AUGUST 15 - AUGUST 21, 1998
AUGUST 21, 1998
Jim, You only got it half right
Your article in yesterday's Era was interesting; but as usual, you
misstated some facts and once more failed to hit the mark. You were right when
you said: "County finances result of team effort." That was 100% accurate. Every
time we discuss finances, we applaud the efforts and the cooperation of Connie Eaton and
Tom Ball. That is not something new. However, when you made it sound like the budget
surplus of $585,957 as of the end of July was a surprise, it appears that you are up to
your old tricks again. Where were you at the end of June when we reported a budget surplus
of $625,000? And Jim, where were you at the end of May when we reported a budget surplus
of $489,000? Jim, we have been in the black all year! This is nothing new.
Stating that the surplus "... would not exist if the commissioners hadn't
borrowed $5 million last June" is totally incorrect. Keep in mind that we
were only refinancing the jail that was carrying higher payments for a shorter term than
we currently have and pay. We negotiated a more favorable interest rate and paid off the
reassessment at the same time. The extra money that you feel helped balance the budget is
not even part of our budget at this time. If you would have checked before you wrote, the
"About $800,000 was left over for other uses," was never used.The debt service
is in the budget, not the principle amount. It is sitting in six month CD's at a
favorable interest rate and is not carried on our books except as a journal entry. It is
not part of daily, monthly, or the annual budget process until we designate the funds for
a capital project. The surplus is real and has nothing to do with the loan except in the
sense that we restructured our debt. Your assessment as to how fragile it is, was totally
accurate. That is why we report to the press monthly.
As for history, when we took office on January 2, 1996, the unfunded budget
deficit was $1.56 million, not $1.2 million as you stated. The former
commissioners attempted to borrow $1.2 million to get themselves out of the hole in
December, 1994. John Cleland turned them down because they had no plan as to how they
would pay it back. From that came their plans to change the predetermined assessment ratio
from 25% to 50% and cut the millage in half so they could then raise taxes. When that
didn't fly, then they were going to sell Sena Kean Manor for $3.5 million when it was
really worth in the area of $10 million. That's where we came in.
We authorized a county wide reassessment because we had no choice. All
we needed was one court case where the common level ratio of 16% was applied instead of
the predetermined ratio of 25% and we would have been ordered by Judge Cleland to
reassess. It would have been politically expedient for us to wait, but it would have
doubled the cost, too. We paid in the area of $35 per parcel to reassess.
In counties where reassessment is court ordered, the price is as high as $90 per parcel.
It was not only good that we moved when we did, but economical, too. We did the right
thing.
Your portrayal of the effect of the reassessment on the county in general was
also inaccurate. The concept you wrote about: "raise taxes on one
third...another third saw their taxes decrease, while the remainder did not see much
change at all in their taxes," is the projected result where assessments are
reasonably accurate. That was not the case in McKean County. The former commissioners and
the assessment office had let the place go to pot. The Common Level Ratio figure of 16%
proved to be quite a weather vane. 84% of the parcels in McKean County either stayed the
same or decreased while only 16% saw an increase. In general, Jim, try as you and Marty
may, the people are satisfied with the results of the reassessment. Cheri O'Mara's
exorbitant school taxes on the Bradford Area School District are none of our doing. That
was her decision to spend $35 million.
We made some good moves to put ourselves in the position to have this fragile
surplus today. Making Margaret Segulin Director of Purchasing was one of them.
She has already more than earned her salary in the savings she has earned us by
scrutinizing our transactions. Keep in mind that Tom Ball manages our cash flow and Connie
Eaton manages our investments and our daily deposits. Margaret manages what we spend. She
is the watch dog over each department to see that they stay within their budgeted line
items. She reports directly to the commissioners with whom the ultimate responsibility
rests.
