Sherry Chandler » 2008 » March » 05
Charlie Whitt, our diligent Flatwoods South Shore reporter, has drawn my attention to this story, filed by Frank Lewis in The Portsmouth [Ohio] Daily Times:
The feud over the Indian Head Rock has been taken to the next level.
Greenup County (Ky.) prosecuting attorney Cliff Duvall has subpoenaed Portsmouth Mayor Jim Kalb to appear in Greenup County Court to testify before a Greenup County grand jury on March 28, at the Greenup County Court Annex.
“We have the Antiquities Act here in Kentucky, that involves things that are registered under that act through the University of Kentucky,” Duvall said. “It’s a Class D felony, and in Kentucky, that carries one to five years. That charge will probably be the most applicable. There isn’t any monetary value that anybody could put on it.”
Kalb said receiving the subpoena was not a surprise to him.
“I got a call from my office a couple of days ago, saying that a member of the Scioto County Sheriff’s Office was there to serve me with a subpoena. I kind of suspected that it would be over the rock,” Kalb said.
…
Does Duvall intend to call Steve Shaffer, the man who spearheaded the retrieval of the rock last year?
“If he chooses to. Let’s put it that way,” he said.
Shaffer, of Ironton, the main authority on the history of the rock, told a recent gathering of Scioto County school administrators there were five main theories as to the real history of how the now-famous carved face got on the rock.
“One is that in 1851, messages were placed on the rock, likely by early pioneers to mark the low-water mark. The second is that a quarry man carved it with a metal tool. Theory No. 3 is that a band of robbers used it as a marker when they buried their loot nearby. The fourth theory is that it was carved by Native Americans, and that theory began in an account in the 1891 edition of the Portsmouth newspaper. And the fifth theory is about a 100 -years-old. It says a boy named John Book, a prominent member of Scioto County society who was killed in the Civil War, carved it,” he said.
…
Kalb isn’t backing down on the issue, and is standing firm on his belief the rock belongs right where it is.
“The rock belongs in Portsmouth. It’s a logical place for it. This is not a case of Kentucky wanting to display it, it’s a case of them not wanting Portsmouth or Ohio to have it,” he said. “This is an important part of Portsmouth history, and if the rock is on display, it will be for both sides of the river to enjoy. If it’s Kentucky’s intent to put the rock back in the river, that should be a crime in itself.”
On an unrelated note but just because I saw it in the headlines, Scioto County where Portsmouth is located, went for Clinton in yesterday’s primary.
The Clinton campaign toured Ohio over the last month with former President Bill Clinton coming to Shawnee State University on Feb. 25, accompanied by Ohio first lady Frances Strickland.
Scioto County Democrat Party Chairman Randy Basham credited Strickland and the Clinton campaign sending Bill Clinton to Scioto County with pulling off the election for Clinton.
“It was good when Ted Strickland got Bill Clinton down here to speak on behalf of Hillary. Hillary did come to Lawrence County, and a lot of people from here went there to see her,” Barnett said.
Maybe they could get Bill to come down and arbitrate this rock dispute.
This post was written by sherry
After years of withering in an unfriendly legislative committee, a bill that would stop coal mine operators from filling valleys and creek beds with toxic excess waste jolted to life Tuesday.
House budget committee chairman Harry Moberly, D-Richmond, inserted language from the so-called stream saver bill into a decoy measure that would have given tax breaks for camels and heard 90 minutes of testimony on the proposal from various proponents.
Believe it or not, there are a few camels in Kentucky and with the droughty summers we’ve been having they may become more popular.
Be that as it may, this “decoy measure” was necessary because Jim Gooch, the chair of the House Natural Resources and Environment Committee has refused to let HB 164 out of committee for three years. You remember Jim Gooch, the man who holds committee meetings on global warming and invites only the wing-nuttiest opponents, the man who wants political cartoonists declared lobbyists, the man who sells mining equipment to coal companies. No conflict of interest of course for such a man to be chair of the Natural Resources and Environment Committee.
Decimation of our mountains is bad enough, but as House testimony showed yesterday, the fallout of mountaintop removal mining effects water quality for a large part of the state:
Two university scientists testified in favor of the measure, saying the industry’s practice of pushing spoil and overburden over mountainsides and into the valleys below is harming water quality, increasing the potential for floods and destroying aquatic habitat.
“The increase in metal concentrations is particularly alarming because of their toxicity to humans and wildlife,” said Nathaniel Hitt, a research associate in the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife Sciences at Virginia Tech University.
As a result, many of the small streams that now flow into tributaries of the Kentucky River, which supplies water to 800,000 Kentuckians, are “as colorful as a fall Oak tree,” said Democrat Don Pasley of Winchester, the sponsor of HB 164.
“While questions about Central Kentucky’s water supply have divided us in recent years, we should at least be able to agree that it should be clean,” Pasley said.
This bill may come to a committee vote today (March 5). Kentuckians for the Commonwealth and the Central Kentucky Council for Peace & Justice are urging us all to call House Appropriations and Revenue Committee members before 1:30 today in support of this bill.
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In other good news, Dennis Kucinich won his Ohio primary bid yesterday.
BRATTLEBORO, Vt. (AP) — Voters in two southern Vermont towns passed articles Tuesday calling for the indictment of President Bush and Vice President Cheney for violating the Constitution.
More symbolic than substantive, the items sought to have police arrest Bush and Cheney if they ever visit Brattleboro or nearby Marlboro or to extradite them for prosecution elsewhere — if they’re not impeached first.
This post was written by sherry
