise) on the original site (the "Ben Snyder Block").

Otherwise the city would still have to pay back the $9 million that the State paid to buy the block.

By 1992, Mayor Baesler was already preparing to run for Congress. He put the responsibility for getting the scaled-back cultural center built squarely on Jane Murray-Vimont's shoulders, the woman who was responsible for the "Master Plan" in the first place and had pushed for the use of state funds. She led an uphill, and ultimately fruitless, battle to convince the City Council to borrow over $14 million more from the State of Kentucky to build the downtown cultural center. In promoting her ideas, she gave the Columbus City Center Mall as an example of what was needed in Lexington. (The Columbus City Center is now defunct.) 



Pam Miller,
Lex. mayor
following Baesler

But the Lexington City Council was reluctant. As the Herald Leader stated at the time : "Over the last five years, Lexington has debated what a cultural center should contain and whether the city can afford to pick up the tab." One councilman said, "a $14 million project is such a dead weight right now that it scares me." Even Baesler's Vice Mayor (who became mayor after Baesler) Pam Miller was hesitant. She worried about the cost and said that a cultural center "is not going to be the turning point" in the City's economic problems. (LHL, 7/5/92, page A4)

Two more years of fund-raising and lobbying by Jane Murray-Vimont failed. The cultural center project was dead. As the deadline of 12/31/1994 approached, the State demanded their money, but the City was at a loss as to how to repay it. But Baesler had been elected to congress and he and Jane Murray-Vimont were already in Washington, DC. The new mayor Pam Miller ultimately decided that the city would have to default on the $9 million debt to the State.

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Instead of Jane Murray-Vimont's "cultural center," Lexington's leaders built a County Courthouse on the controversial site. It's called the Robert F. Stephens Courthouse. By coincidence (?), that's where Jane Murray's ex-husband Richard Vimont still practices law today.



Lexington County Courthouse

(Not Jane Murray's promised cultural center)

The state finally tired of the City's shenanigans, and sued Lexington for "misappropriation of funds." Eventually a settlement was reached that involved the City paying back only part of the money. Other terms of the settlement included the completion of several commitments that Jane Murray-Vimont had made on behalf of the Mayor, which still remained unfinished-or even un-started.

Even though she was now in Washington on Congressman Baesler's staff, as his former liaison, Jane Murray-Vimont sent to participate in the negotiation of the settlement. The terms of the agreement were finalized in a "Memorandum of Understanding" or MOU, which is now infamous in Lexington city government.

ARTS COMMUNITY OUTRAGE OVER "SECRET" MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING



The secret memorandum was agreed to in Feb. 1995. Jane Murray-Vimont (the champion of openness and transparency in Portsmouth government) was part of the closed-door meeting where the MOU was signed, as Baesler's representative. However, the group refused to release the MOU or the meeting minutes to the public. Local arts groups, who had been intimately involved, helping Jane with the cultural center planning for many years, were outraged! They wanted to know why the City was breaking all of its promises and where all the money committed to the projects had gone.

The arts groups filed an information request for release of the documents, which the City of Lexington ignored for many years, forcing the arts groups to take the City to court, under the Freedon of Information Act.. The full MOU was finally released in 2005. (Note that the MOU was not released until six years after the opening of the UK Basketball Museum in 1999.)
The State Court decided that the meetin Jane was involved in was a violation of state's "Open Meetings Act." The decision in the memorandum controversy is now incorporated into Kentucky's Open Meetings Act, or OMA, case law.

"The Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government violated the OMA when it met in closed session to discuss its dispute with the state concerning the "Ben Snyder Block." 95-OMD-57. Even if the discussion concerned a sale or acquisition of property, a public discussion "would have no effect on the prices of the property" which had previously been agreed upon." Ky. Rev. Statute 61.81.810 (1)(b).

(No wonder Murray claims she is such as an expert on the Sunshine Law.)

To some extent, most of the scaled-down projects that Baesler and Murray had previously committed to, in order to try to pacify the state over the failure of the Cultural Center Complex, had been completed by the time of the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding. Only two major projects remained that had yet to be started.

1) A new Basketball Mueum for the University of Kentucky

We already told you about this.