The same holds true for CYS. They were given the mandate to operate
within a budget and pay their own way. That was quite a radical change from the way things
were done. Interesting words like "overmatch" were used to cover up the fact
that the taxpayers were kicking in one million plus dollars a year to pay for a program
that is mandated by the state and reimbursed by the state at the same time. CYS was
financially unsound when we took office. Remember us laying off staff to make a point
about living within our means? Remember us fighting with the Judge over Juvenile
Placements gone crazy with costs approaching $875,000 for 1996? Remember the law suit he
filed against us so he could spend whatever he wanted without our oversight? Fighting and
winning battles like that are the essence of teamwork, Jim. Because of those issues, we
are now, finally, financially sound.
It has been teamwork that got us to this point. Unlike the former
board, we solicited the assistance of the Controller and the Treasurer. In those days with
the old board, the Treasurer was at odds with the commissioners. Connie wants the Tax
Anticipation Loan covered no later than June 1 of each year. When it appeared that the
former board wanted to dip back into it without the means to make up the debt that was
certain and due at the end of the year, she balked. A Tax Anticipation Loan is just that.
It was not intended to be a revenue source for the county at the end of the year, only the
beginning. Stories like that only demonstrate how fiscally irresponsible the last board
really was. The fact that the paper didn't give it the treatment it really deserved at the
time says something, too.
As for the future, Jim; it will be teamwork that will take us there, too. Jim,
Larry and I joke about having six commissioners. We joke about it but in actuality we
depend on Row Officers like Connie and Tom; and, Jim, even our high priced solicitor, Jay
Paul Kahle, for advice and direction. For the first time in many years the commissioners
are not "party stooges" doing the will of a few and taking care of their needs.
For the first time we look to the future and plan for our budget and work to see that it
works. That is not an easy job but we do take it seriously.
The story was a fairly good one, Jim. I would give it a C+ overall.
You still have trouble with reporting the facts. You still have trouble with figures. You
need an accountant on your staff to analyze financial statements. I'll bet your wife
balances the check book in your house. Keep in mind, Jim, that in writing this kind of
story you do leave yourself open to criticism when you miss and misrepresent items like
the ones I pointed out. Keep in mind there is a responsibility that is inherent in the
position of being a reporter. It is to be objective. As I referred to your story in
writing this piece, something else on the back page of that paper caught my eye. It was a
story that was entitled "Columnist resigns amid suspicions of fabrications."
That man created the news instead of just reporting it. Does that sound at all
familiar?
AUGUST 20, 1998
Our Best Kept Secret
"As one of the women was going to the river for a pail of water, she heard a
scream proceeding from the side of the hill, which sounded like the voice of a woman in
distress. She returned into the house and told the others that she thought there was
a woman on the hill in trouble. They all went to the door to ascertain the source
of the cries, when they saw moving toward them an animal which they took at first for a
dog. When it had approached within fifty yards, they discovered to their horror that it
was a panther. They retreated into the house and closed the doors. Three geese which
belonged to the family were on the river; the panther discovered them, and having captured
one, he returned with it to his den among the rocks. After he had been gone some time,
they went out together and procured wood and water enough to supply them until the next
day. The following morning at about the same hour, the panther returned, uttering the same
terrific cries, and carried away another of the geese. On the third morning he again made
his appearance and took the remaining goose. He had now become wonted to the vicinity, and
the terrified women were at a loss what they could do. Their nearest neighbors were
distant two miles in one direction, and three in the other, and any attempt to procure
succor from that source would expose them to an attack from the animal which was prowling
near. In order to prevent the panther from entering by the chimney, they covered it over
with boards taken from the floor, and kept up a fire all night. The next morning when the
too familiar cries of their besieger were heard, they turned out the dog. The panther
closed in with him, drove him against the door, and after a short struggle killed and
carried him off. The morning following, Rice Hamlin, who lived about three miles distant,
and who had been engaged to call on them once a week to supply them with fire wood and
render any necessary assistance, paid them his customary visit. When he knocked at the
door they opened it at once, and informed him of the visits of their unwelcome neighbor.
He entered , and they cleared the house of the smoke, which had become almost suffocating.
