AUGUST 8 - AUGUST 14, 1998
AUGUST 14, 1998
Fantasy is not fact
Yesterday's editorial in The Era was really a great work of prose.
It was extremely well written and as I read it over lunch at The Downbeat, I had to ask
Jodi for a clean napkin to wipe my eyes dry. It really got to me-that story about the poor
72 year old widow on a fixed income and her school taxes more than doubling. Gosh, Marty,
I am sure that Jim certainly gave you an "A" in Advanced Fiction Writing,
because that is exactly what it was. Great story, but a bit far fetched and really an
insult to the readers.
Your story is striking. It provokes thought. I am sure you will
include it in your portfolio when you submit your best work to the association that
annually awards the fine staff of The Era for their insight and excellence in
reporting. However, Marty, you and I both know that this one is not true. It is a fraud.
You would have us believe that suddenly this 72 year old widow woke up and her
school taxes more than doubled in just one year. You say "Municipal taxes
were paid in January with barely the blink of an eye." If that is true, Marty, this
72 year old widow living on the fixed income would have had to have been blind and no eyes
would have been blinking because her city and county taxes would have doubled, too.
Believe me, if this unnamed 72 year old widow would have had her county taxes double, you
and Jimmy Olsen would have been running up and down main street proclaiming what heartless
dirty dogs the County Commissioners were from the top of old City Hall. That never
happened just like this never happened.
For this woman's taxes to have "more than doubled" the following
would have had to have happened. Work with me on this, Marty. I realize that a
few of you in the newsroom do have trouble with numbers and converting them into a factual
story.I'm here to help, so don't be afraid.
Assuming this woman lives in a house that had a 1978 fair market value of
$20,000; for everything to stay exactly the same the value of her home could have
increased by a factor of 2.33 times. In other words, her fair market value could have gone
from $20,000 to $46,600 and her taxes (before the 10% increase Cheri and the School Board
tacked on for new furniture and a public relations director) would have stayed the same.
If she was paying $400 in school taxes before the reassessment, with the ten percent
increase and the value of her house going from $20,000 to $46,600, her school taxes would
have been $440. That is a forty dollar increase and not because the value of her home
changed. The forty dollar increase was for the new salary and the furniture.
For this lady's taxes to have more than doubled, the fair market value of her
home would have had to have gone from $20,000 to just above $93,200. If that in
deed did happen, then someone really blew it. Keep in mind, Marty, that we, as County
Commissioners, saw to it that the assessment office did informal reviews at all of the
Senior Centers. That was unheard of before we came up with the idea. We settled over six
hundred appeals in the senior centers and the elderly citizens of this county never had to
leave their home towns. Where was this woman?
If the value of her home did in fact go from $20,000 to $93,200 then some
things would have had to have happened. Was the house gutted and rebuilt? Was it
undervalued in the first place? Even at that, Marty, if her home went from $20,000 to
$93,200 Jimmy Olsen would have been waving the preliminary notice in our faces at the
Monday meetings and we would have read a series of front page articles and editorials on
the matter. That never happened. You know that and so do I.
It was a nice touch comparing this mythical woman with a woman from Erie who
pays $900 in school taxes and is happy. Is the woman from Erie a dope? Who likes
to pay taxes? I want to meet this woman because I have some ocean front property here in
Marshburg I want to sell her complete with a beach front bar.
The real meat of your story and probably the only real point is when you said:
"But some-some we probably will never know about-are businesses who take a look at
the Bradford area and decide to put their factory someplace else, someplace where the
taxes are lower. And, thus, the downward spiral continues." Magnificent! Brava! You
got it! Why did it take all that crap about the 72 year old widow on a fixed income to get
to what you really needed to say? You should have started the story by saying: "This
is about taxes but first I have to get a shot in on that red headed son of a gun in
Smethport and his two buddies." No need for the rest of it. I could have respected
that. Call me a sleezeball again. I can take it. Just don't bore us while you try and win
an award in editorial excellence.