2) Renovation of the Lyric Theater

The Lyrc Theatre was a historically Black theater that Lexington had acquired through eminent domain under Baesler and Murray-Vimont. It was to have been made into an African American cultural center as part of Jane Murray-Vimont's original "Cultural Center Master Plan." This how it looked when Jane Murray-Vimont developed the Cultural Master Plan, in 1988 and how it looked when she left Baesler's office in 1995. It's also the way it looked until late last year.
.
Murray's 1995 Memorandum of Understanding agreed to penalties to the city of $500 per day if the renovation of the Lyric was not complete by 1/27/2010. But the museum sat abandoned until July 2009, when community leaders finally broke ground on the project, with penalties looming. (At last, the City of Lexington was keeping the promise to the community that Jane Murray had made and broken decades earlier.)

The Lyric's very fine facebook page can be found here. (No thanks to Jane Murray.)



The Lyric Theatre

(Newly Re-opened)



1995 THE END OF AN ERROR



In 1995 after years of various scandals and leaked stories to the press that she was leaving Baesler's staff (LHL 7/3/93, LHL 9/18/94, LHL 9/25/95), Jane Murray-Vimont finally severed her long-term professional relationship with Congressman Baesler. She announced that she was taking a position with Lord Cultural Resources of Toronto, Canada, a major consulting firm that develops master plans for museums and cultural centers. Murray-Vimont represented Lord in 1996. Whether she is still connected to Lord Cultural Resources is not known. (http://www.lord.ca/)
But according to the Seretary of State's Office of Kentucky, Jane Murray-Vimont already started Jane Vimont and Associates (aka JVA) in 1993. And JVA's first client and its major client was the UK Basketball Museum, the very project that the City was under the gun to complete under the memorandum of understanding that Jane helped to negotitate. And our story has come full-circle.

COMING SATURDAY:
JANE MURRAY vs. MUHAMMAD ALI



(Jane takes on the Muhammad Ali Center Museum in Lousiville.)

Jane Murray Wants To Touch New Boston's Junk [Updated 11/24/10]

---------------------------
Jane Murray's $100,000 LIE!*

[*SEE UPDATE AT BOTTOM OF STORY]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

All over the country citizens are outraged by what many see as the government's overly aggressive airport screenings of passengers. As one man told government inspectors: "Don't Touch My Junk." He didn't want the "government" reaching in his pants or touching him below the belt.

Well, now Jane Murray wants to touch New Boston's junk.



Saturday's Portsmouth Daily Times had the story of a meeting between Jane Murray and New Boston. ("Murray Pitches Floodwall Plans to NB," 11/20/10.)  Now Jane says she wants get into New Boston's pants by collecting two new fees for the village: "a flood defense fee and a stormwater fee," using Portsmouth City Water Bills, and she wants to touch New Boston's Floodwall junk.
The Times article reveals Jane Murray's bizarre and frightening approach to her job as the mayor of Crazy-Town!

Queen of Crazy-Town
strikes again!

1. REPEAL AND REPLACEMENT OF FLOOD DEFENSE LEVY.
Less than one month after the citizens of Portsmouth passed a 5-year renewal of the Flood Defense Levy on Nov. 2, Jane Murray now wants to repeal it and replace it with two new fees. (Just like her fight to keep the recall off the ballot...Jane wants to invalidate the vote of the people.)

2. JANE WILL DETERMINE NEW FEES!!
The flood defense levy is a rate determined and voted on by the citizens of Portsmouth. If the people think the rate was too high, they can vote down the tax.
        But the water/sewer and garbage fees which appear on your city utility bill are set by the mayor, not by the voters and not by City Council. Now Jane wants her new "stormwater fee" and "flood defense fee" to be just another "utility" on your bill so she can increase it whenever she wants, just like water, sewer, and garbage. You, as a voter in Portsmouth, would have no say!

3. MONTHLY WATER BILLS???
No wonder, Mayor Jane recently ordered water bills to be printed monthly! They are about to get so high that no one could afford to pay them every three months!

4. JANE'S "KNOW-NOTHING" APPROACH TO GOVERNING
First Jane admits that she has no knowledge of how New Boston operates...

“I don’t know how you (New Boston) fund your flood protection here, but..." [Jane's quote, from the article]

...then she proceeds to tell them how they should fund their flood protection system.

5. JANE'S APPROACH TO DEALING WITH OTHER ELECTED OFFICIALS
It looks like New Boston officials had the same reaction to Jane that most people do.

