Jim Kalb
FRANK LEWIS
PDT Staff Writer
Former Portsmouth Mayor and current Fourth Ward City Councilman Jim Kalb has signed his own recognizance bond for $150, and had a court date set on a disturbing the peace charge after he received a citation over what authorities say was a violation of the city’s noise ordinance, a non-jailable offense. Kalb operates the Columbia Music Arena on Gallia Street, which has come under fire by some residents and business operators in the area recently for the noise produced by concerts at the facility without a roof over the concert area.
“I have a court date set for Oct. 3 at 9 a.m. in the Portsmouth Municipal Court room of Judge (Steven) Mowery,” Kalb said Wednesday.
Kalb said the issue has to come to court because he wants a resolution. Kalb said the crowds begin arriving around the same time they have been having to close, which has drastically hurt business.
Meanwhile, embattled Portsmouth businessman Lee Scott, owner of the Columbia, was meeting with legal representation Wednesday to formulate the wording for a ballot issue that would do away with the Portsmouth City Charter.
“We hope to revert the whole city to the Ohio Revised Code,” Scott said. “And if we can get the language done properly, and, of course we won’t know until after I meet with the attorneys, we want to totally do away with the charter and all ordinances that have been set up under said charter, so that they can’t keep using the ordinances against the people, and have to use the Ohio Revised Code for everything.”
Several citizens and business operators believe Scott is breaking the city noise ordinance since the part of the facility where the bands perform has no roof. Scott maintains he obtained all permits, and was cleared by the city in constructing the building following a fire in 2007.
“I think that (changing to the ORC) will help us tremendously,” Scott said. “I have run into the charter wall so many times. I’ve tried to talk to people about my problems down there. It’s all local. I can’t do anything. I can’t go over their head. They’ve put their own restrictions on us and everything, and if we are under the Ohio Revised Code, we have the same rights as Columbus, Cincinnati, and all the other places that have arenas just like mine. My feelings are that I would have the ability that if they tried to bother us under the Ohio Revised Code, I would be able to go to the state officials on it. Right now I can’t do it.”
Scott continued, “Only certain people are complaining, for the most part, on my noise. It’s not about the noise. It’s about me.”
Scott said he attempted to talk to City Solicitor Mike Jones about the problems at the Columbia.
“I called Mike Jones yesterday (Tuesday), and I said, ‘Mike, we’re looking at a $300,000 figure putting this roof on here.’ I said, ‘right now I owe nothing on my property. It’s all paid for, it doesn’t matter if I make money.’ I said, ‘when I put a $300,000 roof and everything on this place, what kind of assurances do I have that I’m not gonna have the same problem?’ - I get none - no assurances whatsoever.”
Scott said Jones did invite him to come to his office and talk with him about the problem.
“But he doesn’t want to give me anything,” Scott said. “They want us closed by 11 (p.m.) o’clock. And if we have state rule in here, then they can’t force their little city ordinances on me. They can’t revamp them. They can’t remake them and interpret them to mean what they want them to mean, because then it means what the state wants it to mean.”
Scott said, currently, under the state law, he has an A-5 arena, meaning he has the same rights as a football field in the same area of the city.
“I can do whatever I desire because under state law we have an A-5 arena,” Scott said. “They’re trying to impose their charter on me with their noise limitation for what they want. They won’t do it to anybody else.”
Scott says he hopes to begin the petitions process by Monday. Scott said it is probably too late to get the issue on November’s ballot, and will probably be brought up at a special election.
Frank Lewis may be reached at 740-353-3101, ext. 232, or at flewis@heartlandpublications.com
Until people let go of the past and accept the change of the future...this area will continue its downward spiral. The only reason it has survived this long is due to SSU having the cheapest tuition in the state. The housing is cheap, but eventually the students will quit coming if the safety is not here. This downward spiral has brought so much National attention to the crime, drug issues, etc of this city...that no one has a desire to move here or move back here.
