Kevin W. Johnson: Selling Out

[What follows is a condensed and slightly revised version of a 2008 River Vices  posting, to which I have added a postscript.]

Portsmouth businessman Kevin Johnson is playing an important role in helping the city’s corrupt politicians recycle the Marting Scam, which has morphed into the “City Center Scam.” The City Center Scam is a scheme to turn the 124-year-old decrepit Marting building into a home for city offices, with mom and pop kiosks on the ground floor to sell notions and newspapers. 

The citizens of Portsmouth rejected the Marting Scam by more than 2 to 1 in a referendum in May 2006, but the crooks are back again in 2008, recycling what they failed to sell the first time, repackaging it as the City Center, with Kevin Johnson up to his neck in the lies and “petitions” being circulated to fool the public into thinking that the old, unoccupied, leaking Marting building, with its ugly phony-brick 1950s' façade, is the key to the revival of downtown Portsmouth. After my legal challenge to First Ward councilman Tim Loper resulted in his removal from office, Johnson harbored political ambitions of being appointed to replace him. But the city chose Mearan, perhaps with the philosophy of “better the devil you know.” Now Johnson, as a member of the City Building Committee, has shown he is a team player who follows the rules by which the crooked game is played.

The Emporium

Kevin Johnson, or Kevin Warren as he is listed on the Scioto County Auditor’s website, is the co-owner of the Emporium antique shop, at 607 Chillicothe St. His partner is Paul Johnson, whose last name he has apparently taken. The irony is that Kevin Johnson, or Kevin Warren, this crusader for the revival of downtown Portsmouth, is reportedly trying to sell the Emporium. He’s going to sell out, after about five years in business, if only he can find a buyer as foolish as he was when he started the business. He’s going to sell out and move out, although a case could be made that he had already sold out when he became a member of the City Building Committee, chaired by the nefarious Mike Mearan. Johnson's sellout may in the end help him unload the Emporium.

What a poster boy Johnson is for downtown renewal! What in the world was he and his partner thinking when they opened another antique shop in Portsmouth? The Emporium is all the evidence you need that downtown Portsmouth died forty years ago but nobody has buried the corpse, of which the Marting building is the stinking head. The people in our down-at-the-heels-crime-ridden-community needed another antique shop like they needed another prostitute on John St., or more doped-up drug dealers on Waller St., or like they needed another chop shop/oxycontin dealership like West End Auto. After visiting the Emporium website, I wondered who among us needs a Marting Shoe Polisher can, a life-sized cut-out of Marilyn Monroe having her skirt blown up over a subway grate; or a copy of a 33 1/3 Velvet Underground vinyl record (shown at left); or a Black Forest Cuckoo Clock?  Doesn’t Kevin Johnson realize that the local rednecks, according to Clayton Johnson, don’t even know how to set an alarm clock? Would potential customers who don’t know how to set an alarm clock pay $125 for an antique cuckoo clock?

The Emporium had moved into the empty building that had previously been occupied by Stapleton Office Supplies, which had held on as long as it could before heading for greener pastures, heading for anywhere, that is, other than downtown Portsmouth, just as Sears Roebuck had previously moved out of that same building. Why did Kevin Johnson think there would be any more customers for antiques than there had been for office supplies, or for pet grooming, or for Speedo bathing suits, or quilts, to name some of the businesses that have come and gone in the last twenty years on Chillicothe Street? Portsmouth was already the antique/junk shop capital of south-central Ohio before the Johnsons arrived. Having another antique shop was like bringing coke to New Boston or oxycontin to Portsmouth. We’ve already got enough of that stuff.

I talked to Stapleton’s employees the week before it closed. It was a sad occasion, but Stapleton’s understood the time had come to get out. The Marting Foundation is trying to con everyone into believing downtown can be revived, like the  dinosaurs  in Jurassic Park. The dream of recreating the bustling downtown Portsmouth of 60 years ago is a myth that Clayton Johnson and others perpetrate and exploit, just as unscrupulous evangelists exploit the hope of everlasting life. Unfortunately, the only thing that is likely to revive downtown Portsmouth is casino gambling.

Gambling

That’s probably what Kevin Johnson was betting on too when he opened the Emporium. As I reported in an earlier River Vices blog, “Sluts and Slots,” the Portsmouth Daily Times (28 June 2005) ran a front-page story [above] with the headline “Gambling Draws Local Support.” What did this local support consist of? One person, Kevin Johnson, who, the PDT reported, “said casinos could mean turning around the local economy.” Maybe gambling would eventually turn around the local economy, but not soon enough, as it turned out, to save the Emporium.

Will someone buy the Emporium or will it remain on the market for a long time? If the City Center becomes a reality, maybe Johnson can attract buyers for the Emporium by claiming that things are looking up downtown. As somebody with a lot of white elephants on his hands, he has a vested interest in the proposed City Center, which may explain why he wants the city to invest millions of dollars in renovating Marting’s, though many citizens are adamantly opposed to and voted against it. Gambling did not save the Emporium. Portsmouth did not bail him out, but he apparently hopes the the City  Center will. But if the City Center doesn't materialize, if all other avenues are closed, he can try to unload the building on the public as the Marting Foundation did the Marting Building and George Clayton did the Kendrick’s retail store building. Johnson has tried to make the case that the building the Emporium occupies has architectural and historical importance. “In recognition of our [restoration] efforts,” the Johnsons tell us on their Emporium website, “the City of Portsmouth designated our building as a historic site in late 2002, and plans are to restore the exterior of the building in the near future.” What malarkey! There is nothing historic or architecturally significant about the building the  Emporium occupies. Designating the building historic was a political payoff to Johnson who from the time he arrived in the city courted corrupt politicians like Jim Kalb and supported the Marting Scam. As a historic site, the Emporium building has more chance of being unloaded on the taxpayers, as the "historic" Marting building was. If he does unload the building on the taxpayers, it will be his reward for having sold out to the crooks who control the city.

Postscript

As we now know, the City Center did not materialize  and the Marting building remains an albatross around the neck of Portsmouth taxpayers. Kevin W. Johnson did not find a buyer for his business, liquidating the merchandise instead. The "historic" building the business occupied had been on the market for years without attracting any buyers. In the past, following what I call "Portsmouth's First Commandment," influential people with Portsmouth property they could not sell unloaded it on the taxpayers as the Marting Foundation did the "historic" Marting building. But those kind of swindles are now harder to pull off and Johnson does not yet have that kind of influence. He is not yet that kind of Johnson! However, he is good at selling out. A banker who is apparently now a budding politician, Michael Gammp, of the American Savings Bank, purchased the building from Johnson in a move the commercial and political consequences of which are yet to be revealed. Meanwhile, Johnson, has proved himself the most officious council member. His machinations have included returning the city to a city manager form of government, which will put him in the position of being able to control city government, since the mayor will become a position with no power at all, leaving Johnson, as the cleverest politician in city government, to act even more  in his characteristically clandestine manner. Long after he is gone, the city will have to deal with the consequences of the shift back to city manager. When he arrived in Portsmouth, Johnson thought gambling would be a solution to many of the city's problems. Now he thinks the city manager will be. Just wait.

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For earlier related posts click on:

S.O.G.P.

Gambling

The First Commandment of Portsmouth