"Now you’re shaking your head and I don’t know why you’re shaking your head before you even hear the proposal,” she said. [Another quote by Jane from the article]

She certainly has a way with people, doesn't she.

6. LEAVING OUT PORTSMOUTH CITY COUNCIL
Once again Madam Mayor is trying to bypass City Council with her bizarre scheme.

Murray said she has not yet proposed these plans to Portsmouth City Council. “It’s still in the developmental stages,” Murray said. [From the article.]

Why go to New Boston with her half-baked idea? It seems clear that Jane's plan was to dangle the prospect of a juicy new "revenue stream" in front of New Boston officials and she could claim New Boston's support when she finally took the "plans" to City Council. As usual, Jane's little scheme backfired on her.

7. AUTOMATIC FLOOD GATES?

The City of Portsmouth now has dozens of "flood gate" or openings in the levy or floodwall. Most of them are openings for streets such as on Second Street by the Brewery or on Court Street to get to the riverfront.
Some openings are for train tracks. Only two or three of the City's floodgates have ever been used in the history of Portsmouth since their construction in the 1940s. (Click here for more info.)

She said she would like to use part of the money to replace the current floodgates — which take about two days to manually install each time they’re used — with new, automatic gates. She said the new gate would allow a quicker response and less work for city employees. [From the Times story.]

Who is the consultant that recommended these "automatic floodgates" to the mayor? The construction costs for each automatic floodgate would be several million dollars. Any engineering firm would love to get that contract. But spending multiple millions to construct floodgates that may never be used, in order to save city employees from having to put up the old-fashioned gates, makes no sense anywhere in the world except for Crazy-Town USA.



Jane Murray's half-wit supporters on the Portsmouth CAVE-porn sites, like River Vices, Moe-ron's Forum and Topix.com, claim that Dave Malone is unqualified to be mayor and that he would raise City water rates if he becomes Mayor. But Jane Murray shows her true nature almost daily and shows her supporters for the fools, liars, and hypocrites they are.

Jane wants to replace the flood levy with a fee she can control, spend the money on ridiculously expensive "automatic" floodgates, and she even wants to influence New Boston's fees.

Four years of Jane Murray's incompetent rule will cripple Portsmouth, but whatever happens with her recall election, we have a recommendation for New Boston. Tell Jane Murray:

"DON'T TOUCH OUR JUNK!!"

-------------------------------------

*JANE MURRAY'S $100,000 LIE!

UPDATE: 11/24/10:

From today's Portsmouth Daily Times:

Headline: "Haas: Murray's Flood Fund Numbers Don't Add Up" by Frank Lewis

"Fifth Ward Councilman John Haas says Portsmouth Mayor Jane Murray was way off base when she told hose at meeting with New Boston officials that the flood defense fund had dwindled in recent years."

As usual, Jane Murray's gave false and misleading information to New Boston village officials, to the Portsmouth Times, and ultimately to the citizens of Portsmouth in order to justify another one of her wacky, self-serving schemes.

Like a typical government bureaucrat, Jane is attempting to create a false crisis by claiming that the City's annual flood defense revenue flow has "dwindled from $225,000 a year to less than $119,000 a year." Councilman Haas reported the correct figures to the Times. As of September of this year, the City had collected $210,825. As the Scioto County Treasurer's Office continues to collect late property taxes and put additional flood defense levy funds in the City's account, the total amount should meet or exceed the $225,000 that the city project for 2010.

THANK GOD FOR ADULTS LIKE JOHN HAAS ON CITY COUNCIL!

This kind of deception and falsification in order to convince public officials and the citizens to go along with her has been a hallmark of Jane's career ever since her disastrous days working as a key assistant to the Mayor of Lexington. As we have described here at P-Town Underground, such tactics by Murray led public officials in Lexington into financial calamity, especially JANE MURRAY"S CULTURAL MASTER PLAN failure that we will be describing to our readers in our next installment.

Finally, the City apparently a small Kentucky-based engineering firm "Howerton Engineering" over $110,000 for work done since January! "...outstanding encumbrances of $110,322,24, which is most likely the amount owed Howerton Engineering for work on the levee certification..." If you are wonder who is paying for Jane Murray's legal fees to fight the recall effort by the citizens of Portsmouth, we believe that "voluntary contributions" by Howerton and others are paying these expenses. They want to keep their "cash cow" in the mayor's office.

