NOVEMBER 28 - DECEMBER 4, 1998
December 4, 1998
Bits and pieces
Good morning. It is 55.8 degrees at 3:03 in the morning. Can you imagine this
is December and we have a temperature like that?
Looking out the window this morning, the full moon from behind the clouds has
everything lit up and I am sure the deer are enjoying the heck out of it. They are across
the field grazing and playing around without a care in the world.
NEWS FLASH !!!!!!!
It appears there is a deal on The McKean Theater.
According to our exclusive sources there is a meeting scheduled between Bob Cummins,
The City of Bradford, and Northwest Savings Bank at 7:15 A.M. this morning to consummate
the deal. We are told that the negotiations have been going on now for several weeks with
Attorney Chris Hauser and local real estate broker Bim Culligan really doing an excellent
job to smooth out the bumps in the road and see all the fine points of the deal were
covered. As of yesterday afternoon only one obstacle existed and that was the electric
service for Northwest Savings that was hanging on the rear of the McKean Theater.
That one point could be a deal breaker !!!!!!!!!!!
One local developer said that the cost of relocating the service could run as high as
$25,000. It was all riding on that single point and if there is an easement on the deed
for the electric company, then the cost of relocating the service would have to be assumed
by the parties involved in the deal. We are told that Bob Cummins is not prepared to
assume the cost of relocating the service if that is the case and we could easily be back
to square one.
Here we are, up too early in the morning with the small herd of seven deer who have
just wandered into my front yard hoping for the best. If the easement does not exist then
it is the responsibility of the electric company and the deal will be completed today. A
press release will be issued and Bob Cummins is prepared to have the crumbling monument to
the silent film era gone from our sight by the end of the year. He has already contracted
for the services of an experienced crane operator who will pick it apart piece by piece
and have it hauled away.
IN OTHER NEWS -
Yesterday's coverage by radio station WESB of a July DUI arrest in Cataraugus County,
NY of Ken Jadloweic, Jr., the son of State Representative Ken Jadloweic, was, in our
opinion, unnecessary and in very poor taste.
I phoned News Director and well known radio personality Bob Hand and told him that. I
also said that if Ken or I were arrested, then that is news. However, there must be
limits. For heaven's sake! This isn't the White House. Aren't families given privacy?
Where was Bob Hand and WESB when a former District Attorney's cousin ran amok at home and
began firing his 9 mm pistol at his wife?
That was never reported by the local media.
Why? Wasn't it news worthy? It was well known around town.
The fact that the former District Attorney personally removed all firearms from the
house and took them into his possession was also never reported. Neither was the fact that
a Domestic Relations disturbance was never reported and I would guess that there is no
official record of the incident anywhere as of this date.
You were wrong, Bob. Did The Era give it coverage? Why was it so
important to report that item?
MOVING RIGHT ALONG -
Is there more trouble brewing at the Airport?
Elk County demanded a financial committee meeting this past Wednesday. Chairman Larry
Stratton obliged and nearly the entire board showed up minus its Solicitor, Sockless Joe
Morasco, who was meeting with the District Attorney at the same time.
Elk County questioned the increase in the budget for 1999. That made me laugh. In
fact, it made me laugh to the point of nearly disgusting me.
I had long pointed out that the former manager had a unique way of reporting
expenditures and that while he made it appear that we were operating on a shoe string and
narrowly getting by, we in fact were not and were operating at a loss. Even the auditor
had a unique way of burring the loss that was in the area of $68,000. Where was Elk County
then? When I pointed that out I was told we should look forward and not dwell in the past.
While 1998's budget was projected at $456,826 with McKean County contributing $141,000
of the $169,830 in revenues; we were suddenly looking at a $535,875 budget in 1999 with
McKean County now raised to $198, 412 with Elk, Warren, and Cameron counties remaining the
same. At the same time the old by laws of the authority are still in existence and McKean
County is on the books as being responsible for only 48% of expenses instead of the
outrageous percentage that it has grown to in the up coming year. At the same time, McKean
County has 4 representatives on the board with the other three counties having 5 between
them.
