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

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Jane Murray's $100,000 LIE!*

[*SEE UPDATE AT BOTTOM OF STORY]
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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!!"

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*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."

(Click on image to enlarge.)

(Click on image to enlarge.)

(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.

Now is the Time, Citizens

Why wait until December 7?

Do what we did!

Put it on your to-do list.

Go to the Courthouse on Monday and vote to RECALL JANE MURRAY!

You can walk in any time during business hours, to the Board of Elections, Room 105 of the County Courthouse and ask for a walk-in ballot.

Don't wait until you get a-round tuit.

REMEMBER. These people will be voting! Will you?

______________________________________

COMING MONDAY: A NEW SERIES

"THE FACTS ABOUT JANE MURRAY"

DON'T MISS IT!

Re-Printing a Classic (Time to pull the locoweed)

[In honor of the Tom Bihl's recall committee and their successful efforts to put the Mayor's removal on the December ballot, we are reprinting a favorite story from March 30 of this year. Enjoy.]

As Mayor Murray's failures become more embarrassing and her temper tantrums become more numerous, there are questions that are heard more and more among people who are closely connected with the city and even the public in general:

Why doesn't someone just remove her? Can't City Council or the City Solicitor or one of the judges take her out for misfeasance, malfeasance, or nonfeasance? How long do we have to put up with this crazy woman? Why do we have to wait and go through the expense of a recall?

These are all excellent questions. But the answer is not that easy.

So we would like to share a fable that may help to illustrate our City's sad plight.

Once upon a time, a town planted a garden. As the garden grew the townsfolk decided to hire a gardener. The new gardener was stranger in town, but he grew to love the garden. Then, after a few years, some of the townspeople planted a strange new seedling.

The gardener didn’t like the look of the scrawny little sprout. Soon it was covered with sharp thorns and sour little berries. He wanted to pluck the weed, before it grew out of control, but he knew if he pulled it too soon the stem would break off and its roots would continue to spread through the garden. Then he might never get it out.

Some townspeople began to complain about the thorny little plant. Even the gardener’s wife said, “Husband. We can’t have such a hideous plant in our garden. You are the gardener. You should pull it out now.” Most people said it was poison ivy or a Appalachian fly-trap.


Some even said it was a deadly bluegrass stinkweed.

Still others said it was a beautiful Kentucky wildflower, which would brighten the whole field if allowed to blossom…but most of these people lived in caves and knew nothing about gardening.

But the gardener knew it was a “Lexington locoweed.” Its fruits would be rotten and the terrible smell of its flowers would soon reach even the A-Plant twenty miles away. Folks from all over were already making fun of the garden on the internet. The gardener wanted to remove the weed, but should he?

He went to ask the judge of the garden what he should do. And here is the judge said: “You are right, gardener. It is a locoweed. And it will cause a lot of problems for the garden, as it has already. But you must remember that 44 people in the town planted that flower, and the rest of the town stood by and watched. If you pull it up before the whole town sees the damage the weed does, then they will think that you are against them."

"A wise gardener would wait and let the locoweed grow all though the spring and summer." the judge said. "When the people see how ugly it is, they will uproot it themselves in the fall. And they will never plant one like it again. Or maybe the locoweed will wilt in the heat of the summer, and your job will be done for you.”

Perhaps the judge was right, the gardener thought. He even told himself, it will serve the townsfolk right…to have to remove the weed they planted.

But he knew that the damage done by the Lexington locoweed would be devastating. The gardener loved the garden, and wanted to protect it. It was his job after all. The gardener knew that if he made the wrong choice…the town would never live “happily ever after.” Readers. What do you think the gardener should do?

Ding Dong

THE RECALL OF MADAM MAYOR
JANE MURRAY WILL GO FORWARD 
(click here to read story)




November 8, 2010



29 Days to go!



December 7, 2010

We Hope It Wasn't Something WE said...

We were surprised and saddened to wake up this morning and read this headline in the Portsmouth Times:

The Police Chief actually closed down the Police Department. You don't see something like that everyday. Oh, well. I guess you get used to stuff like that when you live in KrAZee-T*wN, USA.

Last week, in honor of Jane Murray's brilliant "Traffic Calming Plan" for Portsmouth, we shared a classic, little Dean Martin song with our readers called  "That's A Moron."

(http://p-townunderground.blogspot.com/2010/10/jane-murray-thats-moron.html)

The third paragraph was devoted to the mold problem in the Police Department. After so many months of indecision and delay, and the story being covered in the Portsmouth Times, WSAZ, and the Columbus Dispatch, was it our little ditty that finally caused the police to move out???

The cops do as they’re told

and keep breathing mold
in the basement.

Jane keeps them in the pit

and keeps feeding them sh--,
Just like mushrooms.

 She says they’re corrupt,

but she just made it up.

