Lots of stuff to comment on today. Wow! Some of it good, some not so good and some bad. Oh well, that's the state of politics these days.
Let's start off with State, shall we?
House Majority Leader Bill DeWeese (D-Greene), has been busy going throughout the state on a public relations tour of Pennsylvania's newspaper offices. "It's been a very difficult lesson", he says. Yea, I bet it has, especially when you get caught with your hands in the cookie jar. This guy is a very skillful manipulator, and very skillful at bending the truth as well.
Being an elected official is the only job he has ever had in his adult life. He graduated from Wake Forest University, joined the Marines (1972-1975), won his first election in 1976 and has been in the halls of power in Harrisburg ever since. Almost thirty-two years. Amazing isn't it?
Mr. DeWeese is not taking any personal responsibilty for the bonus program that is being investigated by the State Attorney General's office. Of course not. It's always someone else's fault, right? He says he was mislead by staffers. Yeah right. Believe that one and I have a bridge to sell ya. He says he acted swiftly upon learning of the potential wrongdoing by his top staffers. Well, he did fire them. I guess he expects brownie points for that. You can't tell me that the top staffers are doing this bonus for campaign work thing, to the tune of $1.9 million dollars, and the boss does not know anything about it. This doesn't even pass the smell test. Come on Bill, we're not idiots here. We'll be hearing lots more on this in the near future.
In today's Harrisburg Patriot-Snooze, we found an interesting Letter To The Editor about nothing getting done in the state legislature. We've all been complaining about that for years. They have only three speeds - slow, slower and STOP. I'll be looking into this one in more detail and will publish my results here between now and Christmas.
Moving on........to local, and the comedy of errors that is Harrisburg City government. Jeez Louise!
Remember the BIG party this past Labor Day on McCormicks Island? Well, the last 44 of the more than 125 partgoers that were busted had their charges dismissed. Look out for that law suit against Harrisburg for the strip searches of arrested out-of-state partygoers. The City of Harrisburg will eventually lose this one. This is a big-time lawsuit. A similar lawsuit was settled in early October in New York, very very similar to this case, and the defendants won big-time. The same will happen here, Harrisburg will lose this lawsuit. Watch for the fireworks on this one.
The really BIG story this week is in City Council chambers. Tuesday night was the Budget and Finance Committee meeting. It lasted 3 - 1/2 hours and was very contentious. Our local Channel 21 News sent a team to cover it, and it was shown on their 11 PM news that night. It was not a pretty sight in Council Chambers, as there was much spirited debate. Council member Dan Miller is a CPA and he was trying to explain financials of the 2008 City Budget that King Reed has presented to Council, but he was getting nowhere fast. Dan's a good man, and I think Linda T. and a couple of the others should really listen to what he is saying. Linda T. unfortunately, is looking ahead to her future campaign for Mayor, and is not doing much to further her cause with her caustic attitude. It was a long meeting to say the least.
Tonight's Special Legislative Session at City Council Chambers is going to be a doozy. Tonight they have to either approve or reject King Reed's budget. Jeez Louise, it's going to be a LONG meeting tonight. If you are going to attend, get there EARLY to get a seat, bring your bottled water, some snacks, and some Advil or Tylenol, cause you're gonna need it. This meeting will be SRO folks. SRO! This will not be pretty, not at all.
I feel bad for City Council, they're on the short end of the stick no matter which way they vote on the budget tonight. They're between a rock and a hard place on this 2008 budget. King Reed has really stuck it to them this time. You'll see what I mean tonight. Stay tuned.......
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Harrisburg School District apparently has
more money than brains these days. At last night's meeting the Board of Control voted 6 -1 to rehire Triad Strategies of Harrisburg for $90,000 annually to be the school district's lobbyist in the halls of power in state and federal government. And get this, they made Triad's contract retroactive to October. Retroactive to October! Wasn't that nice of the Board of Control? The lone dissenter on the board, Trent Hargrove, voted against the contract with no comment.
A former Board of Control member, Les Ford, criticized the rehiring last night, saying that this money could be better spent to fund parent-teacher organizations or for other classroom uses. Les is right. That could also pay for 2 additional teachers' salaries for a year, or more instructional materials, etc.
For the current 2007-08 school year, Harrisburg School District requested $20 million in state demonstration grants, but only received $3 million after receiving as much as $13.5 million for the program the year before. Triad Strategies President and Managing Director Roy Wells speculates that Harrisburg may have reached the ceiling in what it can expect in directed state grants and other add-on money for special programs. Ya think?? Wells then goes on to say that his strategy would focus on pointing out the amount of tax-exempt state property within the school district. I am assuming that he means that he will be pointing that out to federal and state education departments and anyone else he runs into in the halls of power. Neither the reporter nor Mr. Wells really elaborates that in this article.