As you will see it is no coincidence that Portsmouth is now in pure chaos under Murray's inept and dishonest administration.

COMING TOMORROW:

NEW BOSTON:
JANE MURRAY WANTS TO TOUCH YOUR JUNK!

Jane Murray: Scandal and Turmoil From the Beginning

(The FIRST OF A SERIES OF ARTICLES
about Jane Murray and the Future of Portsmouth )



 Jane Murray has had a remarkable and amazing past.

• From (1980-1993), she served as a key advisor to Scotty Baesler, the Mayor of Lexington, the 63rd largest city in the US.
• When Scotty Baesler was elected to congress in 1993, Jane went to Washington with him and served on his staff until 1995.

• In 1994, while still working for Congressman Baesler, she accepted a lucrative position as director/fund-raiser to build the new University of Kentucky Basketball Museum.
• She left the UK Basketball Museum job in 1997 to work for Lord Cultural Resources, a Canadian company. 

With this experience and more on her resume, it is not surprising that Jane Murray impressed a large number of voters and was elected as mayor of Portsmouth in 2009. (This information can be found on Jane's campaign website, http://janemurrayformayor.com/.)

Unfortunately these facts, impressive as they might be, tell only a small part of the story. To understand the current sad situation of Portsmouth with Jane Murray as mayor, we must look deeper at Murray's history.

Former Lexington Mayor
and Congressman
Scotty Baesler
(Jane Murray's former boss)

Early on, when Jane Murray appeared on the scene in Portsmouth with such an impressive resume, we wondered why she didn't have even a single endorsement from her past.

• Why no letters of support from former mayor and congressman Scotty Baesler, her former boss?
• Why no personal appearance by Baesler who she worked for for over 10 years and who doesn't live very far away?
• Why no referrals from Lexington or Washington?
• Why no recommendation from the UK Basketball Museum?
• Why not even a photograph of Jane Murray at any of the many projects she claims credit for on her website?

If her past was so great and if her accomplishments were so impressive, where were her endorsements?  (Click here for an article we wrote at the time.) We had hoped the Portsmouth Times would have asked this question then when it would have mattered, but that did not happen.

The articles that we present in the next few days will tell you about:

• The tragic history of turmoil and failure that have followed Jane wherever she has gone.
• The current mess that the City of Portsmouth is in because of Jane's destructive behavior, and poor judgement.
• What we believe will happen to our city if Jane Murray is not removed.

JANE MURRAY, formerly JANE VIMONT (An important name change)

Jane ex-husband,
Richard Vimont,
influential
Lexington attorney

In the late 1970's, while at the University of Kentucky, Jane Murray met and married Richard Vimont, an influential Lexington attorney, with connections to the mayor's office. Richard Vimont went on to form the major Lexington legal/lobbying firm of Vimont and Wills. (Vimont still practices law at age 74. Vimont and his current wife, a UK professor, have a successful horse farm outside of Lexington and are major donors to Democrat candidates.)

.
In 1986, Jane's husband, Richard was working in the mayor's office, representing Lexington on several issues. That was the year that Jane Murray-Vimont was hired as  Scotty Baesler's Legislative Liaison, a position which according to the Lexington  newspaper the Herald Leader (Aug. 12, 1986) was created especially for her. She even gave herself the title of "Lexington's Lobbyist."






(Click on image to enlarge)

  While still working as a Lexington City employee, she formed a new company, JVA, Inc. (Jane Vimont Associates). With her influential position in the mayor's office she eventually steered several city projects to JVA for her own personal benefit, including the UK Basketball Museum. 

UK BASKETBALL MUSEUM: One of Jane's Many Tragic Scandals

On Jane Murray's campaign website, the UK Basketball Museum is listed twice. Notice how much personal credit she takes for the museum project. She claims responsibility for the "feasibility study," for organizing and directing the "consulting team," for "all meetings, functions, reports," for developing and managing the "design-build team," etc.

One obvious question is "Why does Jane list the UK Basketball Museum twice?"  First, under her experience working for the "Legislative Liaison and Special Projects Director for the Mayor of Lexington" and then again under "JVA, Inc. Projects"?

The answer: Jane Murray literally used her position as a public servant to create a lucrative job for herself as Director of the UK Basketball Museum.

