An Editorial...The First 60 Days

City Manager Bruce Johnson has completed his first 60 days as Grove City Manager, at a salary of $105,000, or $20,000 more than the previous city manager who had 30 years experience.

So how's the young fella doing?
In just 60 days:

--He has managed to get rid of the police chief.
--He has managed to get rid of the city attorney.
--He has poor manners, offending female visitors to his office by putting his feet up on his desk, and refusing to return phone calls.
--He does not communicate well with his own employees.
--He has never returned a single phone call to The Observer, in an attempt to censor the news.
--He has been described as arrogant and a "mini-Ball."
--He has ignored 10 months of work by the Blue Ribbon Committee, saying he wants to put together a new five year plan for city projects.
--He is planning to bypass the Planning & Zoning Board, setting discussion of changing the height zoning agreements at the Sept. 18 City Council meeting.
--He watches good citizens abandon their positions on the various trust authority boards, and approves appointments of people who will be "yes men" to the new council.
--He ignores the fact that his salary is paid by all the taxpayers in Grove, not just the ones that voted for the new council in April.
--He has doubled his salary in one year, from the City of Dewey, Ok, and with a 9-month severance check if he gets fired before his one-year contract is up. Only 305 days to go.

With any luck, he can make a half million cool ones by 2011 when the next big Council election is held. By then, many of the senior citizens hauled out of nursing homes to vote will have passed away, unaware of Sherman's March Across Georgia.

Apparently Johnson's orders were stapled to his office door upon arrival July 1 and he is following them to the letter. It would have served him better if he had come here giving signs of wanting to work for ALL of Grove's citizens rather than just one faction, in this city clearly carved in half. Look for more good people to be fired just because they were hired or were endorsed by the previous city manager.

An Editorial...Blackmail, Extortion, Defamation and Censorship

Grove has lately become home to a few citizens who want to censor the news. Let us say at the outset that we are not going to be blackmailed, extorted, or allow defamation of character to stop us from printing the truth. Since we have no advertisers we cannot be threatened with loss of advertising and since we have no revenue there is none to lose. All the various "clans" around town can do is keep others from hiring your editor as a paid reporter or editor, and they have surely been successful at that. This week it was the Hospital Clan, complaining about a story on last week's blog; last winter it was the Airport Clan, warning about loss of advertising. In any case, Grove is no place for Spineless Publishers.

In the movie "A Few Good Men," Jack Nicholson shouts "You Can't Handle the Truth, Son." Jack should pay a visit to Grove; he could find plenty of people at which to shout that line.

Some feel that a small town such as Grove cannot have a newspaper that prints all the news, even the unpleasant, since advertisers can be so easily threatened and the newspaper's revenue stream shut down. The public is the real loser. Your editor's problem is the perceived news "slant" towards the previous city administration on this blog. Actually, we really did try to tell the truth, including wrongdoings when we found them.

In any case, here are a few tactics to stop the flow of news:

1. Threaten the newspaper with loss of advertising. Newspapers cannot operate without advertising revenue so cutting this off will put a newspaper out of business in a hurry.

2. One newspaper can threaten its own advertisers with a hike in rates if they advertise in a competing newspaper, or even refuse to run their ads.

3. Blackmail. "If you hire someone we don't like, that speaks the truth, or if you print the truth, we'll stop our advertising and encourage others to do likewise."

4. Defamation of character. "We'll put out lies and make accusations that will cause you to withdraw job offers to anyone who writes the truth."

5. Censorship. This is a self-defeating tactic but practiced here anyway. Just limit your news releases to those publications you like, not necessarily the publications with the most readership. This is also known as cutting off your nose to spite your face.

It seems to us that if you want a cool $1 million in taxpayer dollars to build a new hospital, you would crank up the PR machine, not tell an editor off.

It is interesting that some people say they never read The Observer, but they can quote from it.

Our Constitution recognizes a free press and the public's right to know, and we intend to stick around and do our job, even in the face of the local censors, blackmailers, extortionists, and defamers of character.

An Editorial...Council Should Act on Pool, Center Study

Grove's Blue Ribbon Committee, a group of seven solid volunteer citizens, has made its recommendations to the City Council regarding a new community center and swimming pool for the city.

Sell the existing Civic Center, develop the property with a new grocery store and other associated businesses which will generate sales tax revenue; use the proceeds to purchase the Cornerstone Church and add a 50,000 square foot building for trade shows, remodel the building for banquets, meetings, etc.; build an adjacent swimming pool to replace the aging facility at the state park; include an indoor pool for hydro therapy, swim classes, etc. and add parking to the entire facility shared by both entities.

