For those of you who may not know him, Marty Cabry is the older white gentleman
who works for Jannie Blackwell as her Zoning point person (among other things).
You've probably seen him at Zoning Board hearings, or representing Jannie at
community meetings.
Marty had been sick for a number of years and had to take an oxygen tank
everywhere until he had a full lung transplant about 2 or 3 years ago. But
before that, one of his children was born with a debilitating disease, and has
been confined to a wheelchair all of her life. She is in her 30’s now and
still lives with him. The front of his house had to be reconfigured to install
a wheelchair ramp for her, although the ramp didn't appear to be in the photo
included in the online version of the Inquirer story.
It's very unfortunate that Marty hasn't been paying his real estate taxes. But
it isn't a situation where he is a deadbeat trying to game the system or his
job. For the last 30+ years he and his wife struggled to raise and support a
severely handicapped child, and in his later years he himself suffered from a
debilitating health problem.
But in spite of all of that, Marty has also been a very tireless worker for
Jannie, and he very likely puts in 10 to 12 hour days. Even when he was really
sick, I often saw him come to our community meetings, having just come from one
meeting and probably on his way to another one. Some of those meetings ran
until 9 or 10 o'clock at night. And in spite of any bad press that she may
have gotten for doing it, Jannie Blackwell repaid that dedication by trying to
help him, instead of simply turning on him or throwing him under the bus.
I'm really sorry Marty's going to end up losing his house. I'm also sorry that
the Inquirer couldn't give the same attention to his personal struggle as it
did to the fact that he was a city employee who didn't [couldn’t] pay his
property taxes. If anything, Marty is a perfect illustration of what's wrong
with the current health care system, where medical expenses can force people
onto the street.
Maybe this story reveals flaws in the current health care system or with the
real estate taxation system. But the story does not reveal a flaw in Marty's
character, which the Inquirer story tried to imply.
