It may come as a surprise to some but a reason I went to the Marigold Festival this year was because I wanted to let Glenn Otto know that I planned to write an article that said he was not as good a candidate as his opponent.  Before I got to tell him, we started talking about my desire to have him attest that the videos of the City Council meetings on the City Website are more accurate records of City Council meetings than the meeting minutes (this is something I asked Jeff Gore to do as well).  Glenn told me he believed that they were more accurate.  He even stated that he never reads the meeting minutes but instead goes back to the videos if he needs to review a past meeting.  He said he would consider swearing out an affidavit saying such.   In that conversation he also said things that I will paraphrase as - he might not because he was afraid to lead.  I left that conversation without telling him of my planned composition because I did not want to come across as either threatening or bribing him in his decision.  Neither candidate for mayor scores well enough on the issues that are important to me (fiscally responsible with our tax dollars, strong police and fire service, reliable roads and sewers, and transparent government) to earn an endorsement.  This composition provides some of my observations about the two candidates along with a simple rating of each.  I go through this exercise myself to help me decide on how to vote.  I provided it to you in case you may find it useful.


When I started this composition, the major reason for concluding Glenn is not the better candidate was because my ratings on leadership ability and understanding complex issues for one candidate was a B, while the other got a D.  The major drawback to absolutely declaring that candidate the better candidate is, that for honesty, Jeff earns his F while Glenn at least scores a C+.  Complicating the matter, Jeff Gore and I had a Facebook exchange yesterday that has me seriously wondering if he deserves a rating as high as the B I give him for understanding complex issues.  Instead of changing that rating though, I will describe that interaction later.    

Leadership Rating  – JG = B, GO = D

Jeff Gore may have a bit of advantage for earning leadership points because the mayor is the face of Huber Heights government.  However, I give him a lot of the credit for the good positions that City has had on the Covid Pandemic and the discussions about race and the police.   Huber Heights was one of the few cities around that had facilities like the aquatic center open or held their fire works display on the 4^th of July.  It is true that it took all of council and staff for these to continue.  However, Jeff was able to portray that the City was working with County Health Officials to implement the City policies giving residence confidence that proper risk rewards were being considered. 

There was a rally of pretty significant size in Huber Heights designed to let officials know race and policing was an important issue.  Jeff statements going into that rally helped set the tone for a peaceful rally.  Interestingly though, the head of the Huber Heights Chamber of Commerce wrote a letter to businesses that said many similar things as the message Mayor Gore was telling citizens.  The previous City Manager used that letter as an excuse to fuel the fire of a personal grudge he has with the head of the Chamber of Commerce (at one time, they were both Huber Heights police officers together).  Jeff let the previous City Manager use that grudge to essentially sever the relationship between the City and the Huber Heights business community.  It would be hard to give a grade better than B to a leader that would let a person grudge get in the way of communication with such an important constituency.  The other thing that I should mention is that I feel it would be penalizing him twice if I marked down his leadership points just because a lot of time he is able to get people to follow him because he relies heavily of deceptive spin.  It would be a legitimate question to ask how can you justify separating the two.  My answer is because I think it would be penalizing him twice for the same offense.

Honesty JG = F, GO = C+

The first thing that I will say to clarify my thoughts on lying is that in order to lie there needs to be an intent to deceive.  So just because someone is wrong and states something that is wrong doesn’t mean they are lying.  Consequently, just like I did not double ding Jeff Gore on leadership because he is loose with the truth, I don’t double ding Glenn on honesty just because he has trouble with understanding complex issues. 

Glenn, in fact, is one of the most straight forward people I know about telling you honestly what his current position or thoughts on a subject are at that time.  As an example, I know that he earns his D for leadership because he told me it would be a hard thing politically for him to provide an affidavit stating he believed the videos of the council meetings are more accurate than the meeting minutes.  Other than him being an open book, why would he tell me such a thing.  There is only one incident that keeps him from earning an A.  Back when he first ran for Council, he presented himself as a fiscal conservative but did not address, head on, that he had gone through personal bankruptcy until after the vote.  Being fiscally responsible and needing to go through bankruptcy on the surface appear to be contradictory so this is something voters should have been aware of prior to the vote, especially since he presented himself as someone that was good with money. 


