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JULY 10, 1998
A Tale of Two Hangers
The Bradford Regional Airport Authority is without a doubt the single most
important authority in this county. It supervises the operation of a largely
ignored facility that is one of the finest and safest airports in the area. The runways
are long enough to handle most small jets and a fine maintenance staff keeps them open in
all kinds of weather. Why then is the use of the airport decreasing?
There were many reasons and it began with the fare structure. In the
past it was cheaper to drive to Buffalo and fly to your destination. Granted, you had to
pay for parking at a rate of fifteen to twenty dollars a day; but the convenience
was worth it. That has all changed and it came about because of direct intervention
by the authority.
US Airways has unveiled a new rate structure that makes Bradford Regional very
competitive. When you take into account the free parking offered at the airport,
it actually makes it more economical to take the flight to Pittsburgh and go from there.
Flying from Bradford has never been so economical. Still, something else was wrong and
many pointed directly at the management.
Private pilots complained about old hangers, unresponsive personnel, and a
variety of other problems. The private pilots had a point. While Craig Bickle is
a fine maintenance supervisor, he lacked in the area of polish and the skill of
communicating with many of the people lodging the complaints. Over many issues, he would
take a stand directly opposite the private aircraft owners and remain inflexible in their
eyes. One of these issues was a new hanger.
It makes sense that if you are going to invest as much as several hundred
thousand dollars in an aircraft, you would want a secure and weatherproof hanger in which
to keep it. Several of the pilots wanted a new hanger for just that reason.
Conscious of cost and declining revenues, and maybe even some animosity to the pilots,
Bickle opposed it. He feared that they would move into a new hanger and leave him with
vacant spots and no hope of ever filling them. The pilots insisted that if the spots were
there, other aircraft owners would fill them.
Then there was the problem with Lee Cole and the Forest Oil hanger. The
pilots wanted him because he could fix their aircraft and they did not have to fly
somewhere else for repairs. Bickle needed the space in the large hanger for the US Airways
commuter and other customers who were paying for the space. Mr. Cole had historically been
a late to non existent rent payer. Enter Merle Johnson and his offer to construct a hanger
for Mr. Cole so he could stay in business. All the authority had to do was to construct
the taxi way and allow him to build on the airport. As easy as it sounds, the work still
has not begun even though Mr. Johnson has already paid for the hanger in full. He is still
waiting for the go ahead which we expect shortly.
The new hanger is also tied to this delay. Even with PennDot giving us
half of the money for the hanger and the cash on hand for the site preparation, work has
not begun. Feet dragging by Mr. Bickle's is part of the problem. Joe Marasco's failure to
secure financing is another part. Finally, the books for the financial records of the
airport were not fully audited. Along with Mr. Johnson's hanger, work on the new airport
owned hanger should begin shortly.
Why does everything have to be so difficult? Mr. Bickle blames
government red tape. That is true; however, there is more. The more of it is the fact that
the board, of which I am a member, makes the same decision over and over. Nothing is ever
resolved, and for some reason, we seem to lack the desire to stick to what we decide. I
don't understand it and neither do many of the other board members.
The airport sits on a fine piece of property. Personally, I believe
that a hotel could do well at the airport. It is convenient to the Federal Prison and only
fifteen minutes from most parts of the county, including Bradford. A Comfort Inn at the
airport makes more sense to me than across the street from Howard Johnson's. That could be
the beginning of some development that would only benefit the entire area.
I think that we as an authority have not really used our heads. I
think we have sat back and let Mr. Bickle call the shots. With his anticipated retirement,
a new manager could bring new life to the airport. He might bring with him the ability to
act quickly and decisively and look to operate an aggressive and profitable operation. We
need a manager who will pamper our private pilots a bit. He needs to understand how really
important they are to the successful operation of the airport. Finally, he has to give us
an annual air show complete with military aircraft fly bys. It would attract thousands to
the area and it would showcase our airport.
We are doing things right. Two new hangers are just around the corner.
Air fares have dropped and it is economical to fly from and to Bradford once more. Now we
have to continue. The future can be a good one for such a fine facility.
JULY 9, 1998
Five Years of THE MOUNTAIN LAUREL REVIEW
It is hard to imagine that this endeavor has been going for five years.
August 1 of this year we will publish the Fifth Anniversary Issue. Wow!
It all began on my birthday in 1993 at a restaurant in Olean. I had
written the first three parts of Cornplanter Chronicles and my wife just read
them. Sharyn was impressed. The controversy began when she asked what I intended to do
with the story. When I suggested that I might have them published in the old Weekender,
the fight began. Out of that disagreement, the MLR was born.