As he stepped to the door to see if the panther was near, Hamlin heard his scream. He
immediately started in pursuit, accompanied by his dog. As they came up, the panther
jumped upon a rock about twenty-five feet high. Hamlin did not discover him at first, but
kept up a search, supposing him to be up a tree. The dog saw the panther, but being unable
to follow, kept running around in an uneasy manner. Hamlin at length happened to look up
the rocks and his eyes met those of the panther, just as the latter was about to make a
spring upon him. Instantly bringing up his gun, he fired with an unerring aim, and the
animal came tumbling heavily to the ground at Hamlin's feet. The ball had penetrated its
forehead. It was a very large one, measuring over six feet from nose to tail and weighing
about two hundred pounds." Taken from: PIONEER LIFE or, Thirty Years
a Hunter by Philip Tome.
The year was 1795 and the events took place in this area. Big cats,
mountain lions or panthers, were native to this part of Pennsylvania. The
panther, like the Indian, resisted the advancing civilization. It was no match for the
white hunters who scoured the hills for deer, elk, and bear. When one was found it was
summarily killed. By the close of the Civil War and as the hills were stripped of timber,
most of the panthers were gone. Still, the occasional sighting was made and as the century
changed, oil men, railroad men, and the timber men alike returned home with stories of the
Pennsylvania mountain lion.
As a boy growing up in Pittsburgh, and traveling to the Allegheny National
Forest with my father on weekends, I was often told tales of the big cats that
supposedly still lurked in the hills around us. I passed them off as more of my dad's
stories, hoping that they weren't true as we slept in his World War II army surplus
wall tent. Then, several years ago, in the wink of an eye, I saw a large animal cross in
front of my truck with a bound and then another before finally disappearing over the
bank into the woods. Several days later a hiker with whom I had never spoke to before that
time reported seeing a similar animal. Both of our descriptions were identical.
We saw what appeared to be a large cat that was six to eight feet in length
from nose to tail. It was sleek and moved so fast neither of us could be sure of
what we saw. Still, we both believed it to be a huge cast. We believed we saw a panther.
Area game wardens have been quoted many times saying that panthers are not
native to this area and insist that none exist. They have stated that if one did
exist, it would most definitely be a tame one that has escaped captivity. In February,
1994, a local resident heard screams in the night. We reported this in the April, 1994
issue of The Mountain Laurel Review and chose to keep the location secret. The
screams were described as screams of a woman or women, much like those written about by
Philip Tome. Another resident reported seeing tracks that appeared to be those of a large
animal, perhaps a cat, and three smaller ones. They traveled nightly from huge rocks on a
ridge down to a spring to drink. A local game warden refused comment at that time and as
spring arrived they disappeared.
Now it seems that one has returned. I have received two separate
reports of sightings. They are in the same place that I first saw what I believed to be a
big cat. They are also where the hiker saw it, too. Other reports have come from Warren
County and even nearby Elk County near the McKean County line. Big cats in the
west cover as much a 100 miles a day as they search for food. Food for the cats would be
very abundant in the Allegheny National Forest.
The official stance of the Pennsylvania Game Commission is that panthers in
this area do not exist. Realistically, I can understand that position. If certain
unsavory and unprincipled individuals came across these magnificent animals, they
would kill them for trophies. A panther or its cub would be quite a prize.It would be
priceless. Still, the death of any of these animals would be a crime against all of us and
nature itself. At the same time, big cat hysteria could ruin our camping and boating
seasons and give way to hunts in an attempt to sweep the hill clean of these historic
predators.
I wrote over four years ago: "The thought that a pair of
panthers has survived to reproduce themselves makes most of us warm inside. In spite of
what (the game warden) and his counterparts say, I want to believe that panthers live in
our forest. I also want to believe that now panther cubs exist, too. That thought insures
that they will continue to live in the darkness apart from us for another
generation." Is it possible that the cubs have grown and survive in spite of the
official denial of their existence? I believe that it is and that they do. That still
warms me.
AUGUST 19, 1998
The Valley Railroad
McKean County is looked upon by much of the state as a remote area. I
get many requests from readers outside the area for more historical pieces that tell of
the development of the area. The story of The Valley Railroad is one of these
stories. I should preface the story by pointing to the famous Kinzua Creek which
paralleled the rail line as a major war path for Cornplanter and his Seneca warriors.
