he recent flap over the sewer authority has pointed out one thing to me in BIG
BOLD LETTERS and when I talk to people around town, I find that for once, at least, I
am not in the minority.
Former Mayor Arvid "Boss" Nelson, when you look back at his
administration of city government, really wasn’t all that bad. The chief always liked
him. He recalls sitting at a table near him at the Silverside Inn one Fourth of July and
noting for our party: "A man that drinks like that, can’t be all bad." (I
should add that Mr. Beck was having a summer of sobriety and was probably only envious at
the time as he was relegated to the position as our designated driver.) Seriously, the
only real break we had with the "Boss" of Bradford was when he fired Chief Dick
Cavallero and replaced him with "Gomer" Pyle. If a messy desk was a firing
offense, many of our highest ranking officials would be back in private life post haste.
That single move, aside from having the police ticket the pretty
bartender at Carnegies’ at the time for parking outside of her house, was enough to
turn us against him and throw our support behind Dick’s Aunt Connie.
Many people, like us, were outraged at Arvid’s handling of the
situation. Many people, like us, believed that a grandmotherly lady could do a much better
job of administrating city politics than a Bradford Club backslapping politician who had
gone too many miles down the road with Ray McMahon and his "Let’s make a
deal" and "What’s in it for me" questionable dealings. That was about
the same time the "Boss" named the OECD warehouse THE RAY MCMAHON BUILDING, and
we likened it to naming a national forest after Spiro T. Agnew. The game was afoot at that
point, and Connie ran a last minute write in campaign.
In an attempt not to offend the sensibilities of the lawyer who handled
Nelson’s argument against having the election he clearly won overturned, we
won’t call his lawyer incompetent and inept at the way he allowed Greg Henry to
steamroll him in court.
We won’t call Arvid’s lawyer lazy and dead from the neck up
and incapable of reading, let alone understanding, the election law and code as he allowed
Greg Henry to ask people how they voted and even have one elector (a Sena Kean Manor
resident) declared incompetent to vote. That move must have scared the living heck out of
Republican Party Chairman C. Russell Johnson. "You mean that Alzheimer’s
patients can’t vote anymore?" he must have asked.
When a special election was ordered after Greg Henry found fifteen
votes that Connie never had by counting stickers on the floor of the polls, the battle
lines were drawn. Ray McMahon sided with the "Boss." He owed his $60,000 plus
salary to the "Boss" and the boys in the Bradford Club all kicked in and went
out for him. That was not to be enough.
When you run against a grandmother and you are in fact yourself a
senior citizen, you had better portray her as old and too feeble to do the job or make
yourself out to be more feeble than her but in full control of your mind. Arvid would have
needed to use Don Burlingame’s motorized scooter to do that, and all the back
stabbing coming from the ladies of City Hall and Ray McMahon’s behind-the-scenes vote
garnering were not enough to halt the tide of Theresa Cummins novenas and the enormous
support of the senior citizens wanting a change in the way things were done. Connie won
and before the votes were even at the Court House Ray McMahon was at the Howard
Johnson’s Victory Party and had forgotten who Arvid Nelson was.
Since that great crusade to unseat the tyrant Arvid Nelson, little has
really changed. The people who worked to get Connie elected: Greg Henry, Mayo Funari and
even Bob Cummins all would eventually fall out of favor. Mayo, when he opposed the dealing
on the Comfort Inn, was given a letter from another "great legal mind," Mark
Hollenbeck, accusing him of malfeasance, misfeasance and non-feasance, and demanding his
resignation from the planning and zoning board. Greg Henry of course represents the
Comfort Inn, and Bob Cummins has business as usual with Mr. McMahon (or the absence
thereof). Connie’s greatest enemies when she opposed Arvid Nelson are now her
greatest allies. For that reason we are asking exactly what is going on, anyway? Who is
really the mayor of Bradford?
Poor Stanley Pecora! What is Connie doing to HIS board? Actually, the
name of the authority is the BRADFORD SANITARY AUTHORITY, not STANLEY’S AUTHORITY.
Connie and the rest of the ladies on City Council were within their AUTHORITY when they
replaced Joe Costanzo and James Montecalvo. A lot could be said to getting new blood on
the Sanitary Authority; but to replace them with Mark Austin and Fred Proper really puts
me in the precarious position of actually agreeing with "il duce" about the
distribution of the representation.