City Beers of Bradford and the Mineral Well in Warren have been with us since
the beginning. They have advertised in every single issue. Contrary to what many
might believe, the MLR has always been designed to be a break even proposition. More often
than not, I have kept it going out of my own pocket. Our ads were never designed to return
to us a penny of profit. They are at or below our cost. We have kept ourselves going with
subscriptions, our ads, and the books about Cornplanter. We have a wealth of
writers who are willing to donate their stories just to see them in print. Now that we are
on the net, writers send material from across the nation.
It was never intended that we become a political publication. We
stumbled into that with the story about Murphy's Law in Rixford. That was the first time
we took exception to something that was printed in The Bradford Era. Few things
have changed in five years. The following month we looked at the law firm of Pecora, Duke,
and Hollenbeck and questioned the concentration of power in one firm. Pecora was County
Solicitor, Duke the District Attorney, and Hollenbeck the City Solicitor.
Jeff Duke called us for an interview. I guess he felt he could smooze
us into buying his bull, but it did not work. While I was writing an account of the
interview and editing some of his comments about Judge Cleland, letters started coming in
to us. Letters about Jeff Duke were coming in to us. All of them said the same thing. Jeff
Duke was a rat.
I had noticed the similarity between him and a rat when I met him and we
printed the letters. That was when his overactive thyroid gland kicked in and he
sent me a three page letter threatening to sue me and anyone involved in this publication
unless we printed an immediate retraction. That was it. He threw down the gauntlet and we
picked it up. We printed no retraction! Instead, we printed another article: The Duke
who would be King.
It's been five years of fighting Jeff Duke and his kind. Believe me,
there are a whole bunch of those rat like creatures out there. Some of them are even
judges. There is Ray McMahon and Penny Eddy, both of whom we have taken issue. There is
the School District and their wild spending and exorbitant taxes. There was the issue of
the woman who was denied visitation with her mother who was in a nursing home. There were
those California pine cone counters who are running the National Forest. These were the
people and the issues we took on. These were the stories that touched all of us. These
were the items that disappeared before they were even printed or reported in the local
media.
We became The True Free Press. We gave the readers what they
wanted and in doing so, became their voice. We said things that people believed that we
dared not say. They thought we wouldn't, but we did. We never flinched or hesitated.
We revisited The Kathy Wilson Murder Case. We printed facts
that no one knew existed. We changed public opinion as to Jay William Buckley being a
murderer. We showed the people how a system out of control and without any responsibility
for its actions, knowingly and with intent, put an innocent man on trial for his life. We
showed the people using the police files what really happened and how incompetently the
case was managed.
It still goes on five years later. We are planning an eighty page
issue with new Cornplanter stories and the end to the Kathy Wilson Murder story, Ripe
For the Picking. We welcome advertisers. Feel free to phone us at
814-368-1463, or e-mail us through this site. Thank all of you for your faithful support.
JULY 8, 1998
Solicitors, Interns, and the Solid Waste Authority
What do solicitors and interns have in common? It appears that they
are both jokes these days. There is ole' Monica and her presidential knee pads. She raised
the status of the term intern to an all time low. Most people thought interns were
overworked doctors who had to earn their bones before they could start playing golf every
Wednesday. Now we look at an intern as a presidential concubine.
Solicitors also have taken a bad rap. John Cleland has done his part
as he embarrassed Jay Paul Kahle. Jay should not be singled out. The Airport Authority has
sockless Joe Marasco. He is either a sixties throw back, or just someone who needs to do
his wash regularly. Donning a coat and tie, Joe frequently forgets his socks.He also
forgot to ask the banks for financing for the hanger project, too. Something about it
being too much work. Still, sockless Joe gets his check every month. He also gets his
health insurance benefits. We wouldn't want official business getting in the way of his
golf. Then there is Tony Alfieri.
Tony Alfieri is the solicitor for the garbage dump and the husband of two time
knitting school graduate, District Attorney Michele Alfieri. He is the solicitor
for the Solid Waste Authority. You know, the garbage dump. Reading accounts of the recent
authority meeting, he is as distinguished as a solicitor as sockless Joe. He sounds about
as intelligent as the group he represents.
Authority vice chairman Mike Holtz, also the Kane Borough manager, would have
intelligent people believe that they, the garbage dump people, paid between $7,000 and
$8,000 on consultants' and engineers' fees to prepare the fairy tale that they called a
financial pro forma. That was no more a pro forma than I am a nuclear physicist.