Businesses don't have to go far to save on taxes. The combined
Smethport Borough, McKean County, and Smethport School Taxes are just a hair less than the
Bradford Area School Taxes apart from County and Municipal taxes.Remember, Marty, there
are other parts of the county apart from Bradford. Businesses can locate there, too-just
as long as Penny Eddy gets her tribute.
There is a major question here and you should have raised it. I've
been dealing with it since taking office. Do we want to subsidize business in the form of
not making them pay taxes to locate here? ARG thought their property valuation should have
been one dollar. I believe they were promised that by people not in a position to deliver
on that promise. I believe that was wrong but I did see their point. However, should we
have given ARG special treatment because of the economic impact they have on us all? Is
that fair to your 72 year old widow on a fixed income? Is it fair to you and me? Marty, if
you have the answer, tell me. I do listen.
Property taxes are unfair. It was my job to take those unfair taxes
and administer them equally. That was tough. Three of us, Larry, Jim and I, put in many
many hours listening to our friends and neighbors make their case for fairer taxes. We did
our best. Your 72 year old never materialized. She must have been in the bottle with Genie
and just popped out the other day so you could make me cry over my lunch. Good try, Marty,
but no prize this time.
AUGUST 13, 1998
Be careful what you wish for.......
Or say, because dreams come true and it just might happen. That has
always been one of my not so famous "Budisms"-not to be confused with Buddhism
in any way shape or form. Just some goofy sayings (budisms) that I repeat over and over
until everyone around me is sick of hearing it. You know, kinda like me picking on Cheri
O'Mara and her shopping mall mentality as she runs the School District right past the Poor
House and into bankruptcy. Anyway.....
Yesterday I said aloud, on this computer, that I wondered if anyone was even
out there reading what I wrote. Oh brother! Fifty-three e-mail responses came in
since that one hit the information super highway. Fifty-three! One was from England;
another from Germany, one from South Africa (imagine them reading the MLR down there!),
and even one from China! Think about it, Cheri! People all over the world know about you
and how you put us 35 million dollars in debt and made our taxes go out of sight, all
because you wanted the furniture to match. Wow!
From Dick Freeman at Howard Johnson's in Bradford we received: "
I look forward to your column each day and I make copies for all my employees that are
interested and many of them are. Keep up the good work. Please visit our Internet site at:
www.hojobradford.com." Thanks Dick. The Mountain Laurel Review already has a link
directly to Howard Johnson's (none to any Comfort Inn-maybe because it doesn't exist-LOL)
and you can get to it from our advertisers page. And Dick, if I knew how to do that blue
thing with your address, I would have. I need Joe over at Warner Computers and Bradford
On-line (www.bradford-online.com) to do that for me. He is the true genius behind this
site. I just write the stuff!
Wally in Texas took exception to me saying he was always forty. To
that I said back to him: Wally, you looked older than everyone else because you always
(and I mean always) had no hair. Kathy confirmed that and insisted that she still hasn't
turned forty claiming that Wally snatched her from a school yard. That cad! Or is it Cod?
I just want to come to the party, Kath! You know me and parties, if I can stay awake.
A woman in South Africa asked what was up with Ray McMahon? She noted
that I hadn't picked on him lately and wondered if I had sold out to the power that be. I
laughed at that one. I told her that Ray had been experimenting with micro-chip implants
and wireless computer communication technology so he didn't have to be present to tell the
mayor what to say. I saw that she was quoted in the paper recently and it appears that the
testing is going well. I assured her that I had a new block buster up my sleeve for Ray
and that I would unleash it soon. Think about it Ray! Even in South Africa they know about
you. You too, Peggy.