However, this story takes place long after the great chieftain's death and his people were
peacefully logging, hunting, and fishing not far from this site.
As the century changed so did transportation in McKean County. In the
1800's it was by horse on old hunting trails, and by horse and wagon on scarce and rugged
roads. As the lumber companies built railroads to bring out the hundreds of year old
hemlock logs, private citizens began to hitch an occasional ride. Gradually the lumber
companies became transportation and freight companies, too. One such line was the Valley
Railroad.
For many years this line had the distinction of being the shortest common
carrier railroad in the United States. As a result, Westline, PA, largely unknown
in of the immediate area, became one of those interesting oddities. Unfortunately, those
who were able to even find Westline and the Valley Railroad on a map, usually decided that
it was too far out to investigate. Those dedicated rail fans who did make the trip were
then in for a disappointment because they found a 1.5 mile railroad that operated
intermittently, and generally not even on the day that they arrived. Life has always been
easy in Westline!
The Valley Railroad operated in two directions from Westline, but not
in the same period of its history. In the early years it traveled eastward and made stops
at Olivedale, Tally-Ho, Guffey, and Kushequa. At Kushequa it connected with the Mt.
Jewett, Kinzua and Ritterville Railroad. At Mt Jewett there was a connection to the
BR&P for a way to Bradford.
On April 24, 1901, Edmund Day incorporated as the Valley Railroad Company, a
concern that owned 1.5 miles of track. The Valley immediately obtained rights to use
the beds built by Elisha Kane, who founded Westline as a station to use while extracting
the giant hemlocks to the west. Those beds were rebuilt by Day and names like
Thundershower, Turn Up Camp, Wintergreen, Pine, and Westfall came back into the local
vocabularies. Business thrived carrying freight to and from the wood chemical plants that
had sprung up in the area.
Each plant had its own freight car(s). As they were loaded with
freight, they were attached to the train and taken to Kushequa. It was there that they
then began the four hour climb up the mountain to the transfer point at Mt. Jewett. From
Mt. Jewett, charcoal products were loaded on larger trains and taken across the world
famous Kinzua Bridge and north to the steel mills in Buffalo. Chemicals used in the
manufacture of paint were sent south to the paint factories in Pittsburgh.
Two miles east of Westline was the Gaffney Chemical Company in
Olivedale, PA. Today a box culvert bridge in the road identifies the site. The Gaffney
Chemical works operated until 1914 when the plant was dismantled, the equipment sold to
competitors in Westline, and the five company homes were loaded on flat cars and moved to
Westline where they are still in use today. In a matter of hours, overnight, Olivedale
ceased to exist.
The Valley Railroad still had business. It provided passenger
transportation to over 500 people and freight service for the Day Chemical Company,
Westline Merchandise Company, the Test Oil Company located in Westline, the Tidewater Pipe
Line Company at Tally Ho, and the Kinzua Petroleum Company, as well as the South Penn Oil
Company in Guffey. The railroad handled an average of 250 tons of freight a day and over
5,000 passengers a year until well after World War One. It was then that the railroad
began losing money.
Automobiles began replacing trains. The US Mail was being transported
by its own vehicles now and the mail cars were largely in use only for long distances.
Even the Chemical Companies began buying their own trucks and shipping directly to the
buyer or a larger rail head. By 1921 the Valley Railroad was no longer running on a daily
basis.
The Central Pennsylvania Lumber Company had a sawmill in Kinzua and
using old trackage rights purchased from Kane, the railroad began to run west, instead of
east. Tracks were re-laid to Morrison and connected to the old Sugar Run Railroad, now
owned by the Pennsylvania Railroad, and then ran up the hill to Marshburg and into Kinzua.
It was the final chapter for the Valley Railroad and the opening chapter for the Allegheny
National Forest which would take over the land which was timbered and left for waste by
the Central Pennsylvania Lumber Company.
The eastern tracks were abandoned on July 17, 1936. The old rail bed
became a road and is still in use and the main route to beautiful downtown Westline and
the Westline Hotel, site of the annual world famous leek festival each spring. The western
line continued operations until 1952. The Valley Railroad closed officially on August 13,
1953 when the Pennsylvania Railroad ended service to the area. The tracks were taken up
and all that remains today is a path through the forest.
