Kim Wolfe

[Orchard St Wildwoman]

Does anyone else get the idea that HPD officers & HFD may be eating crow when it comes to the election of Kim Wolfe?

The HFD & HPD both rallied together for the election of Mr. Wolfe & it seems like a slap in the face that he is cutting HPD hours & reducing pay as well as furloughs & layoffs for both divisions.

This is just interesting to me, and I may be completely off base
because i'm not extremely informed when it comes to politics, so if i'm crazy or i'm wrong- someone tell me & i'll keep my mouth shut next time.

[Susan Maslowski]

Like all politicians, I think Kim Wolfe made idle promises to get the votes. I was never a big fan of his when he was sheriff. He has done some things that don’t seem fitting of a Mormon bishop, which he is, you know.

There was the controversy over him spending thousands of dollars on nice dress suits purchased at Wright’s Men’s’ Shop. He claimed he needed the suits and considered them part of his official attire, so felt they could be purchased with his dress allowance. There may have been ethics charges filed. I remember Chris Chiles said nothing improper was done, but Wolfe repaid the money. There were allegations that he used his county issued vehicle to transport one of his 8 children to and from school. And there was the controversy over his residency when he ran for mayor. He moved from outside the city limits to a mansion on the boulevard near Ritter Park…housing provided by a prominent Huntington businessman and benefactor. I don’t think he’d ever voted in a municipal election until then, but his campaign material said he was a “life-long” resident of Huntington. Were campaign funds ($1,500) used to pay his wife to develop his web site? Then there was the target-shooting incident where he used Tom McComas’ campaign signs as the targets. His friendship/affiliation with former Mayor Betty Sargent was enough for me to question his integrity.

I haven’t really paid much attention to Huntington politics, but here is a resource you may find interesting. OSW, I can’t remember if you are an MU or State student. To access the site, you have to be affiliated with MU or be an authenticated user. If you cannot get on to read Mayor Wolfe’s daughter’s essay, let me know, and I can give you another site that offers excerpts.

This is a creative essay/thesis that explores the boundaries of biography and autobiography, fact and fiction, so it is hard to know how much smacks of the truth. Dr. Chris Green is Wolfe’s daughter’s (Angela Hunt) Committee Director, and is an authority on Appalachian poetry/literature and a really fine fellow.

http://www.marshall.edu/etd/descript.asp?ref=867

This thesis is about Wolfe’s wife/Angela’s mother, Deborah. Angela says in her abstract that the purpose of writing the thesis was “to examine and seek understanding of my own relationship with the past and the present…using aspects of her family’s West Virginian and Mormon heritage.”

Here’s an excerpt from another site:

[Orchard St Wildwoman]

That is an interesting excerpt, Susan. Yes, I am a student at MU so I should be able to access the article. I will definitely look at it though because i'm interested in what it says after reading that small piece.

I know that politicians make idle promises, & majority of them are crooked as the day is long but it just seems like a terrible thing to do. I'm sure no one out there is 100% true to their word, but why would he seek help from those two groups in particular & then treat them that way? I guess I need to start living in the real world because it seems like no one has morals anymore, anyway. Besides, I don't live in Huntington so I suppose it doesn't matter.

Expensive suits & buying mansions? Why? To me that would have been more of a reason to NOT vote for him because he was moving his way into something that he wasn't or at least trying to put on the image that he was a rich business man who has lived in the park his whole life in a cozy dwelling where his wife bakes apple pies for the neighbors.. Okay, maybe I got a little carried away but you see what i'm saying..
Apparently, it would have sucked me in too though because I thought the support he was recieving from the town was just great. Everytime I was on campus, I would hear about Kim Wolfe & why everyone was going to vote for him.

I didn't know about the target shooting incident. I like Tom McComas thus far. Hopefully he won't let the fame get to his head after his term & try to be the mayor of Huntington.

[miltonwv]

The file is still on the MU serverr. I managed to get a copy of the dissertation/ thesis. It is an interesting read.
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[Susan Maslowski]

I thought so, too.