Considering Jeff Gore’s F rating, I’ve written a few articles on deceptive spin.  On almost every issue important to the residents of Huber Heights, Jeff engages in this practice.  Its interesting, but not surprising, that there is even a current issue where Jeff is fully engaged in trying to pull the wool over our eyes.  Pick a date on the calendar and there is a high probablility of finding an example of deceptive spin within a month or two of that date.  The current issue is the question of the Annexation of part of Bethel Township. 


Anyone that has been paying attention knows that after the land owners petitioned the City for annexation, Mr. Gore tried to give the impression that this was the first the City had any inclination this annexation was going to be requested.  Hearing him try to give that impression of course made me role my eyes.  The Developers of Carriage Trails had been telling us this was their intention even while I was mayor.  Soon it was pointed out that this information was included as part of the Carriage Trails Development Agreement and so Jeff Gore pivoted from not knowing anything about it to, well its not a done deal yet.  In fact, if you go to the video of the Citizen comments from the Sept 27, 2021 Council meeting you will see Mr. Gore over and over again tell residents that the City has not done their due diligence yet, so Council is not in any position to be able to make any decision about whether it would be good for Huber Heights to annex the property.  The problem with Mr. Gore’s posturing is that two weeks earlier, during the Sept 13, 2021, meeting, Council voted to certify that they had done their due diligence and was attesting to the fact that the city had the resources to provide services to that area. 


 

Go to video of the Sept 27, 2021 Council meeting by following this link then select Citizen Comments to see all the claims made by Mayor Gore. 

Here is the link to the Sept 13, 2021 Council meeting.  To see  the vote telling residents the City has the resources to provide services selected item 11 D. 


There is no way to know for sure why Jeff is pretending that he is not totally aware of and completely on board with City approval of the annexation.  The problem with pretending is that Mr. Gore already has a history with this developer that is suspect to a lot of people.  You may or may not be aware, but during the last campaign, Mr. Gore was a part time substitute teacher that according to campaign finance reports spent $8,000 advertising in order to get elected, but did not collect the campaign contribution from the Developers of Carriage Trails until after the vote.  When the campaign finance reports came out Mr. Gore went around the city trying to give an impression that he would have been proud to list campaign contributions from these developers prior to the election.  I personally feel I have been a little harsh taking Glenn down from an A to a C+ based on one deception.  With Jeff it’s his second nature.





Given the fact that Jeff Gore is a master of deceptive spin there is no wonder that he loses the support of many people because it is impossible to tell if he does this because he knows many people judge the quality of a politicians work by catch phrases and slogans and concludes it is a waste of time trying to go through long explanations to try and educate and inform, or if there really is a possibility that something more sinister is going on.  It’s understandable if some people vote on the side of caution and wouldn't risk their tax dollars being pilfered. 


For those of us that don’t want that quandary but instead would like to be able vote confidently because one candidate shows the capability to understand issues better or has better leadership abilities it would be nice if those close to Mr. Gore could convince him to stop lying to us all the time.  Without the cloud over his head about whether he is deceptive because he doesn’t want to put in the considerable effort and time of properly educating residents or because it masks activities that should not occur, he could be a pretty good candidate. 


For the next article I am debating whether to continue with the same theme from the last paragraph of providing constructive criticism that the winning candidate can employ to help them be a better mayor during the next term.  Or should I address the ratings given for understanding complex issues.  If I chose constructive criticism, the topic will be transparency and using residents’ knowledge to solve problems.  Currently both candidates earn a rating of D, but for different reasons. 

Understanding complex issues will be a difficult subject to tackle, not only because it necessarily involves writing about issues that have many different variables and outcomes but also because, my rating for Jeff might be way off.  If he really doesn’t understand the issues, and the misinformation he gives is not intentional, then that would affect the rating he earns in both the honesty category and the understanding complex issues category.  If Glenn and Jeff both rate a D for understanding complex issues then Jeff has no clear advantage as a candidate over Glenn and the quandary of honesty doesn’t really matter. 

The decision on which to write first will wait until another day.   

There is a second article read it here