AUGUST 18, 1998
Let's Talk About It
We haven't done this in awhile. I think that it is about time that we
just talk about things that might be of interest to all of us. If you think this is a
bore, e-mail me and tell me so and we won't do this again; but I did have an interesting
day yesterday and think it is worthy of comment. Besides, everyone is
tired of the liar by now.
To all the people who are and have been e-mailing me since last week: Thanks!
I am reading them all and will answer. It is overwhelming to deal with that volume. I can
do a 72 page issue of The Mountain Laurel Review just on your communications. It
is humbling to know that all of you are out there.
The McKean County Fair began Sunday night. Since I won the Republican
nomination for County Commissioner in 1995 (twice) and was subsequently elected, I was
left out of working the Republican booth at the County Fair. This year I volunteered and
to my surprise, my services were needed. I was assigned to work from one to five yesterday
afternoon. I showed up early ready to work.
The Party Chairman, and no Beck supporter by any means, C. Russell (Kingfish)
Johnson, was there setting up the booth. I had a sausage sandwich with peppers
and onions from the Smethport Boosters Club and a lemonade as I walked to over.
"Hello, Russ," I said in a friendly tone. My greeting was returned with a groan.
I chuckled inside. "This is going to be fun," I thought. I finished my sandwich
and lemonade and stood on the outside of the booth. I had not been invited into the inner
sanctum and I understand turf and turf issues in important organizations like the McKean
County Republican Party.
Russ busied himself inflating balloons so he would no have to acknowledge me. He
put out a half a dozen or so and then sat down and started reading. As children came by, I
gave them away. Now I had a need to enter the booth. I needed more balloons to give out to
the children. I inflated several dozen before Russ finally spoke. "That's
enough," he said. "They will only lose their air." Even though I found it
difficult to imagine any balloon that either I inflated or he did for that matter, ever
losing its air due to the overabundance that we both have, I agreed, at least for the
time. Still, in no time at all, I had given most of them out.
As people came by, he struck up conversations. Everyone was his
"pal" and no one was ever introduced to me. That wasn't a major problem because
the people I knew didn't want to talk to him, so I guess we were even. I wonder what he
must have thought when voter after voter said to me: "You guys are really doing a
good job;" or, "Keep up the good work; we are all with you." It happened
time and time again and I realized why the party bosses did not want Larry or me working
the party booth at the fair. It was so obvious it had to be frightening to him and them.
The people who spoke to me understood that they finally had a voice. That is what C.
Russell Johnson definitely does not want.
Why can't we all get along together? It would be simple enough but the
fact that I mounted an attack on Johnson's two puppets, Kallenborn and Hannon, and
defeated them both, definitely would preclude that ever happening. C. Russell never
forgets!
Actually, I am in good company. State Representative Jim Lynch who
represents the western part of McKean County, along with all of Warren and Forest
Counties, is also persona non grata. The Kingfish hates Lynch because he is a real
Republican with real Republican views and not a Democratic convert just for the purpose of
being on the winning side like his boss Bill Slocum and like himself. People like the
Kingfish crave power and will do whatever it takes to get it. Unfortunately, the hate
mongering and the bigotry of C. Russell Johnson, is doing serious damage to the the party
in the county.
In a time when the President of the United States is an admitted liar,
we as Americans need to really take stock of the situation. The polls say that nearly two
thirds of the American people do not care about the President's immoral and illegal
activities. Can that be true? Are we that valueless as a nation? Is this man the
anti-Christ that he is able to mesmerize the majority by making it appear that he is
admitting his guilt when all he is doing is playing shabby lawyers' games with us?
All of this type of behavior, on all levels of government, must stop.
The people must be placed first! It is the C. Russell Johnsons who give birth to the
William Jefferson Clintons. They enable these immoral people because they themselves are
immoral and they all crave power on their own individual levels. That is why the common
people want little to do with the electoral process and the operation of their government.
