P-Town Underground: 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."

(Click on image to enlarge.)

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.