Porter planned to build Interstate 290 (Ohio), commonly referred to as the Clark Freeway, through the Shaker Lakes, a park that preserved a historic site.
Porter threatened to remove the historic Guardians of Traffic pylons from the Hope Memorial Bridge to widen it, stating, "Those columns are monstrosities and should be torn down and forgotten.
)[citation needed] In May 1976 Beth Ann Louis, a twelve-year-old girl in Olmsted Falls, wrote to Porter as part of a school assignment, asking him not to replace the Bagley Road bridge because of the impact on wildlife and the environment.
Porter replied to her with a disparaging letter that included several misspellings, calling Olmsted Falls residents "moochers, scroungers, chiselers and parasites."
[7] In September 1976 a number of Porter's employees told The Plain Dealer in a series of articles authored by reporter Amos A. Kermisch that for years he had forced them to kick back two percent of their pay.
As a result of a grand jury investigation in 1977, which was launched following the articles in The Plain Dealer, Porter pleaded guilty to 19 counts of theft in office for the kickback scheme and was fined $10,000 and placed on probation for two years.