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Saturday, January 31, 2009

Nothing in Pocomoke will change until 'Boss Hogg' Russ Blake is removed from office.

There have been a few requests that I write more articles about local news here in Pocomoke City. I agree that we have gotten into topics of national politics and other things but we are a local blog.

The stated purpose of the Pocomoke Tattler and my blogging is to expose the open corruption at City Hall and rid the citizens of our un-elected dictator, City Manager “Boss Hogg” Russ Blake who has ruled Pocomoke City as his private fiefdom for 33-years.

Did you know the average term for a city manager is 3 to 7 years for two basic reasons?

First: The position is a political appointee and as we have all seen in Washington DC over the past few weeks that when a new administration takes office, new people are ‘appointed’ to head up various departments old ones removed, its the way of the world.

Has anyone asked their councilman or mayor why there has not been a new City Manager appointed in the past 33-years?

Second: The reason for rotating a city manager every 3 to 7 years is the potential to amass too much power in controlling a government entity by one person who answers to no one.

That is exactly what has happened to Pocomoke City in allowing one man to run the city whom is not accountable to the voters or citizens and has been given a license to steal by the elected officials.

When he is occasionally “caught” and exposed by citizens, like for adjusting his utility bills on personal rental properties down to virtually nothing, he simply says oops I made a mistake and pays the money back.

What about everything he has NOT been caught for?

The Pocomoke City Council has never enacted a law or ordinance that requires true disclosure by city employees if they have ANY interest in any business entity that does ANY business with the city. In the non-corrupt government there are regulations that require disclosure or ANY type of ownership. (Even Salisbury requires disclosures)

Example:

Boss Hogg owns 500 shares of common stock in Microsoft and the city purchases Microsoft windows and office products. The disclosure would look like:

I own 500 shares of common stock in Microsoft that were purchased through the stock exchange and are part of my retirement portfolio. The ownership of this stock is a fractional percentage of the company and any purchases or service contracts with the city do not create a specific cash flow or personal profit for me or the immediate members of my family.

Or another example could be:

I am the managing member or majority shareholder of XYZ, LLC that has been contracted by the city to perform $2 million dollars worth of work at the DelMarVa Discovery Center. I am a member of the Board of Directors at the Discovery Center. Due to my position as City Manager I am personally responsible for obtaining the $2-million dollars in government grants that will pay for these services.

As majority owner of XYZ, LLC based on our bid for the project being closed and non-competitive, I will personally profit $800,000.00 for simply steering this contract using public funds because there is zero accountability required of me.

Non-corrupt communities have disclosure ordinances on the books but here in Pocomoke City it would probably cost Boss Hogg and his cronies, thousands to millions if they had to make this type of disclosure.

Example of open corruption: Boss Hogg should have been terminated on the spot for self-dealing with the employment contracts he wrote and had the Mayor and council sign on the eve of Mike McDermott’s first election.

Mayor McDermott did not have the cajones to insist on Boss Hoggs termination, letting down each and every person who voted for him in the belief he would keep his word to clean house at City Hall.

Boss Hogg destroyed his incriminating employment contract, while it was under formal request to be disclosed by a properly submitted Maryland Public Information Act request. Destruction of government documents is a criminal offense carrying penalties of fines and imprisonment, yet Boss Hogg was not given so much as a public admonishment or reprimand for this criminal act.

I have recently been asked why I sound like a broken record constantly harping about City Manager ‘Boss Hogg’ Russ Blake by stating that nothing in Pocomoke City will change until Boss Hogg is removed from office.

The answer is simple:

Boss Hogg is still a criminal.

Boss Hogg is still the longest sitting City Manager in the history of the United States of America.

Boss Hogg continues to darken the doorways of Pocomoke City Hall.

Nothing in Pocomoke will change until Russ Blake is removed from office.

It’s Pocomoke…

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Walk on egg shells Joe. This is the Eastern shore and you are a Yorker. Just saying....I dont want to lose you dude.

Dont jepardize your abilities to bringing "current" events out to the public, We need you.

Anonymous said...