Since the good people of Harrisburg are paying Mr. Gerald Kohn a generous salary of at least $235,000 a year, can't Mr. Kohn do the same thing as part of his duties? I mean, he can point out to the proper authorities that there is a large amount of tax-exempt state property within the school district, and since there is, perhaps Harrisburg School District should receive more money for it's schools. Can't he do that too? Jeez Louise, me thinks the good people of Harrisburg are getting ripped off!
Oh, and don't forget, Randy King, who was King Reed's right hand man for so many years, left City Hall to take a job with Triad. The same Randy King who is on the Board of School Directors with the Board of Control, for the Harrisburg School District. Interesting huh?
A former Board of Control member, Les Ford, criticized the rehiring last night, saying that this money could be better spent to fund parent-teacher organizations or for other classroom uses. Les is right. That could also pay for 2 additional teachers' salaries for a year, or more instructional materials, etc.
For the current 2007-08 school year, Harrisburg School District requested $20 million in state demonstration grants, but only received $3 million after receiving as much as $13.5 million for the program the year before. Triad Strategies President and Managing Director Roy Wells speculates that Harrisburg may have reached the ceiling in what it can expect in directed state grants and other add-on money for special programs. Ya think?? Wells then goes on to say that his strategy would focus on pointing out the amount of tax-exempt state property within the school district. I am assuming that he means that he will be pointing that out to federal and state education departments and anyone else he runs into in the halls of power. Neither the reporter nor Mr. Wells really elaborates that in this article.
Since the good people of Harrisburg are paying Mr. Gerald Kohn a generous salary of at least $235,000 a year, can't Mr. Kohn do the same thing as part of his duties? I mean, he can point out to the proper authorities that there is a large amount of tax-exempt state property within the school district, and since there is, perhaps Harrisburg School District should receive more money for it's schools. Can't he do that too? Jeez Louise, me thinks the good people of Harrisburg are getting ripped off!
Oh, and don't forget, Randy King, who was King Reed's right hand man for so many years, left City Hall to take a job with Triad. The same Randy King who is on the Board of School Directors with the Board of Control, for the Harrisburg School District. Interesting huh?
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Tha Harrisburg Authority and King Reed.......
I was reading the December 7 issue of the Central Penn Business Journal yesterday, and there is an interesting interview with the new Harrisburg Authority Chairman and CEO. The new chairman is James E. Ellison, a partner at the law firm of Rhoads & Sinon in Harrisburg.
In the interview Mr. Ellison was asked what he thought the downfall of the incinerator was. His response: "It was several things. No. 1, I think the figure was that there was between $30 (million) to $34 million spent on artifacts from Harrisburg Authority proceeds over the last 17 years. I'm not just talking about Wild Wild West artifacts. I'm talking about artifacts, period. Any time you divert that kind of money away from operations into a black hole that returns nothing to the Harrisburg Authority, you are compromising your ability to build infrastructure and to prepare yourself for future unknown contingencies like construction problems that you'll have to address. I think that was one of the biggest problems in addressing the more recent incinerator work because we didn't have the money available to immediately address these issues as they came due. Secondarily, there's also politics. When you remove political considerations from the table, everything comes down to a business decision. Business decisions are pretty cut and dry. Numbers dictate how you act."
Now, let's discuss this statement. Jeez Louise! $30 - $34 million over 17 years?? This is a staggering amount of money that King Reed took out of the Authority, and with the obvious permission of past Harrisburg Authority Chairmans and Board members. My God that is a lot of money. How did this happen? How was this allowed to go on for 17 years? Where was the oversight? Jeez Louise!
Mr. Ellison was asked another question about what makes the Authority less political now. Mr. Ellison answered: "My team doesn't answer to anyone but the board; whereas before, the Harrisburg Authority was run in essence by the mayor. I've gone through correspondences from the past 5 years or so, and there are reams of letters from the mayor to the authority executive director or the authority chairman, particularly when it came to funding the city's special-projects fund. I've got dozens of letters from the mayor's office directing the executive director to put XYZ number of dollars in the special-projects fund. When it came to decisions, such as which contractor we were going to go with to do the retrofit, I think it's pretty well documented that that was the mayor's decision. That was a decision made between the mayor and special counsel Andrew Giorgione and a member of the mayor's staff, Dan Lispi. That wasn't a circumstance where the authority board went out and did their own due diligence and research. That was a decision made by the mayor's office. The authority at the end of the day had to make the legal decision to award Barlow (Projects Inc.) the contract, but most of the behind-the-scenes work was the mayor, Giorgione and Lispi."