That wasn't even a good or credible guess. I would like to see the billing and the
documentation that supported the paying of that amount for that piece of trash that they
probably found laying around in the cell that is in violation of current environmental
standards.
If they really paid that amount for the pro forma, it is now understandable how
they could waste five million dollars since 1990 for studies on a lechate plant that still
isn't large enough. These garbage dump people are real jokes! So is the
idea that the Board of Commissioners should enforce the Flow Control Ordinance enacted by
Hannon, Kallenborn, and Anderson. What doesn't Tony Alfieri understand about the ordinance
being a law that is in direct conflict with Federal Statutes? It's an illegal ordinance,
Tony! Wake up!
Any attempt to enforce it, with the garbage dump involved in interstate
commerce, will end in certain failure. The only hope that the
garbage dump has to win any case is to get a sweet heart deal like the timber people got
from Cleland. You know, Justice McKean County Style! Even with that temporary win, a
higher court will see the flaw. The dirt bag who is dumping tires along Oswayo Creek will
keep doing it and in the end, the garbage dump will waste more money and maybe even wind
up paying him damages!
I absolutely believe that the ordinance is illegal! If Mike Holtz and
the garbage dump solicitor, Tony Alfieri believe that it belongs to the county, then on
Monday, July 13, 1998, at the regular meeting of the County Commissioners, I will move
that we abolish it. I cannot support a law that is in conflict with the United States
Constitution and Supreme Court decisions dating back to 1801.
The people of McKean County should have the right to dump their garbage,
legally, where they chose. The people of McKean County should have the right to
benefit by the lower fees that exist everywhere except in McKean County. The people of
McKean County should not be saddled with a garbage dump run as poorly as it is by the
group of incompetents who are in control.
What do interns, solicitors, and the solid waste authority have in common? Think
about it. They all are laughable. They all are funny, at times. They all cost us money for
doing nothing, except maybe Monica. While interns and solicitors are jokes; the garbage
dump is not. It is a fifteen million dollar mill stone hanging around the necks of every
hard working taxpayer who owns property in this county.
I agree with Mr. Howard. We do need one of those radical environmental
groups here. Maybe they can get Oswayo Creek cleaned up. God knows, no solicitor in this
county could. Monica stands a better chance of getting results. After all, she once had
the ear of the president, or something like that.
JULY 7, 1998
Nerve Gas and The Bradford Era
The Era's recent expose on the County Solicitor bears some interesting
similarities to a story posted by Time/CNN news services recently. The
situation that began around allegations the United States used nerve gas on defectors
during the Vietnam War runs a startling parallel to the one sided investigative
reporting done by reporter and University of Pittsburgh at Bradford instructor, Jim Buck.
Just as in the nerve gas story, Jim Buck was given the facts that would have discounted
his story and the subsequent damning commentary by an anonymous editorialist.
During the June 29 commissioners' meeting I offered, once more, to sit
down with Jim Buck and give him pertinent data to demonstrate that the solicitor and his
department was actually costing the county less than former solicitor, Stanley Pecora. Mr.
Buck finally took me up on the offer. We worked through lunch in my office.
I provided Mr. Buck with detailed budgetary information for 1995, 1996, and
1998. There was no excuse for Mr. Buck misrepresenting the truth in his story.
There was no excuse, yet he did.
I showed Mr. Buck where he could find certain budgetary facts. I was
careful not to attempt to influence him. I only showed him where, if he truly wanted, he
could find the numbers and make the same accurate comparison I had made in preparing the
revised 1996 budget. That was the same budget that Mr. Stratton, Mr. Weaver, and
myself passed on February 12, 1996. It was the first of three budgets, passed by the three
of us, that have placed the county in black ink for the first time in over eight years.
Mr. Buck missed a whole lot of information that he evidently thought was
unimportant. He missed the $26,789 that was paid to an Erie law firm to handle
union negotiations for the commissioners and Mr. Pecora. He missed that this board of
commissioners has not found a need to retain the services of a firm that charges us $160
an hour, billed in fifteen minute segments, for phone calls. When we took office we
inherited a $12,000 plus legal bill for phone calls made by Terry Lopus and other
department heads to Attorney Dorothy Morgan who was handling all union activity on behalf
of the commissioners.
When Jim Buck made reference to Lopus handling legal matters at Sena Kean, he
failed to mention the enormous cost at a minimum of $40 per phone call. Jim Buck failed to
mention that the current board of commissioners does not export dollars to Erie Law Firms
for union negotiations. Jim Buck failed to mention that they are handled in house with the
assistance of an outside consultant who is an expert and costs a fraction of what was once
spent. Jim Buck has no objectivity and cannot and will not report the whole story.