Elk County Commissioner Joe Koch sees nothing wrong with that situation. "What
is the problem?" he said, obviously irritated when the issue was raised (by me)
once more. "We have always gone along with you and have never voted against you
once."
Joe seems to forget that this country fought a revolution over taxation and
representation. What would he say if five people from McKean County came down and
sat on a nine person school board in Elk County and had the ability to out vote the wishes
of the people who were paying the freight?
Local pilots agree with me on this point. They want more local
representation and more local say in what is going on at one of the most valuable assets
this county has. I agree with them and I believe the entire board should be made up of
McKean County citizens. I am tired of these arrangements (just like CEM and Drug and
Alcohol) where we are supporting Cameron and Elk counties, paying the lion's share so they
can have services. We only have so many tax dollars. We need to spend everyone of them in
McKean County.
Comment on this article at editor@www.mlrmag.com.
December 3, 1998
Sensationalizing the news
Good morning. It is 48.0 degrees at 5:45 with the full moon setting to the
west. What weather this is!
Getting right to the point today, with The Bradford Era / Enquirer printing my
trimmed down letter to the editor in yesterday's editorial section, they are right back at
it misrepresenting me one more time on the front page.
The headline "County takes aim at Collins Pine" was misleading and
totally untrue. Nothing was ever said or insinuated that Collins Pine was being singled
our as being in violation of the Clean and Green favorable tax situation.
Larry Stratton was met at his mail box at 7 A.M. by two Pennsylvania Game Wardens who
were quick to rush to the defense of Collins Pine. We were deluged by phone calls and by
noon Bob Hand was on the radio with Collins Pine vehemently denying that they had done
anything wrong. How did all this happen? What was it that was said to implicate Collins
Pine in the activities I described in my December 7 Press Release. Let's take a close
look.
The December 7, 1998 Press Release written by me said:
"It is my intention to introduce at the weekly Commissioners' Meeting on
Monday, December 7, 1998 action to review all properties currently enrolled in the
favorable tax situation known as Clean and Green.
"Large land owners have been leasing their lands to individuals and groups of
individuals for the express purpose of providing those people with exclusive access for
hunting, fishing, and recreation.
"This practice is in direct contradiction to the law and recent cases,
specifically, Hydrusko v. county of Monroe and Monroe County Board of Assessment Appeals,
support the action I am requesting the commissioners to take. I intend to ask that we
apply the law, specifically FN1, Section 8 (a) of the Act to enforce this measure."
Then I went on to cite the law. The final two paragraphs read as follows:
"I am hoping to pursue this matter in the following manner. I am asking the
general public to notify the Tax Assessment Office of any property they know of that is
leased under this practice. I will also instruct the Tax Assessment Office to begin the
process of mailing a questionnaire to all property owners enrolled in Clean and Green,
That will under the penalty of perjury, clarify the use of the lands that are now
in the preferential taxing situation.
"We have an obligation to the taxpayers to treat all taxpayers fairly. It
appears that certain persons or organizations have chosen to take advantage of
preferential taxing and then reap additional profits by leasing their lands for the
purpose of paying the preferential taxes. It is my intention to reclassify these parties
and to recover for the taxpayers of McKean County the monies we have lost as a result of
their misuse of this excellent program."
Nowhere did I single out any property owner.
However, after an afternoon of meetings with lawyers, the Family Center, etc., I phoned
The Era to see if my revised letter was acceptable and if they needed any
additional comments on the press release. At that time (4 P.M.) Jim Buck had already
contacted Collins Pine and Larry Stratton. Larry said he supported the removal of anyone
from Clean and Green who leased their land. Collins Pine said they did not lease their
land and when Jim Buck posed the question to me asking about the Jeep rally, I replied "If
they were paid then that was a violation of the law and we would have to look at
it closely."