In Germany they wanted to know about the Bradford River Walk. They
said they tried to book reservations at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford Hyatt
Regency, but the Hyatt Corporation claimed they had no such location. Leave it to the
Krauts to take what I say at face value! Gosh! No wonder you people can't win wars. I told
them not to bother trying to book at Comfort Inn, either. I told them to do Howard
Johnson's because they have a bar and a restaurant and a ballroom. It is not a cheap
hotel! (Another Budism). There's plenty of room!
England definitely does swing! They wanted to know about the campaign
charges against me. "I say. This Mike Fisher sound like a real dud. What is his
problem? If that was over here, all of the politicals would be in the soup with you and
there would be no time at the bar." I wrote back and told them if there was no room
at the bar, they should buy their own-like I did. And yes, Mike Fisher is a dud. Always
was and always will be. He had Mt. Lebanon envy as a kid-wanted to be a cake eater instead
of a green bag. Then he went to Georgetown University and demonstrated against the war
with Judge Cleland and Jeff Duke (who has big university envy along with envy for other
big things like just being tall) and now, Mike Fisher is busy trying to hide the agony of
hair loss and therein lies the major problem between the two of us. I have hair!
England also asked about accommodations in Bradford. (I guess they
heard about the River Walk, too.) I told them we had no Comfort Inn and they should call
Howard Johnson's, or e-mail them at www.hojobradford.com.
See, Dick. I did it that time.
From China it was one of those women who left out the nuts on my smoker. She
was laughing at me and wanted me to know that the women on the assembly line were not all
pregnant like the stereotype from a Pearl Buck novel. (Pearl Buck...Is she any relation to
Jim Buck?)
From Hope, Arkansas (who do we know from there?) a woman was asking about Bob
Cummins Construction Company. You know: Building a better Bradford and Northwestern
Pennsylvania for us. "What ever happened to the Grand Theater?" she
asked. "This Bob Cummins sounds sexy. Is he rich? I am sending my picture. Will you
give it to him for me. Also, give him my phone number. It is an 800 number so it won't
cost him long distance charges." Wow! What a picture, Bob. You're going to like this
one.
With that I had better get done with this. I have forty-seven more
e-mails to answer. I just hope I get some pictures like the one Bob Cummins got. Oh, by
the way. About the Grand Theater; Mountain Laurel Publishing Corporation is attempting to
retain Chris Hauser to secure the property for our new World Headquarters. John
Satterwhite and I are negotiating for press time at the Era, which is just about
next door, and would be if I could get rid of Northwest Savings. Then we could print The
Mountain Laurel Review locally. I think we will apply to OECD for a deal like Ray
gives all of his friends. That way he could point to me and dispel all past and future
claims of alleged tainted dealings. That will be the day!
Oh. By the way, Tim; get real!
AUGUST 12, 1998
Parts of our lives
I seldom know what I am going to write about as I sit down each morning. Sometimes
I even wonder if there is anyone out there who reads what I write. It is only when I get
feed back in the form of letters, e-mail, and even phone calls, that I realize that you
really are out there. You don't always agree with me. I don't expect you to. I do get off
the wall every now and then, but that's me and I have nothing more to say about that.
Still, you are there and that's what counts.
The other day I had a pleasant surprise. We lose people as our lives
take twists and turns. We try to stay in touch, but little things often step in and break
a chain and people disappear. You wonder how they disappeared. Often, you never find out.
However, this time we did. It was something simple like an address change because of a new
county wide 911 system in far away Texas and a mailman too lazy to change the street
number. That could have ended contact with two old friends forever had it not been for
this modern technology that we are using right now.
Kathy and Wally have known Sharyn and I and our children for years. We
knew their children and we shared in each others lives. We were there at parties. I turned
forty and we had one hell of a bash. Sharyn turned forty and we had another. Because Wally
was always forty, no one cared; and Kathy never turned forty so we didn't have a party,
for that reason anyway. Our baby died and they were with us. Wally had gas and thought he
was having a heart attack. We worked together. Wally and I installing, sometimes guessing,
and always trying to do our best and usually succeeding. Kathy and Sharyn labored over the
manually entered and balanced books, struggling to keep a new company afloat and feeding
our families at the same time. We fought a corrupt Fire Marshall, dealt with the Secret
Service as we protected Lady Bird Johnson's property, and drank margaritas at happy hour.