While working as Mayor Baesler's Legislative Liaison and Special Projects Director, Jane Murray-Vimont applied for a major grant from the State of Kentucky and financially committed the City of Lexington to construct a series of "heritage and cultural projects," including a major downtown museum and cultural center, a children's museum, renovation of a historic Black theatre, and a basketball museum for the University of Kentucky. (The city was also committed to complete was the demolition and renovation of an entire block of downtown, the "Ben Snyder Block." We will describe that fiasco in our next article.)

Due to the commitments recommended by Jane Murray-Vimont and approved by Scotty Baesler, the city of Lexington was obligated to complete all of these ambitious "cultural" projects or repay a large amount of money ($9 million) to the State of Kentucky.

HOW JANE BECAME DIRECTOR OF THE UK BASKETBALL MUSEUM

Jane Murray may not seem to be a very sports-minded person, but that didn't stop her in 1994 from getting a pretty sweet job as the Project Manager responsible for building the Basketball Museum for the University of Kentucky, a project she had committed the City of Lexington to many years before as "Project Director" for the "Lexington Cultural Master Plan" (according to Jane's website).

Lexington was already in trouble for not completing the projects it had received grants for, including the UK BB Museum and they were desperate to get the project going. Murray-Vimont, using her influence still working for Congressman Baesler in 1994 got the museum contract and later moved out of Washington in 1995.

The story below is from a Lexington newspaper (Feb. 10, 1999). It tells of the fiasco that followed. Jane Murray's fund raising efforts were a complete failure.

The article says that the museum that Jane Murray claims credit for on her website opened

 "....$2.2 million in debt in a state that loves its Wildcats, a five-year fund-raising effort-helped by $1 million in tax money for the City of Lexington-has come up more than $40 percent short of the $5.3 million needed."

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Here are just a few things pointed out in the article, all of which are tied directly to the failed leadership of Jane Murray-Vimont:

• Jane spent "$1.5 million" over a two-year period to raise "$1.7 million." (That is, she only "raised" $200,000.)
• Jane "had not understood the scope of the project in hard terms."
• Jane had originally told the Museum Board in 1993 that the museum would cost $2.5 million to build.
• In August 1997, Jane informed the Museum Board that the Museum was going to cost more than she had estimated.
• In September 1997, the Museum Board determined that the actual cost of the Museum, as Jane had planned it, was going to "exceed $6 million" and they terminated Jane's contract.
• After she was let go, the Board was unable to find Jane's contract, to determine if she had made improper disbursements to herself. (Jane had been in charge of all the museum's files.)
• Jane Murray-Vimont "declined to be interviewed for this article." (Wonder why?)

As the article stated, the Museum did open in March 1999, a year and half after Jane was let go. Unfortunately, it was not able to overcome Jane Murray-Vimont's poor planning, lack of financial understanding, poor fund-raising, and shoddy record-keeping.

Jane Murray-Vimont's
UK Basketball Museum (now defunct)

The following story appeared on the NCAA website (click here for link) on July 2, 2008. According to this article, the University of Kentucky is paying off $100,000 a year on the museum's bad debt, totaling $1.2 million. So citizens of Portsmouth, if your child goes to UK just remember Jane Murray-Vimont next time you pay that tuition bill.

(Click on picture to enlarge)

There is something to be admired about a person who takes on a great challenge, even if they are not able to complete it in the long run. And if this were a story of Jane Murray's failure on a single project, we would not be telling it. We admire individuals with ambition and determination. Only those who don't attempt anything difficult, never fail.

Unfortunately for Jane this is not a single instance. Unfortunately also, for Portsmouth.

Jane Murray has shown a long pattern of mismanagement, failure, and embarrassment in the public sector.

This is why there no endorsements, no glowing recommendations, no smiling pictures of public officials dedicating the many improvements Jane Murray took credit for last year but never mentions today, hoping we will forget about them. This is why she never showed even a single letter of recommendation.

She has no friends left in Lexington or Washington.

This is why she returned to Portsmouth.

This is why she changed her name.

In the days ahead we will bring you many more examples of the trail of failure Jane has left behind and what is at stake for our city. As this story shows, the poor judgement and lack of leadership Jane Murray exhibits in our City Hall had its origins decades ago. Yet Jane Murray has the nerve to present the UK Basketball Museum scandal as an "accomplishment" to the Citizens of Portsmouth on her website.