I know you have been exposing all the wrong doings in your town, but KEEP IT UP, expose all the lies and underhanded things he does and it will get the comments going. Look how long this Russ Blake person has been in charge, you can't change his ways overnight and look how many more are in bed with him - just one great big corrupt mess you have there in Pocomoke I believe. Talk about a good old boy system. Are you sure he'd not related to Salisbury's Mare. Sounds like one in the same to me.

Anonymous said...

The duty of goverment is to leave commerce to its own capital and credit as well as all other branches of business, protecting all in their legal pursuits, granting exclusive priveleges to nonw

Andrew Jackson

BossHogg said...

Just saying....I dont want to lose you dude.

A THREAT FROM BOSS HOGG?

Anonymous said...

I didn't know anything about Pocomoke before reading this, other than it seems like a quaint little town. Now I hate the place and I hope everything in the town government fails!

Thanks for your very informative blog. I am glad you guys have done the research and checked the facts to expose these jerks. Pocomoke sucks!!

Anonymous said...

I thought the same thing about Pocomoke. Seemed like a nice little town on the river with some cool new museums, renovated theater, and park. Now I know what a bunch of jerks live there and I hate the place!

Thanks guys. Pocomoke and Salisbury both suck!

Anonymous said...

The towns dont suck, Salisbury and Pocomoke are beautiful eastern shore towns that have been run into the abyss by people who care more about their own personal gain then they do the heritage of the towns or the citizens that live there. Dont be mad at the land because these idiots abuse it. The two are seperate.

Anonymous said...

No threats that I know of have been made towards Joe , just a loyal follower of the blog here showing some concern. Or paranoya which ever you perfer. :)

Ive seen some weired things happen to some very good people is all.

Anonymous said...

Ok...I give up..I am totally confused here. Boss Hogg is a contributor to the site yet he sends in bad posts about himself? Please help me understand this and please forgive my ignorance.

Anonymous said...

anon 3:32
"Now I know what a bunch of jerks live there and I hate the place!"

Ouch. You read one person's opinionated blog about another person, neither of which you know personally, and that qualifies you to make a statement like that? Very unfair. What other jerks live there? Do you know them? Did this article mention anyone other than Blake and mayor Mcdermott? No, so how can you make an inference about the 5000 or so residents of the town?

anon 3:17
"I didn't know anything about Pocomoke before reading this..."

You still don't know anything about the town. It's a small town that has had its problems like anywhere, but there is also a lot of history there and many good people. As a person that grew up in Pocomoke, I'm not defending Blake by any means, but your comments are ridiculous.

So, if you watch the news you see that the governor of Illinois maybe a little shady and corrupt. I suppose by your all's logic that the whole state must "suck" and be "full of jerks".
GREAT LOGICAL THINKING EVERYONE!

Anonymous said...

It seems BossHogg has looked between the lines one time to many.

Not all commenters are trying to hide a "secret" meaning in their postings. :)

BossHogg said...

Ok...I give up..I am totally confused here. Boss Hogg is a contributor to the site yet he sends in bad posts about himself? Please help me understand this and please forgive my ignorance.

Yes it can be confusing to anyone who is not familiar with the nuances of Pocomoke politics.

My Name is Billy Burke and I am the owner / publisher of the Pocomoke Tattler which is another local blog.

As you can see from my writings Pocomoke City is more than a little corrupt, and I coined the term 'Boss Hogg Style of Politics' based on a character from the 1970's TV show.

When registering my blogger account for some reason I took the name Boss Hogg to slam the openly corrupt Pocomoke City Government.

These guys hate the name Boss Hogg so much they can't even watch their favorite 1970's TV show without getting pissed at me... so it works.

It makes about as much sense as letting one man rule for 33-years totally unelected and having his henchmen run the open air crack market.

It's Pocomoke...

Anonymous said...

It is safer for a cat to hunt in his own backward. When he strays off to new territory, he sometimes gets hurt.

Anonymous said...

Sounds like some chains are getting rattled! GET EM JOE!

Anonymous said...

Git'um Bossman!