Several months ago I was attending a council meeting when a gentleman stepped forward claiming to be a part of the Woodcliffe Condominiums, his name was Steve Close. He admonished the council and the Maggard administration for what he feels is the continuing harassment of the owners of the Woodcliff/Midcliff condominiums. He made a claim that the City of Whitehall has spent upwards of $1,000,000 to $1,500,000 trying to get Woodcliff to bring their properties up to code and abate what the city feels are nuisances. This coming at the time when the endless talk over the much-promised Recreation Center was having problems finding all the money needed to fund it. It was an outrageous consideration that while we can’t find enough money to serve the citizens needs, which include so many of Whitehall’s youngsters, we have an extra 1.5 million dollars to hound a group of property owners for shabby dwellings over a period of 8 years? Outrageous if true. Given this then, one has to ask if Whitehall spent this much money collectively to go after everyone else in Whitehall who had nuisances or was it just Woodcliff?

When I pressed City Attorney Mike Shannon about the issue, he said the number was closer to $500,000. (Still!) When I asked council for an official investigation of the mayor’s and city attorney’s offices*, Council President Jim Graham felt it best only to give a casual assessment from his own point of view, without documentation of interviews or anything else to allay the fears, concerns and anger of citizens over what the Maggard administration is up to regarding Woodcliff.

At another meeting, another gentleman, Robert Broadley, spoke before council and told them the city had told him they’d ‘lost’ a great many emails pertinent to the case with Woodcliff. He said the city had told them that a new computer operator had inadvertently pressed the wrong button and erased the emails that they sought. (Convenient for Whitehall, and incredibly inept for the IT department.) Mr. Broadley rightly chastised Mayor Maggard and her administration as “incompetent”. I have since spoken to Mr. Close and he’s told me that, by his estimate, the City of Whitehall has spent $1,000,000 in legal fees and $250,000 to an architectural firm and a real estate developer to draw up plans for the land where Woodcliff sits. The contracts are from 2007/08 and renewed in 2011/12. As well the city (according to an email he did get from the city) is spending $24,000 to $25,000 a month in legal fees to an outside law firm for this affront.

It is an outrage.

Outrageous for this reason; It appears the City of Whitehall has plans for that valuable triangular parcel of land which sits at the entrance to Whitehall along Broad Street and as an entryway into Whitehall from the airport. Prime real estate for anyone who wants to develop it. So, you may ask, why would the city of Whitehall be spending yours and my hard-earned tax dollars to draw up architectural plans on a parcel of land they don’t own? Whitehall’s kids have no where to recreate because there is purportedly no money for such things. We’re a city that has to beg for grants to repair our streets, as just announced in the Whitehall News regarding San Jose Lane getting curb and gutter repair.
http://www.thisweeknews.com/content/stories/whitehall/news/2015/10/26/city-applies-for-grant-to-fix-san-jose-lane-curbs-gutters.html

(that which, btw, the .5% income tax raise a couple years back seemingly couldn’t afford to finance) but they have all this money to pursue that which isn’t theirs in the first place? And for whose benefit, whose egos are these monies being spent? Whitehall citizens? The citizens of Woodcliff/Midcliff? The rightful owners who have spent $4,000,000 of their own money to fix problems and fight the Goliath that is Whitehall? Here is how the owners have ultimately responded;

They’ve brought a civil case against the City of Whitehall and the Franklin County Public Health (FCPH) in a Complaint for Abuse of Processes.

Woodcliffe abuse lawsuit

Here, essentially, is the gist of the lawsuit; In 2007, Whitehall and the FCPH filed a complaint with the Franklin County Municipal Court alleging part of Woodcliffe was a public nuisance and asked these nuisances be abated. The owners/receivers, etc. acted in good faith and abated many of the nuisances, spending “substantial funds” to cause the abatement of these nuisances, which included filling in an Association public swimming pool,trash collection and grass and weed cutting. Despite all of the efforts put into trying to satisfy the city, the city itself is charged with continuing to get in the way of them accomplishing their goals. In the Complaint’s ‘Factual Allegations’ it reads;

• ‘Whitehall and FCPH have intentionally, continuously and systematically interfered with the sale of units in an attempt to prevent the abatement of nuisances in an effort to acquire title to Woodcliff.’

• ‘ Whitehall and FCPH have intentionally, continuously and systematically interfered with the abatement of nuisances so as to advance its arguments and position that the Woodcliff units should be demolished.’

• ‘Upon information and belief, it has been the intention of Whitehall to acquire ownership and/or acquire control of the land upon which Woodcliff is located in order to demolish the existing residential property and use same for future commercial development.’

• ‘Defendants (Whitehall and FCPH) admitted, through counsel,that it was previously refusing to issue permits because it was attempting to purchase the property.’

• ‘Whitehall’s and FCPH’s actions demonstrate that each maintain the Environmental action in bad faith and their continuous and systematic interference, has caused substantial damage to plaintiff by way of lost rents, diminished values, lost sales, legal fees, and other monetary damages.’

In the ‘Claim for Relief’ (Abuse of Process) section, it reads;

• ‘Through the continuous efforts of defendants to interfere with the sale of the Olander Units and abatement of nuisances, Defendants (Whitehall & FCPH) have perverted the process in an effort to accomplish an ulterior purpose for which it was not designed.’

• ‘If not for Defendants continuous and systematic interference in sales and nuisance abatement, all nuisances of previous and existing Olander units would have been abated.’

They’ve asked the court for compensatory damages of $1,000,000.00 plus punitive damages, interest, the cost of the action, and attorney fees.