No new taxes are planned, no bond issues, no property tax. A simple bank loan and low interest loan from the state Department of Agriculture money would provide the funding.

The Committee ended its presentation at Tuesday night's Council meeting with "Let's Put it to a Vote of the People to Sell the Civic Center."

This is where we disagree. It would be a nice gesture, but it is not required. Save the $2500 in election costs. This is a business decision, not an emotional one.

Since no new taxes are required this is a matter which can be decided by members of the City Council, whom we assume ran for office to give their time to improve the city and move it forward.

Less than 20% of Grove's voters would climb out of their recliners and travel to the polls anyway. And what about the 75,000 people who live within a 30-minute drive of Grove and would use the new facilities, who can't vote.

The Council should authorize a real estate appraisal of Cornerstone Church and get a property inspection, just as any homeowner buying property would. It should study the numbers provided by the Committee to see if they are real. It should seriously advertise the sale of the existing Center. And then move on with the program, leading as they were elected to do, making decisions one way or the other.

The seven members of the Blue Ribbon Committee worked for 10 months putting the proposal together. Council has the obligation to act on it in a timely manner, using sound business practices to make decisions.

An Editorial...Campaign Politics

Never put it in writing. Rule One of political campaigns, because what you say can come home to roost. Take the recent City Council meeting where the 2007-2008 FY budget was finally approved by a vote of 4-1.

Larry Parham led the effort to deny the city Police Department's request for four additional officers, something that had not been done in eight years. He, along with Mike Davenport and Gary Trippensee, voted 3-2 to hire only one additional officer in the new budget, despite his campaign statements made prior to the April election:

"Make sure our police are properly funded and staffed so they can deal with drug problems and continue to stop crime and gang activity before it gets a foothold in Grove," Parham says on the GrovePac.org web site. Apparently something changed his mind after the election.
He also says, "Find a way to finance GMSA without the proposed huge rate increases."
Actually, the rate increase planned for June 1 wasn't huge at all, but a mere $2.06 per household for water users of 5,000 gallons or more a month.
His solution: Simply rob the city budget of $360,000 to prop up GMSA, over the objections of all five GMSA trust authority board members.

And how about this one: "I will vote and work to make road improvements a priority." A quote from Mike Davenport on the GrovePAC web site. During the final budget approvals, he voted to reduce last year's budget of $75,000 for asphalt overlays to $50,000 this year, and keep the pothole budget at only $25,000 this year. We can look forward to better roads, can't we?

Say one thing, do another. You can still read all the promises at www.grovepac.org.

An Editorial...Abusing the Police Chief

The new GrovePAC dominated City Council is taking out its licks on Ivan Devitt, currently the Chief of Police in Grove, simply because he was appointed by former city manager Bill Galletly. This childish behavior is unbefitting adults elected by the people. Is it really necessary that the council take their grievances out on Devitt, who by most standards has done an outstanding job since he was appointed last August.

In eight months on the job, Chief Devitt has upgraded the police department offices with new carpet and paint, created two new offices, moved the municipal courtroom to the city hall, obtained new vests, and a new radar trailer, to mention a few items. He spent 18 years on the Houston, TX police force, retired, moved to Grove, and was not seeking the job when former Police Chief Mark Wall was fired by Galletly. Councilman Larry Parham questions Devitt's qualifications to be Chief. But did Parham ever question the qualifications of the former chief?

Devitt is working to bring the long neglected department up to standards, seeking four new officers, new vehicles, in-camera videos, higher salaries for his employees including the assistant chief, dispatcher, animal control officer and records clerk. At current salaries, the department has been unable to attract or even retain quality personnel. Chances are your trash man makes more than most people at the Grove PD. And average calls per month have gone from 1299 in 2004 to 1895 so far in 2007.

Devitt proposes adding four new vehicles to the fleet, four-wheel drive; the DARE vehicle, the VIP vehicle, and the animal control vehicle, a '98 model with more than 110,000 miles on it. He also wants a fingerprint scanner and in-car video cameras, some new laptop computers, narcotics enforcement equipment, firing range improvements, tasers, rifles, body armor, digital cameras for use at crime scenes and accidents…the list goes on. He also wants to put in a Fitness Incentive Program and Continuing Education Program, plus a photo ID Badge maker for city employees.

The Council, in its Budget sessions, should find ways to give the police department the salaries, staffing and tools that it needs for the safety of all Grove citizens. Several made campaign promises to do so.

And, four councilmen need to get over their childish animosity towards Devitt, lest their Mama's take them out back behind the woodshed and give them a 'whippin.