The word "if" began that sentence. I never said we were going to
remove Collins Pine from Clean and Green as Mr. Buck and The Era and then WESB-AM
claimed in the coverage of the press release. Their coverages were false and totally
misleading.
What did immediately develop, as I suspected, is residents have come forward and began
identifying lands, formerly owned by International Paper Company, that are leased and
closed to the general public. We are talking about thousands of acres of lands that could
easily be taken off the Clean and Green rolls if the allegations are found to be factual.
The County then would charge the difference between the fair market value and what they
paid, add an additional 6% per year, and bill the current owners. A rough estimate of the
amount in question could reach as high as $750,000.
It is a shame that the local reporters are either unable or unwilling to report stories
as they are rather than how they want them to be in order to place me in an unfavorable
light. Why they do it is for you to decide but we all know the history ever since I ran
for office. I have been your voice. Maybe they don't like it.\
Comment on this article at editor@www.mlrmag.com.
December 2, 1998
Too many words
Good morning. It is 37.6 degrees at 6 A.M. in moonlight downtown Marshburg.
Deer hunting is going okay. Geoff, my son, shot a "handsome" 4 point
yesterday afternoon about three o'clock. It is hanging in the back and on its way to the
deer processor this evening. I told him I would pay to get the head mounted. He is more
interested in the hide as he remembers an old friend of mine, Bob Walker, who had a hide
on his couch in Washington, D.C. one year. I was there to hunt with him near Hot
Springs, VA. The things kids remember. Geoff was just 5 years old then and he stayed with
Bob's wife, Mary, while we hunted. He said yesterday afternoon that he always wanted one
of his own. Now he has it.
I was told a letter to the editor of The Bradford Era was going to be in
today's paper. I wrote the letter on November 25 and hand delivered it to The Era
and placed it in the capable hands of Woody Woodruff, a fine fellow if I have ever met one
in my life. He evidently turned it over to Marty Wilder, another fine and capable person
who phoned me and informed me that my letter was 100 words too long. Oh my! Did that ever
turn me around.
I wrote the letter in an attempt to clarify a story that ran in The Era that I
felt had missed the point completely and did not properly state the position I had taken.
Unfortunately, The Era's reporter had as many words as he needed to misrepresent
me, whether intentional or otherwise, and I was only allowed 350 words to try and
straighten it out after the fact. That's show business!
I run the budget figures daily. I add and delete items everyday in an effort to make it
come out in a way that the taxpayers are not forced to pay extra county taxes in the
upcoming year. I am a watch dog, so to speak, on county taxes. That's my job and that is
why I was elected - to see the people got their money's worth and be sure that certain
departments did not run up the bill to the point that County taxes become burdensome and
difficult to pay like the school taxes are. I am proud to take that position and stand in
the doorway, so to speak, against increased County spending.
The reporter at The Era totally missed the point when I invited Elected
Officials, including his highness, President Judge John M. Cleland, to the weekly
Commissioners' Meeting to justify pay raises for themselves and their non-bargaining
(non-union) employees. With much larger organizations like Bradford Regional Medical
Center receiving 1 1/2% across the board, I found myself wondering how we could justify
anything larger than that for the class of employees I placed under scrutiny. The
assumption was that if the union at Sena Kean Manor was receiving 4%, then everyone else
should receive 4% also. That is not the way things work especially when taxpayer dollars
are involved.
The reporter from The Era misrepresented the figures involved in the
discussion. I used $500,000 as an amount that we could save by holding the line on
spending for elected officials and non-union employees. He stated in his article that only
a 21% pay increase would produce spending in the amount of $500,000. What he did not say
and did not know that a 4% pay raise would make up $201,905.97 of the amount; the rest was
in increases in services, manpower, and promotions that gave pay raises in Domestic
Relations, Juvenile Probation, and Adult Probation, including an $11,000 a year cleaning
service, all directly under the control of Judge Cleland.