Even their Golden Calf, SSU, has peaked in enrollment and increases, perhaps they have reach their ceiling that this town can support having to spill out into the town to spread SSU's deep pocket wealth to more landlords in Ptown, etc?
SSU is now stressing retention's and graduations. But the rule is, if you are not growing you're dying, No? All they are doing now is clinging onto what they have, decaying and fading.
Me Lady, wish you well with your family, can't you move them somewhere else? The infrastructure here has yet to totally collapse. Soon, this town's philosopher's nor it's water supply pipes will hold water any longer.
And for the CAVER's on here, that is not negativity thinking, it's objective observations on what's happening in the real world and that is negative, not attempted positive hyp or fluff, while we go down like the Titanic.
You got to identify the problems before you can arrive at the solutions to execute. Dah....
And there currently no capacity for that as described in your postings, Me Lady 173.
Insert photo of former Mayor/current Councilman Kalb here.
A conflict of interest does not prohibit a person from seeking or holding office. Rather, the conflict-of-interest prohibits a public official from participating in a decision that will have a financial effect on his or her economic interests.
Public officials may not make decisions that affect them financially.
A public official may not participate in a decision if it is reasonably foreseeable that the decision will have a material financial effect on one of the official's economic interests or on the official him or herself.
The public official's economic interests include:
Business Entities. Any business entity in which the public official has a direct or indirect investment. Any business entity in which the public official is a director, officer, partner, trustee, employee, or holds any position of management.
Real Property. Any real property in which the public official has a direct or indirect interest.
Sources of Income. Any individual, business, or other entity that has been a source of income to the public official.
Sound familiar?
You obviously never researched the Ohio Constitution, Ohio Revised Code or Portsmouth City Charter before you posted your rambling, disjointed rant.
The Ohio Constitution gives all municipalities home rule. This means that cities and villages may adapt laws for purposes of local self-government that are not specifically forbidden by or in conflict with general law. By way of contrast, counties and townships may perform only those functions that are specifically permitted by state law, unless they adopt, by vote of their citizens, an alternate or charter form of government.
General statutory law, described in ORC chapters 731 and 733, is the form of government of municipalities if the citizens have not adopted, by vote, one of the other forms. Under this form, for cities, the executive offices of mayor, president of council, auditor, treasurer and city solicitor are elected. A legislative body of from seven to 17 people, depending upon population, is also elected. In villages, the auditor and treasurer are often replaced by a clerk-treasurer, the mayor acts as the president of council, and the legal officer is appointed. Villages uniformly have a legislative body of six, with the mayor serving as president. If the village provides a utility service such as water, sewer or electricity, it will elect three citizens to a board of public affairs. Municipal mayors, who are chief executive officers, may appoint or remove the various department heads, such as police chief or public service director, appropriate to the municipality.
Optional plan statutory forms of government are not commonly used, probably because the charter form is made available by the Ohio Constitution. With the charter, the municipality may develop any form of government that its voters approve. The charter allows the municipality to "fine-tune" its form of government, instead of adopting one of the prescribed plans. The charter has been used extensively in Ohio to enhance the home rule authority of municipalities.
I hope this information was useful
By the way, I do agree with you on one point. There are individuals holding management positions within the city that have no business being there. This problem reflects back on the official responsible for hiring.
Now who represents the City Councilman Kalb?
He's a sitting councilperson, this will set a precedent. That's a legal term Frank and it ain't Hebrew.
Day in and day out, since the beginning of time, The City Solicitor and The County Solicitor claim they represent their legislative bodies, not the People, what gives.
In any case, the City Solicitor must be concerned with the fact that one of "his" councilmen are being charged with a violation of the city codes. Does the City Solicitor have to recuse himself because it's a city code violation against a sitting City Council person? The U. S> Supreme Court in "Citizens Uniter" have declared that Corporations are individuals, what's that have to do with this?
How about an opinion from the Attorney General for the 2 solicitors have a conflict of interest? Hah.