Kingfish left the booth just after four. Larry Stratton relieved me at
five and I heard that already Betty Comes had called the person in charge of scheduling
workers demanding to know why we were working at the fair. Maybe the answer was too simple
for Russ and Betty to understand. Maybe they should have realized that it is not their
party, it is our party. Maybe in that same line of thinking our leaders had
better get a grip on themselves and realize that it is not their government. It
is, and I emphasize this for them, our government.
Bill Clinton forgot that and continues to ignore it. What he did was
tantamount to Statutory Rape. It is no different than an adult using influence on an
underage child to have sex. Bill Clinton, President of the United States, used his
influence on a younger and professionally underage and inferior worker to have sex. Then
he lied to us because in his mind he had the right to do that because of who he imagines
himself to be. He is scum and not worthy to lead this nation. C. Russell Johnson, as he
plays his power games and affects people's lives, is no better.
AUGUST 17, 1998
To preserve and protect
Those are four words from the oath that William Jefferson Clinton said when he
was sworn in as President of the United States of America. Very few Americans
ever take the oath of the Presidency; however, the majority of us make vows, supposedly as
important, as the oath of office. They are marriage vows which are also promises before
man and God; oaths, using other words. William Jefferson Clinton took those oaths, also.
Since time began and we established so called "moral behavior" we
have struggled with fidelity between man and woman. The ten commandments deal
with it as do all religions known to man. The bond between the man and the woman is the
bond that insures that our society will continue and the offspring of the society will be
cared for. The preservation of the family unit has always been of concern to man. It is
and has been because that is the unit on which all government rests.
Adultery has been generally shunned throughout our society. It has
always gone on and it always carries with it serious circumstances and ramifications.
Lives are literally crushed when adultery is discovered. It produces crimes of passion,
literature, music, illegitimacy, distrust, jealousy, and a host of feelings that all are
generally bad. It is an ancient battle in which the mind attempts to control the animal
instinct to reproduce, except it is pleasure and a host of other desires, and not
reproduction that we attempt to control.
In our world of instant communication, we are bombarded with information. Much
of that information comes in the form of entertainment. We watch movies and we get
messages from them. For many many years we have been getting the message that adultery is
fun and is okay. Bob, Carol, Ted, and Alice; Once Upon a Mattress,
The Apartment, The Black Widow, and on and on were all movies from the fifties and
sixties that laid the ground work for the way we joke about adultery today. Male menopause
is a term that attempts to justify a middle aged man looking for his youth in younger
women. We call it "middle age crazy" or even The Seven Year Itch. We
have many names for it, except what it really is...what it really does...and who it really
affects.
We aren't surprised that the American People flat don't care that The President
cheated on his wife. In his own generation, from his own contemporaries, he has
not deviated from the norm. He is different in the respect that he cheated and is still
with his wife. Most of his contemporaries are on second, third, or even fourth marriages
for whatever reason. Still, that says little for our respect for a promise or a vow, or
even an oath.
"...to preserve and protect the Constitution of the United States"
are heavy words and a very heavy burden. They are high minded in their intent and
very basic as they are implemented. They are hated and they are envied. They have taken us
to war in which men and women have given their lives to preserve those words, those
concepts, those ideals. What if by his actions William Jefferson Clinton had broken that
trust with us? What should be done? Do we condone perjury because the man did it to
protect his wife and daughter? Is it okay to lie under those circumstances and not others?
Who draws the line and who makes that distinction?
If it is acceptable for the President to lie in office, is it okay for him to
do drugs, too. What if he was doing cocaine in the oval office? Would we look the
other way? What is different between lying and doing drugs for recreational purposes? If
the sex was to relieve the pressure of office, why not snort up a few lines of coke and
get a rush, too? Would be understand that, too?
It seems that there is a line to be drawn here. We all admit that most
of us break laws in our daily lives. We speed on the highways and are never caught and we
think nothing of it. We make a wager on a basketball game or join an office football pool.
Still, the impact of our actions do not carry the dire and serious consequences as the
impact of the actions of a President. Like it or not, the consequences are and should be
treated different.
AUGUST 15-16, 1998
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