When Judge Cleland arrived at the meeting he immediately criticized us for the way we
were putting the process on public display. Both Mr. Weaver and I said that we saw nothing
wrong with involving the public in the budget setting process. That point was never made
by The Era's reporter.
What I wanted was for the people to know exactly who wanted to spend their money and
how much they wanted to spend. I wanted the people to know the utter disregard certain
people had for how much they had to pay in taxes. Even though John Cleland danced
carefully around the issue, there was little doubt that his past statements to the effect
that "we have the obligation to give him the money he decides he needs and it is
our problem where and how we get it" were still very true. He doesn't care. If
we have to raise taxes to give him what he decides he wants, then he feels we should raise
taxes. Did he go to school with Cheri O'Mara? Was he in her kindergarten class? Sounds
familiar, doesn't it!
In times of budget shortfalls, it is common for the governmental body experiencing the
shortfall to give citizens a choice to either raise taxes or cut essential services. In
our case, what is an essential service? I would say Sena Kean Manor, the Jail, elected
officials for the most part, the judge, CYS, etc. They are all essential in the sense that
we need them to keep order within the county. The question arises in how these so called
essential services are staffed? How much money should we give these essential services if
they all are essential? That is where the decision making is involved.
Should the county taxpayers pay for a full time juvenile probation officer to be place
in the Bradford School District? Judge Cleland, his director, and Cheri O'Mara think so.
They already have Dom Cercone to wipe the teacher's noses for them when a student talks
back and tells them where to shove something. Why should the county continue what the city
has tried to do without the direct help of the school district or the teachers who I
always thought were supposed to maintain order in the schools. Why do we pay them?
I am tired of government and the court believing that we have the answer to every
problem. I am tired of government spending money, hiring more people, beginning new
programs, just to solve a problem because someone, like the school board, has dropped the
ball. It isn't right and I will not support an expansion of government like that.
Nothing like that came out in the article I attempted to correct. I am accused of bad
numbers by The Era's reporter and he digressed off the subject to fair market
value when the real issue was taxes, taxes, taxes. It was taxes stupid! It was then and it
is now. I am against raising them. People, especially elected officials, should be happy
they have a job instead of always wanting more.
Comment on this article at editor@www.mlrmag.com.
December 1, 1998
These old bones.
Good morning. It is 40.1 degrees on windy and rainy morning.
A cold front went through last night about 10 and we lost power for several
minutes. We all know what that means. Reset those pesky digital clocks.
That is a real pain. I had just gotten the clocks more or less synchronized with one
another during the past week or so and now it will probably take me another month to get
them working together. That is one thing that we can always count on living up here in the
so called mountains, power outages.
It isn't that the power company doesn't do its job. They do, and the men and women who
work for them are dedicated and hard working. One of my buddies, Ralph, is a line man who
gets called out at all hours and in all kinds of weather to restore the power when it goes
off. You see, living up here in the so called mountains, any number of things can, and
usually do, happen. Generally, it is a tree falling down on a wire and breaking the
connection.
We all know what happens when you pull the cord too tight. The plug comes out of the
wall and the connection breaks. Ralph, a gentle giant of a man, is the guy who is called
out of his warm bed in the middle of the night and puts the plug back in the socket.
Anyway, yesterday was one fine day! It was in the high fifties here all day. The sun
was out and a mild breeze was blowing through the trees. The wind storm we had last night
was mild compared to three we have had since the tornado ripped through here last June.
Those storms were very much in evidence by the trees that were down in the forest as I
walked through it in search of the great elusive Pennsylvania White Tail Deer. You know.
The great Stag of the North!
The majority of the time I spent in the woods was on property owned by the taxpayers of
The United States of America. I was in the Allegheny National Forest. It is a little piece
of property in northwestern Pennsylvania that is made up of around 520,000 acres of land
located in Elk, Forest, McKean and Warren Counties. Historically, we should realize that
following the 1920's these lands were stumps and bare hill sides and valleys. The loggers
cut every tree in sight and moved on leaving the lands for taxes. It was total
devastation, or so it seemed.