She's a moron.



Mayor and Councilman find new location for Police Department.

(NOTE TO ALL GANG MEMBERS:

Please ignore Noel's accidental gang sign
calling for a "rumble in East P-Town, yo.")



She still can’t name names.

She will go down in flames,

She’s a moron.



Right idea, wrong building, CAVE People!

The Portsmouth Times story leaves a lot of unanswered questions:

• The Police Chief says: "The documentation indicates this is a life/safety issue, as well as a serious hazard." and that the mayor supports him.
• But the City Health Commissioner says that, according to the EPA, NIOSH, and the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, "there isn't enough evidence to confirm that mold is a health hazard."
• The Police Chief says he was "ordered" by Kevin Moran, of "Asabrook, a company that is contracted by the City to be the building official" for the city, to evacuate the City Building by November 11 because of mold, which the Health Commissioner has is not a health hazard.
• How does the Fire Chief feel about the Police Department moving into the Central Fire Station?
• How about the rest of the City Building? Are they in danger as well?
• Who is in charge at City Hall anyway?
• Answer: Mayor Jane Murray.
• In other words nobody is in charge and City Department Heads are left to fend for themselves without competent leadership. Welcome to CRAZY-TOWN.

All we can say at this point is we feel sorry for the innocent victim of all this inaction.



"Woof. Woof. What about me?"

Finally, we believe we may have the solutions for the City's dilemma. If Mayor Murray will just read the following book then all of her problems will be solved.



Jane Murray: That's a Moron

In most places they call it GRIDLOCK.
But in CrAZy-ToWn, USA, Jane Murray calls it:

The Mayor's Traffic Calming Plan, Phase I

As the Portsmouth Times reported on Friday ("Mayor Unveils Phase 1 of Traffic Measures"), Crazy Jane plans to put up all manner of new street signs in the hilltop area that just happens to surround her house!.



The plan includes "new three- and four-way stops"..."Residential Permit Parking Only areas"...and signs inidicating "No Through Traffic, No Truck Traffic, Hospital Zone, No Loitering, etc." Like a typical, control freak bureaucrat, Murray wants to control the entire City of Portsmouth...beginnning with her own neighborhood. (Just remember. They're her streets. She only LETS you drive on them!)

Once upon a time, there was an entity in Portsmouth, called The Portsmouth Traffic Committee. It was made up of people knowledgeable about traffic laws. No previous mayor would have tried to make significant changes to traffic lights and signage, without consulting this group of retired police officers, and informed individuals, appointed by City Council. The traffic committeee in turn had formal meetings that were advertised and open to the public. No other mayor could have gotten away with putting plastic bags over traffic lights or arbitrarily putting up "No Turn On Red" signs all over town based only on his own whims. Every other mayor had to go through the traffic committee.

But in Jane Murray's CrAzY-ToWN, the Traffic Committee is just another inconvenience. Just some more bothersome gnats that she has to put up with. She pays no more attention to it than a bit of Annie's doggy-do stuck to her shoe.

A lot of people were concerned that the Mayor would be frightened by the impending recall vote and she would be on her best behavior. Maybe she would try to be quiet and hope everyone would forget about the travesties that she has brought down upon the heads of our citizens.

But we, at P-Town Underground, weren't worried. We've told you before that she really is off-her-rocker. We knew that she would nail her own coffin shut. But even we didn't think she would try to pull off something this stupid before the end of the year.

We have asked Dean Martin to sing one of his great, classic songs in honor of the Mayor's brilliant traffic control plan:

THAT'S A MORON:

When the mayor starts to cry, “Too many cars going by”,
That's a moron.
“All those Harleys and hogs, just might wake up my dog”
That’s a moron.

"Don’t you dare turn on red, new stop signs up ahead,"
That's a moron.
"4-way stops, I'll call the cops, while your gas mileage drops,"
That’s a moron.
"No through trucks, spend big bucks, on new signs that I’ll pay for with fines,"
That’s a moron.

Now Jane says the recall won’t affect her at all.
That's a moron
All the CAVE People cheer, “It’s been such a great year!”
They’re all morons.
Bells will ring, she’s ding-a-ling, wouldn’t change a thing,
She’s a moron.
She will say, “What the heck. I will bring back Jeff Peck.”
He’s a moron.

The cops do as they’re told and they keep breathing mold
In the basement.
Jane keeps them in the pit and keeps feeding them sh--,
Just like mushrooms.
She says they’re corrupt, but she just made it up.
She's a moron.
She still can’t name names. She will go down in flames,
She’s a moron.

When the day comes around, all the people in town
Will remember.
All Jane’s schemes will unroll, when we go to the polls,
In December.
What a great Christmas gift. We will all get a lift
When she is gone.
There will be cheers of delight when we all say good-night
To the moron!