I live in Lewis Run and I believe that we should have representation. I
take it personally that the seat that used to belong to Lewis Run now is filled by either
a pin head like Mark Austin or a member of every authority and board between here and New
York City like Fred Proper. How did the girls in City Council ever manage to fall in love
with Mark Austin again anyway?
Isn’t he the same Mark Austin who sued them and then made the city
pay his legal expenses when he refused to attend meetings so they couldn’t have a
quorum? Isn’t he the same Mark Austin who said he wouldn’t run and then ran as a
write in candidate and lost? This Mark Austin sounds too much to me like Dawn Clark
(remember her, the prom Queen?); and maybe this Mark Austin really is Dawn Clark and she
has only taken over his body. That makes about as much sense to me as appointing him to
the Bradford Sanitary Authority. Have the nice ladies on the City Council lost their minds
or is someone else really calling the shots?
Then true to form, Stanley was going to show the girls and show them he
did. He and his board put a moratorium on new tap ins to the system. He and his board
effectively have killed the new development that would go in Lewis Run and have some of
the new workers at the powdered metal plant actually live and pay taxes here rather than
commuting from Elk and Cameron Counties and not paying taxes. At the same time he has
effectively killed the new Senior Center in Bradford as the money must be spent by June
30, 1998 and if they can’t tap in, they can’t build. You are a real hero this
time Stan. Maybe you should have run for mayor.
As the smoke cleared on the highly publicized re-assessment of property
values in McKean County, the City of Bradford is finally within the legal taxing limit and
will not have to petition the Judge so they can tax more than they are legally allowed.
(In 1997 they imposed 47 mills, 22 mills higher than they are allowed by law unless Judge
Cleland allows them to do so and he did.) Their rate of 24.75 not only cuts the millage
just about in half, but actually lowers taxes on most property owners in the city because
the burden has finally been shifted to the large property owners and finally the elderly
have been given a break. Most people in Bradford are having their taxes cut.
The same is true in Bradford Township (14 mills to 7 mills), Foster
Township (14 mills to 7 mills), Lewis Run (10 mills to 5 mills) and Lafayette Township (5
mills to 2 mills).
The difference in the millage is key to what I am about to point out so
do not brush past it. Bradford at 24.75 mills is 17.75 mills higher than Bradford and
Foster townships, 19.75 mills higher than Lewis Run, and 22.75 mills higher than Lafayette
Township. Why? What makes it so much cheaper to live outside the city limits of Bradford?
How did that play into the decision to water down Stanley Pecora’s board? Who was
really behind this?
The City of Bradford needs 24.75 mills to operate because it has a Ray
McMahon at $60,000 plus; a City Clerk at $40,000 plus; a Police Chief at $40,000 plus; a
Fire Chief at $40,000 plus; and has recently bought back the old City Hall for more than
what they sold it for in the hopes of opening a home for elderly and wayward pigeons. It
has a full time police department, a full time fire department, a parks department, and
bears the weight of many other programs like the BRADFORD SANITARY AUTHORITY that pose a
direct drain on city resources yet are shared by the communities surrounding who pay only
a pittance (if anything) toward their continuation. Bradford is on the hook and is the
major provider of services for the area.
The decision to replace Costanzo and Montecalvo originated with Ray
McMahon. He convinced the ladies of City Council that Bradford should have more
representation on ITS AUTHORITY. Enter Pin Head and Flower Man. Gradually, you will see
Bradford totally dominate this authority and then you will see a redistribution of who
pays what. That is Ray McMahon’s goal: to drive up costs in the townships surrounding
Bradford who share services with Bradford paying the lion’s share.
If I lived in Bradford, I would say all well and good. I live in Lewis
Run and I think this stinks. I have no representation and now it seems that my rates may
increase just because I live where I do.
So, who really is the Mayor of Bradford? Is it Connie or is it Ray? If
the job paid as much as the OECD director’s job I am sure that Ray McMahon would have
it. It doesn’t, so Ray is happy to allow Connie to think she is the mayor. In the
meantime, all of us living outside the City limits had better beware. Higher sewer rates
for us are just around the corner.
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