Well, lets see if this item has become a protected class and this posting gets cut by the M & M MEGO's. We'll see, the people know....
These fake names neuter us too. Hah.
First of all, "do" should be "due", no?
You need to do your home schooling on the ORC and the City Charter in a Home Rule State like The State of Ohio. The State claims it to be that, and therefore the city must maintain the state highways inside the city limits.
Currently, the city is invoking the City Charter over the ORC, and and and (sic) the State of Ohio Auditor on the City Charter trumping the ORC all over the landscape of Municipal Government, management, administration, etc. Look into the Charge offs or whatever they call it. Why do you think they are illegally doing all those street improvements? To cover up arbitrage spending the MFT funds for other non-MFT reasons. Hello.
You got to come out from under you Bridge or Rock, and get into the real world. You can have your own opinion but not your own facts.
While you are at it why don't you address a Secretary being in Charge of the Engineering Department and CIP projects, prioritizing the technical rehab's of the roadways, not a professional registered engineer in the State of Ohio, like they have a Chemical Engineer Duncan in charge of the sewer systems design and retrofitting instead of a Registered Civil Engineer in the State of Ohio per the ORC.
Hello, Blowhard, ignorant like those in leadership currently. Dah.
Oh, Conflict of interest, you live in or are talking about Scioto County where that is a way of life. Dah.
You and your posting is flawed and has the problem of Cognitive Dissonance. Dah......
Get out from you keyboard, or at least read the City Charter and the ORC's relevant parts, Dah...
Don't fire before you aim, or get informed before you mouth off. And give us specifics, sections of the laws, not your opinion, DAH....
Public temper tantrums - nice.
Y'all do realize that once you say something and it goes on the record out on the internet, that anyone can read it and see just how petty and whiny things are there.
I have a student going to school there - I like the school but I'm not impressed with any of your local government.
Try to remember that you are the face of your city gentlemen and grow up.
Maybe if you could act civilized with each other over stupid crap like this, your other problems wouldn't get away from you.
Here are some facts related to this article that were conveniently left out or clearly not asked, more than likely, to enable the paper to print future unfactual, rambling articles.
The City does follow the Ohio Revised Code (ORC). City Council cannot create a law that circumvents the ORC. If the ORC is silent on an issue, City Council has the authority to create legislation to address said issue.
A little research by the paper would uncover that all the outdoor music venues in Ohio have been closed do to the excessive, loud music/noise. Polaris/Germain Amphitheater played host to a whole bunch of big names before closing in 2007. Polaris was there first, but the area grew and it became surrounded by residential housing. The new neighbors had problems with the loud music/noise. Ultimately a lawsuit was filed by the citizens. Subsequently Polaris lost the lawsuit and closed. The Ohio Revised Code did not benefit Polaris' position, and Polaris was significantly larger than the Columbia and had more resources than Mr. Scott. So what is Mr. Scott really trying to change?
The one difference with Portsmouth, compared to Polaris, is the citizens residing in downtown Portsmouth were here first.
Another interesting angle to the article was noticeably absent. Councilman Jim Kalb was mayor at the time the Columbia was rebuilt. The building permit was initially for three walls for a storage area. This was signed off on by Mayor Kalb. Next came another change to the building permit. And the changes kept coming until the Columbia was rebuilt. Kalb signed on each and every one of the changes. Was the Planning Commission involved? Since this is a public meeting, might there be minutes from these meeting - both audio and type written?
Why doesn't the Times get copies of the numerous building permits Mayor Kalb approved. While you're at it, check when Mayor Kalb purchased the liquor license from Gregory's Clock Grill and had it transferred to the Columbia Music Hall. Not only has Kalb supplied the liquor license, he has invested very heavily in the Columbia project. Doesn't it make you wonder what actually transpired between Mr. Scott and Mayor Kalb?
This smarmy partnership between Mr. Scott (a convicted felon) and former Mayor Kalb/current Councilman Kalb smacks of a serious conflict of interest.