What it looks like to me, and what Steve Close charges, is that the city is misusing nuisance laws in order to ‘acquire ownership and control’ of others rightful private property for their own ulterior motives, that which is to develop the land for specific use the City has already been planning. They’ve been ordering Woodcliff to jump through hoops to comply with their exhaustive demands and then stymieing those efforts to comply by abusing the processes of our justice system in order to, essentially, steal their property, instead of acquiring it lawfully or morally with eminent domain, giving them a fair price to begin with (which I’m sure Whitehall doesn’t have the money for anyway. We can’t even afford to fix our own curbs and gutters!). So, no matter what Woodcliff does, its never enough and when they do comply, Whitehall puts up roadblocks to further stymie their advances and compliance and then turns around and says they’re not meeting their demands.

This is an outright indictment of the morals and character of those running our city’s government. Anyone of decent reason and moral fiber would see the right and fairness in giving someone a fair price for that which they’ve worked hard to acquire, that which they deserve and have a right to. What I and other good and fair citizens of this city must certainly see is that the actions of some elected officials are not this at all. This is rotten, predatory, underhanded greed. It is immoral, unprincipled, self-aggrandizing crookedness using the power their elected office brings them to manipulate that system for their vainglorious plunder. All of which is aided and abetted by the people’s voices on council who are not without blame. Those who are, and allow themselves, to be cowed into silence by these people through threats of litigation against the city in these stymieing, silencing executive sessions, where no citizens they represent can or will be apprised and alerted to the actions of their city. It is yet another black mark branded onto the reputation of Whitehall by these duplicitous elected officials. In a community whose motto is ‘City of Pride’, it seems behavior like this, acted in yours and every citizens name, offers little to nothing for our community in the way of pride. It is grotesque, unethical behavior carried out with masks of caring humanity. I blame City Attorney Mike Shannon and Mayor Kim Maggard along with those who abetted these actions with never-ending approval for funds for the city attorneys office ‘legal fees’ without proper knowledge of how the money was being spent and on what, or, asking in the first place, and if they did, shame on them for allowing this exaggerated amount of funds to be so misused for the ostensible purpose of abating nuisances in favor of street repair and recreation for the citizens. (If one recalls, this country almost tilted into the abyss only six years ago with a great deal of hardship. Are we to say to people, ‘to hell with you and your problems!’?) If you do not speak out against this sort of behavior or fail to exhaustively ask questions, or simplemindedly cheer lead those who are a part of this abuse then you are a part of this outrage and affront to decency and ethics and fairness, not only in government but as human beings among your fellow man.

Are these truly the kinds of people we want representing us in City Hall? It is an embarrassment and leaves a foul miasma hanging over Whitehall’s reputation.

As a post script, I will say this; for 6 years now I have complained loudly about their ignoring conflicts of interest; government insiders donating money to fund a citizens campaign to oust one of their elected peers, Kim Maggard ignoring conflicts of interest in a candidates forum she was intimately associated with, etc. I remind you again of this thoughtful analysis of why ethics matter in public office on this very blog.

http://votedixon.com/2015/07/04/why-ethics-in-public-office-matter/

and I quote from it…“Democracies and free markets absolutely rely on the integrity of their systems for the free flow of information and objective decision-making. Conflicts of interest act as a cancer that eats away at those institutions.”

“The three fundamental values in play are trust, integrity and fairness…they are at the base the fundamental concepts that inform the instrumental value-e.g. avoiding conflicts of interest”.

“The trust the public gives you, and that you have freely asked for by running for office, should be earned before it is merely handed over, for it is sacrosanct. Without the trust, the integrity of its systems begin their free fall and the institutions we rely on in America begin to not only fail us but deteriorate into something other than a Constitutional Republic.”

To ignore conflicts of interest is to show contempt for the public trust as well as disregard and underestimate the public’s power to allow you to rise or see your rightful defeat. These are people who shouldn’t be trusted with public office. When the public sees them show sound judgment and reasonable behavior in heeding conflicts of interest, (that which the informed public must demand) it builds a trust in them for you which relaxes them towards you and is good for achieving results with the public’s wholehearted approval. Here in Whitehall governance, too often conflicts of interest are ignored due to their getting in the way of self-serving interests. They believe they can do whatever they want (as long as too much information is not released) and you won’t do anything about it because you’re not paying attention…and they’re right. It is only when people speak out (who aren’t subsidized by them) and inform you of the whole story are you then made aware of the underlying layers they’d prefer to keep quiet. Here they want respect without accomplishment and trust without earning it (or a vote without aid of information proffered). Mayor Maggard’s yard signs, for instance, say the word ‘Trustworthy’ but in truth it is only eleven words printed on cardboard as far as its merit towards her is. She’s got political aspirations and she truly doesn’t care about earning your trust but instead gets it by your ignorance of her deceitful actions, that which she hopes you’ll stay ignorant of.

This is why, while I am not a judge or jury, I just can’t trust that they did the right thing with Woodcliff, simply because they too often did the wrong thing in other areas. It has been a pattern of theirs. It is my default setting for them based on history and observation. They have built up no trust with me, the one who’s been watching them closely now for 6 years. This is why I feel strongly as I do in this matter. They never built trust or earned it and now when things look bad, I simply can’t rally behind them and cheer lead for them. They themselves are responsible for my bad attitude towards them.

p.p.s.- I must also add that criticizing public officials does not show a contempt for my city but rather a care for it. If I feel there are those who are bringing harm to it, particularly in the public arena, it is my and your duty and obligation to do something about it. So, before anyone gets up in arms about these sort of posts, I say to you that what there is that’s wrong and however great a volume of it there is, there must be a light shone on it for it to be identified and eradicated, for in the end run, I owe these people nothing but I owe the city and its citizens everything.

*Mike Shannon donated a total of $200 to Kim Maggard. Jim Graham donated a total of $175 to Kim Maggard. Jim Graham donated $35 to Mike Shannon….