You see, that was not the first time it happened. Circa 1520, nature, following an
extended drought, destroyed the entire region with a massive forest fire. Native American
Iroquois Nations, particularly the Seneca, retreated from their native hunting grounds to
the north and took refuge along Buffalo Creek and Lake Erie. The large buffalo herd that
was native to the flat lands on the Allegheny Plateau was destroyed or driven west by the
fire. Other wildlife, as they have in other great fires, survived somehow and gradually
returned in the years that followed.
Actually, many of the grass and vegetation eaters such as deer, flourished following
the time of rebirth of the forest. A pine forest was replaced by a hemlock forest. The
hemlocks grew to enormous heights over the next hundred years. These were the trees that
would be used to build our nation once the revolution was won and peace made with the
Seneca. They were cut by hand one by one. They were huge and even today some of their
stumps, five feet in diameter, still remain in the forest, still slowly decaying after all
these years.
From 1792 until 1934 the forest was cut and no one managed it or sought to bring it
back. Still, a strange thing happened. In place of the giant hemlocks, maples, chestnuts,
cherry, and birch trees grew in their place. These trees renewed themselves. Out of their
stumps grew other trees and in fifty to one hundred years they were fully grown again.
With the devastation of the hemlock, the hardwoods took over. Today the Allegheny National
Forest is the richest area in the world for hardwoods, in particular the black cherry
tree.
A group of college kids from Clarion and some lawyers from Pittsburgh have filed a
lawsuit in Federal Court in an attempt to stop logging in the forest. They believe that
the continued logging will kill our environment. They are fools.
What they need to do is come spend a weekend and actually walk the Allegheny National
Forest. They need to see the giant mature cherry trees, one hundred feet tall that
were felled by the winds. They need to walk around the entire root base that was laid bare
as the tree went down. They need to stand in the hole left by the roots coming out in a
clump and realize that these trees are not like the hemlocks that were used to build
buildings that many of them occupy. Our trees have a normal life span of less than 100
years and then they die.
No, they don't stop breathing, but they do die. They are mortal just as we are. They
grow and grow in this healthy environment and they grow to become so tall that nature
takes over and just plain knocks them down. That is how they die.
To stop timbering in the forest will not produce Eden. It will produce more devastation
than what was produced between 1792 and 1934. I walked the forest yesterday from 6:30 in
the morning until 5:30 at night. These old bones of mine ache in places that I have
forgotten that they could ache. Everywhere I saw giant black cherry trees, valuable black
cherry trees, on their sides, dead and rotting. What a waste. What an utter and tragic
waste.
Even if man stops the destruction of the trees, it is very plain that nature has its
own plans for the trees that the misguided hope to save. If it isn't a windstorm it will
be a drought. If it isn't a drought, it will be a fire. We can only live with nature and
try not to hurt it too much before it finally decides it has had enough of us. The trees
are really of no more consequence than we are. Nature has its own plan and it will prevail
in spite of us and whatever we do. As evidenced by my old bones today after a lovely day
in the forest, nature has what I do not. Nature has unlimited time.
Peoples come and peoples go. Species leave just as a buffalo did following the fire of
1520 and who cares if bats come back each year from Indiana and Kentucky! The forest is so
immense that it cannot be timbered before it regenerates itself in spite of us. Nature
will prevail and we will all be gone.
Comment on this article at editor@www.mlrmag.com.
November 30, 1998
A question of values
Good morning. This is the first day of deer hunting season in Pennsylvania. It
is 52.3 degrees at 5:30 A.M. for a very mild start to the hunt. Fear not! In years
when we started like this we usually ended up to our bellies in snow and frigid temps.