We camped out on Barton Creek and we listened to Willie Nelson and drank Budweiser with
him in a broken down bar in Dripping Springs. It seems like it was the day before
yesterday.
Time plays tricks on us. It goes faster than we think. Before we
realize it, a part of our life is over and another begins. The new part becomes so
engrossing at the time that we fail to cherish what we are leaving behind. Like the
pictures on the wall in this room right now, a collage of pictures of my life with my
family, I wonder how it all changed so fast. I look at the picture of Willie, our dog, as
a puppy. Now the fifteen year old, hard of hearing and contrary as hell, lay next to me
dreaming. Kim and Jason the same height for that moment, are standing next to their mother
at a frozen Niagara Falls. Geoff with his closed mouth grin, half his present height, is
standing next to a fireplace that was seldom used because of the Texas heat. There are
pictures of consecutive Christmas mornings, each time the children taller and older. There
is one of Sharyn and me, smiling and happy at a New Year's Eve Party, lost somewhere in
time, the year forgotten forever. Pieces of our lives and now they are nothing more than
pictures on the wall.
Life goes by in a hurry. Aunt Rose, 93 years and 8 months knows that.
1923 to her is like 1984 to me; just yesterday. As it goes, so do people that were close
to us. It's good to find Kathy and Wally again. It is great to get e-mail from them. Even
on the computer Wally still sounds the same. Kathy, especially on the computer, in spite
of the fact she is now the grandmother of four, still hasn't turned forty. Someday she
will. That will be one hell of a party.
AUGUST 11, 1998
The People versus Harold T. Beck
When I got the news yesterday, I have to say that I certainly felt like Larry
Clackston Flynt, the Editor and Publisher of Hustler Magazine. I told
Judy Wills and D.C. Colman that all that was left was for me to start publishing a nude
centerfold in The Mountain Laurel Review. "Heck," I pointed out.
"I already have The Vietnam Legacy which is comparable to The Vietnam
Veteran's Advisor. Judy didn't think much of the idea. D.C., always the businessman,
looked at the potential. "Great!" he said. "Then we can start selling it
instead of giving it away." When I brought the idea home, Sharyn definitely vetoed
it. The Mountain Laurel Review will maintain its integrity, for now, anyway.
Still, D.C. does have a point. We could sell the magazine under those circumstances.
That would raise some interesting questions. Would I have to register
the new format with the Election Board? I am one of three members of the Election Board.
Would I have to register it with myself? Would I have to report the sales if I used the
proceeds for my defense? Oh well; since Sharyn vetoed the concept, it is a moot subject.
Interesting questions, that's all.
Well, I guess it is on the The Supreme Court of the Commonwealth of
Pennsylvania! I really suspected as much as I left the Federal Court House in
Erie on July 16th. The Commonwealth Court Judges: Colins, Pellegrini, and Narick, just
didn't seem to grasp the issue that day. The unanimous opinion written by Judge Colins,
clearly demonstrates that they in fact did not grasp the essence of what we are arguing.
The decision: typed in large letters and double spaced, is just under six hundred words
and is five pages long. Most of it attempts to re-state what we are arguing but comes up
short by omitting many of our key, and very compelling citations of law and ruling
case law.