Terry Lopus and Dorothy Morgan are gone. Sena Kean has flourished since their
departures. It has gone from being the burden to the tax payers that Lopus and the
former commissioners once alleged, to becoming a profitable source of revenues to the
county. Jim Buck never stated that. He only stated that Pecora never was paid by
Sena Kean and that Kahle is. Was it accurate or was it designed to be misleading? Where
was the mention of the frequent Lopus calls to Morgan with the meter running? Where
was the mention of the expense?
I find it interesting that Buck would use Lopus as a source. That
is the same Terry Lopus who teamed up with Bob Lovell and opposed expansion of Sena Kean
Manor. That is the same Terry Lopus who opposed the in house Restorative Therapy Program
at Sena Kean that now pays the county a handsome monthly profit. I'm surprised that
Buck didn't get additional information from other financial giants like Harrijane Hannon
or Dick Kallenborn, too.
A strong similarity does exist between the nerve gas story and the solicitor
story. It exists because like the nerve gas story, Buck used only facts, or parts
of facts, that would support the pre-conceived conclusion that he was going to give the
readers of The Era. He ignored any item that would demonstrate that the
Solicitor's Office under Pecora actually cost the taxpayers more!
Just as in the nerve gas story and with nerve gas, a strong odor comes from
Buck and his story. He tainted the facts. He used rotten information. He had his
mind made up to discredit Kahle at all costs.
Last night on The Late Late Show with Tom Snyder, senior journalists
condemned the new breed of journalist who goes for the story he wants to write at all
costs. They condemned that breed of journalists and journalism. So do I, and with
it I also condemn Mr. Buck and The Bradford Era.
JULY 6, 1998
Defending those who have no defense - my friends.
The Bradford Era is at it again. Friday they ran one of their unsigned
editorials in which they attacked Jay Paul Kahle directly. The shot at Jay was a shot at
me indirectly as I seem to be named several times. Now that in itself is quite a slam;
being identified with a lawyer, even if he is your friend.
I guess that it isn't a good idea to make a mistake and be my friend.
Poor Jay. The judge, no fan of Jay's by any stretch of the imagination, makes allegations,
and The Era rushes to judgement. Didn't anyone from the paper read what Greg
Henry wrote when he asked the judge to reconsider his decision?
Both sides were guilty of exactly the same thing. No one was on time
during the entire case. Why didn't he throw their case out too? Think about it! Cleland
wanted to show us for not supporting a second judge in the county. He put this case on a
fast track from the beginning and saw an opportunity to show us. That is where he made a
mistake.
In his zeal to point out that his local rules were violated, he failed
to realize that his rules were in conflict with the rules of the Pennsylvania Supreme
Court. The unsigned editorial fails to point that out. Instead it assigns blame to Jay.
I blame Jay. I blame him for not realizing what a low down snake of a
man John Cleland can be. I blame him for not realizing that given the opportunity, John
Cleland would throw it to him. I blame Jay for being naive. Yes, you anonymous
editorialist, I do blame Jay.
He was stupid for not taking this as serious as he should have. He
should never have depended on experts of questionable credentials. After all, it was the
Barrs (our experts) who helped the legislature write the Clean and Green Law in the first
place. What would they know in the face of the enormous knowledge amassed by John M.
Cleland? What would they know in the face of Cleland's rich friends who own most of the
acreage in Clean and Green in this county?
I wish I could be an editorialist for The Era. No one would
know it was me writing and I could say whatever I wanted. Heavens! Remember the flap they
gave me over The Vietnam Legacy? The majority of the articles were sent in to me
and because I gave no credit in a by line, I was said to have written them. Did John
Satterwhite write that nasty little ditty on Friday? Should Jay blame him?
I like the double standard they establish. I like how they blame only
Jay and leave his highness, the judge, without any blame. I like the way they
omit the fact that the judge is in conflict with the Supreme Court. It is easier to blame
Jay. It is also very easy to live and operate like that when you are a hypocrite. That is
exactly what the person who wrote that story is.
We were joking about buying a boat. My children said if I bought a
boat I would suddenly have more friends than I ever realized. They said that I would never
have a moment of peace. I laughed. I reminded them about the editorial. "I could have
a fleet of boats," I said. "I'd still have only you and the Gateser. Being my
friend is a luxury not many people can afford. Make a mistake, they cut your head off, or
maybe worse! Who wants that?"
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