I am a hard core Pittsburgh Steeler fan. I have always been a Steeler fan - even before
they had the great superbowl teams in the 70's. I used to root for them when they had
quarterbacks named Bobby Layne, Rudy Bukich, Ed Brown, and Bill Miller. I remember them
drafting Bob Ferguson from Ohio State and what a dud he turned out to be. That was the
Pittsburgh Steelers I knew.
When they became good, that was the payoff for years of waiting and loyalty. I deserved
that along with all the other fans that had stuck in there like me. Nothing changed with
us when the great team aged and began missing the playoffs. We were still Steeler fans.
They players knew it and they were loyal to us. The fans had values and so did the
players.
Paul Tagliaboob and the Player agents and the million dollar kids that haven't
graduated from college have gone far to make the game exciting, but they have also stolen
from us that old fashioned honesty that used to exist between a team and its fans and
other teams and any football fan whether they were for them or against them. Being a fan
meant everything. We saw how all that changed on Thanksgiving Day and are watching weekly
as the officials purposely manipulate the outcome of the game.
With hundreds of millions of dollars being invested in players and amounts
geometrically proportionate to that investment being bet on the games, why would we not
question the honesty and integrity of the men who seem to weekly decide the final score
just by calling a penalty at a key time? Why is it that football is the only sport that
does not have full time officials? While that worked in the past, it is not working today.
Since the sixties and the Vietnam War we as a nation look at things differently. The
liberal influence in this country has convinced us that we do not deserve many of the
protections and rights we used to enjoy. They have convinced us that the government knows
better than us in many areas. We accept them telling us how to raise our children, how we
care for our elderly, what and how much we can drink, whether or not we should smoke
cigarettes, and the list goes on and on. The minority has the rights of the majority and
the majority has quietly acquiesced to their demands. We believe what the media tells us
and we would blindly follow the crowd off a cliff if someone in authority told us it was
the right thing to do.
Our President committed adultery many times during his marriage to his wife. It is well
documented and well reported. Just twenty years ago the career of a leading Presidential
contender, Gary Hart, was ruined because of a little jaunt he took on one afternoon on a
boat known as Monkey Business. Our nation has become so jaded by reports of
numerous affairs we are willing to turn our back on one that existed in the White House in
the Oval Office during regular business hours. Wow! Our values have certainly changed a
bit since the days of Gary Hart.
Granted, adultery, as serious as it is within a marriage between two people, is not the
business of the nation. However, adultery becomes the business of each and every one of us
when we are lied to on national television and our courts are lied to by the adulterer
when directly examined on the subject. Still, an entire political party would have us
believe that perjury, when committed in open court with regard to adultery, is not a
criminal offense. They would have us believe that it is the man's business that he lied to
protect himself and his family from the slimy affair and that breaking the law, committing
a felony, under those circumstances are entirely justified. They have said this to the
point that a majority of the people of this nation believe them.
So then, why am I not surprised that when the official at the beginning of the sudden
death overtime, when hearing the call of the coin toss incorrectly and awards possession
of the ball to the other team, was allowed to continue under that assumption by the
players of the other team who both knew the official was incorrect?
I have to ask myself what Bart Starr would have done? What about Johnny Unitas, or Y.A.
Tittle, Joe Namath, Mean Joe Greene, Jack Ham, Ben Davidson, and the likes of them? What
would they have done? Would they have corrected the official and gone back to the sideline
and told their team mates that they will hold them to three plays and force them to punt?
I believe they would have done just that. The fact that the Detroit players did not do
that is to their discredit and a discredit to football itself.
It is unfortunate that our great game of football is a mirror of our values, but it is
and it showed us what we were all about on Thanksgiving Day. Should we give thanks because
we are able to get away with something, put something over on someone like was done on
that day? What about the President and his lies and his party's support and our leaders'
support of his lies? What does that say about the honesty of a nation? What does that say
about us as we sit silent and allow it to continue?
Comment on this article at editor@www.mlrmag.com.
NOVEMBER 28 -29, 1998
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