Their augment in affirming the Court of Common Pleas decision, goes beyond the
scope of the law. If this decision is allowed to stand, it will, in effect,
broaden the law to the extent that the Attorney General in the State, or the District
Attorney in a County, can initiate their own criminal proceedings against any candidate
who may be out of favor with them or the the party, as is my case. This was not the
intention of the Legislature when the law was written. In fact, the way the law was
written, was to stop this very thing from ever happening. The last section of the Election
Code, Section 1642, which sets forth Prosecutorial Jurisdiction, is there to identify when
the District Attorney or the Attorney General has jurisdiction after the process
of the audit and the certification by the Court has been satisfied. The Commonwealth Court
has now re-written the law and has expanded it. They have been misled by the Attorney
General's argument and have held that Section 1642 is another way for the process to
begin. That was never the intent of the legislature. That has never been done before in
history! I have no choice but to carry this to the Supreme Court.
Keep in mind that this is over $370 that I reported and spent on legitimate
campaign expenses. The law was written so that procedural mistakes could be
forgiven. The law was written to see that any candidate who was guilty of bribery, fraud,
or willful violations of the Election Code shall be forever disqualified from holding the
office sought, or any other office of trust or profit in the Commonwealth. For the first
time ever, look at what they are doing. Have I bribed or attempted to bribe anyone? No,
they haven't said that. How is it fraud? They haven't said that I took the money under
false pretences. I did report every single penny. I did spend every single penny on legal
campaign expenses. How could that be fraud? Wasn't that what the people who made the
campaign contributions wanted? Finally, why would I willfully violate the law when all the
money was reported and all legally spent? Never once in the complaints against me or my
sister-in-law is bribery or fraud mentioned. Willfully violating the Election Code can't
hold water with the money reported and spent legally.
This is a nothing more than a selective political prosecution.
Charged with investigating serious charges against Senator William Slocum of purposefully
polluting the Brokenstraw Creek with sludge and effluent from the Youngsville Water
Treatment Plant, Attorney General Mike Fisher swept the matter under the rug. He did it on
orders from the highest authority in the Republican Party: Elsie Hillman and President Pro
Tempore of the State Senate, Robert Jubelirer. Now, it appears that the matter has not
gone away.
The Mountain Laurel Review has learned that Senator Slocum and Warren
County Commissioner Bob Williams have been under investigation by the Federal
Environmental Protection Agency and that charges are close to being filed in the matter of
polluting waterways.
So what should we conclude? Is the matter of my reported $370 more
important than dumping human waste into our waterways? The Attorney General of
Pennsylvania thinks so. I guess that I'll just have to get a flack jacket and helmet and
get ready to go back to court. I guess I am the true "sludge king" as I publish The
Mountain Laurel Review instead of dumping it in the river when you can't handle it
like our esteemed State Senator is alleged to have done. Oh well, this is Pennsylvania.
America does start here! That doesn't say much. Does it?
AUGUST 10, 1998
Let's make money!
Why don't you and I go into business? We can get a few of our friends
who have a few extra dollars laying around to back us. We will give them
"shares" in our business and promise to divide our profits with them according
to the number of shares they have. Of course, the number of shares will depend on the
amount of backing they gave us.
Now you and I don't want to short change ourselves. We own shares
because we started this business. In spite of that, we deserve to be paid, too. We
recognize that our pay is an expense just like our workers and profit on shares is paid
after all expenses are paid. Because of that, we will pay ourselves a whole lot. Sounds
reasonable enough to me!
Business is good. Inflation is down and extra money is out there and
new people want a piece of our company. We sell more shares and use their money to expand
and buy the latest in technology. We are lucky. We have a stable and well trained work
force. We pay them well and even when they unionize, we manage and actually flourish. Life
is great! You and I become very rich. We become very important. We have everything we
want. We have more money than we can spend.
More and more share owners come on board and we have more money for expansion.
Business gets better and better; but something else is happening. While we paid thirty
cents every four months on a share; now, because of increased share holders and increased
expansion, we are only paying twenty-five cents a share. That presents an immediate
problem for you and me.
We own shares and we are paid by our company. Our share holders have
allowed us to pay ourselves very well. There is a fine base salary and a generous year end
bonus. Now all of that is in danger. The share holders are unhappy because they have lost
five cents a share. What are we to do? Will we take a pay cut? Will we cut our high priced
managers that leave us free to travel and play and be important, instead of being in the
office running things like we used to do. Remember that? Remember when we had to work
instead of just attending meetings and making decisions? That wasn't as much fun and it
didn't pay as well. What are we to do?
The first place we look is at the union and its membership. Our work
force has been paid well, like us. Our work force has had good benefits, also like us.
While once we were all in the same boat together; now that share holder profit is involved
it becomes every man for himself and forget the women and children! We realize that we can
take work that our highly paid and skilled work force is doing and put it out on a
contract basis and save money. We realize that we can save a whole lot of money and do it
real fast! We also realize that we can save ourselves and our pay and benefits!
Immediately we give work out to companies that will do the same for less.
We save money everywhere and are able to return higher payments for share. The
share holders are happy and we receive a pay raise and a larger year end bonus. We become
more important and we do even less. After all, we get paid to make those tough decisions
like "out sourcing" our work so we can save money on salaries, benefits,
insurance, and employment taxes. That all adds up, and when we look at it as a cumulative
number, it really has added up. Who needs these people, anyway? We soon realize that
by contracting out our work and eliminating employees, it is that much more money for all
of us.
Seventy-three thousand employees of Bell Atlantic went on strike at midnight
Saturday. The strike is about just that. The strike is about jobs competing with
share holder profit and the salaries and bonuses of the executives. The strike is about
greed. The strike is about a way of life for the little people and what is right and
wrong. How much loyalty does a company owe its work force? How much loyalty does the work
force owe the company? Is the work force like a piece of equipment that has a projected
life expectancy and can be discarded when it becomes to expensive to maintain? Is that
what this is really all about? Does a company have a right to do that?
Having a right and doing what is right, are two, entirely, different things.
Doing what is right for a share holder and doing what is right for a long time employee
can, in these times, come into a stark, conflicting position. General Motors came face to
face with it this summer. So they moved two pieces of equipment back into a Michigan
plant, for now. So what! It is just a matter of time before a Mexican plant will be
manufacturing the same parts at one fifth the cost and the Michigan plant, obsolete and
too expensive to operate, will be down sized and then closed. It is inevitable! That we
will be told is a fact of life.
What do we expect? Do we have the right to expect General Motors or
Bell Atlantic to give their employees a guarantee of a life time job? Does any employee
have the right to expect that? Should any employer be burdened with that responsibility?
Those are tough questions but the answers are not that far away from us if we want to take
the time to look for them. If we look, we will find that General Motors and Bell Atlantic
have the right to be the selfish, greedy bastards that they are. If we look, we will find
that we gave them the right to do that. How? Just go look in the mirror!
What do we do with our children and our elderly when is becomes too difficult for
us to care for them? The government will take our children and they will take our parents.
They are all too willing, for a price, to take our elderly off our hands and warehouse
them until they die. We are free to live our lives, unhampered by the responsibility of
someone who just isn't what they once were. The same holds true with our children. If we
can't deal with them, call the government and give them up. We have rights! We deserve to
live our lives as we see fit. Who are we hurting?
When Corporate America looks at us the same way as we look at our elderly, why
should we be surprised? When I buy a share of stock, I don't look at a team photo of the
work force. When I buy a share of stock I look at the profit and loss and what the growth
potential and the dividend potential is. I buy a share of stock for what it can do for me,
not for an employee that I don't know. When I buy that stock I hire the management to make
those tough decisions just like when we give over our responsibility to the government or
a private company that will warehouse our parents and elderly relatives. I am concerned
about me and no one else.
I guess that says it. That is what the General Motors strike was about
and that is what the Bell Atlantic strike is about. It is a whole lot of people caring
about themselves. Who is right and who is wrong, I can't say and I doubt that you can
either. All we can say is that is the way things are for now. Will they change? I doubt
it. That's just the way things are. If you have the answer, let me know. I am interested.
AUGUST 8-9, 1998
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