Wow. King Reed was a very busy man. We just didn't realize how busy did we? This is corruption of power, greed and deception on a major scale by Stephen Reed, King of Harrisburg. This man is not fit to serve out the rest of his term as mayor. Get him out of there before he causes any more damage. Can we blame Reed, Giorgione and Lispi for the $250 million debt incurred by the authority? All of this must be looked into more closely, and I think maybe the Attorney General of Pennsylvania should be asked by City Council to investigate all of this NOW. My God what a mess. Jeez Louise!
All I can say is this.....thank God, thank the courts, and thank City Council that new leadership was put in charge of the Harrisburg Authority. Mr. Ellison and the other new people at the Authority have an awful lot of work to do to get the incinerator working as it should and to pay down that HUGE debt. After reading that interview, I have faith in Mr. Ellison and the board that they will be able to get the job done. It will not be easy, but I believe they'll be able to do it.
In the interview Mr. Ellison was asked what he thought the downfall of the incinerator was. His response: "It was several things. No. 1, I think the figure was that there was between $30 (million) to $34 million spent on artifacts from Harrisburg Authority proceeds over the last 17 years. I'm not just talking about Wild Wild West artifacts. I'm talking about artifacts, period. Any time you divert that kind of money away from operations into a black hole that returns nothing to the Harrisburg Authority, you are compromising your ability to build infrastructure and to prepare yourself for future unknown contingencies like construction problems that you'll have to address. I think that was one of the biggest problems in addressing the more recent incinerator work because we didn't have the money available to immediately address these issues as they came due. Secondarily, there's also politics. When you remove political considerations from the table, everything comes down to a business decision. Business decisions are pretty cut and dry. Numbers dictate how you act."
Now, let's discuss this statement. Jeez Louise! $30 - $34 million over 17 years?? This is a staggering amount of money that King Reed took out of the Authority, and with the obvious permission of past Harrisburg Authority Chairmans and Board members. My God that is a lot of money. How did this happen? How was this allowed to go on for 17 years? Where was the oversight? Jeez Louise!
Mr. Ellison was asked another question about what makes the Authority less political now. Mr. Ellison answered: "My team doesn't answer to anyone but the board; whereas before, the Harrisburg Authority was run in essence by the mayor. I've gone through correspondences from the past 5 years or so, and there are reams of letters from the mayor to the authority executive director or the authority chairman, particularly when it came to funding the city's special-projects fund. I've got dozens of letters from the mayor's office directing the executive director to put XYZ number of dollars in the special-projects fund. When it came to decisions, such as which contractor we were going to go with to do the retrofit, I think it's pretty well documented that that was the mayor's decision. That was a decision made between the mayor and special counsel Andrew Giorgione and a member of the mayor's staff, Dan Lispi. That wasn't a circumstance where the authority board went out and did their own due diligence and research. That was a decision made by the mayor's office. The authority at the end of the day had to make the legal decision to award Barlow (Projects Inc.) the contract, but most of the behind-the-scenes work was the mayor, Giorgione and Lispi."
Wow. King Reed was a very busy man. We just didn't realize how busy did we? This is corruption of power, greed and deception on a major scale by Stephen Reed, King of Harrisburg. This man is not fit to serve out the rest of his term as mayor. Get him out of there before he causes any more damage. Can we blame Reed, Giorgione and Lispi for the $250 million debt incurred by the authority? All of this must be looked into more closely, and I think maybe the Attorney General of Pennsylvania should be asked by City Council to investigate all of this NOW. My God what a mess. Jeez Louise!
All I can say is this.....thank God, thank the courts, and thank City Council that new leadership was put in charge of the Harrisburg Authority. Mr. Ellison and the other new people at the Authority have an awful lot of work to do to get the incinerator working as it should and to pay down that HUGE debt. After reading that interview, I have faith in Mr. Ellison and the board that they will be able to get the job done. It will not be easy, but I believe they'll be able to do it.
Politics, politics.........
This morning as I was perusing the Patriot-News, I stumbled across Brett Lieberman's political column. That man is such a hack it's ridiculous. His column was about party endorsements not being like they used to be and such. Well I was reading through it and it went on about how rank and file Dems and Repugs were upset that there were no open primaries on either side for Gov and US Senate. I, like many others was equally upset with the powers-that-be that put pressure on candidates to make sure there were no "open" primaries. That is so wrong on so many levels and actually goes against our rights as citizens.
So anyway, I read a comment by TJ Rooney, the PA Democratic Party chairman, talking about Bob Casey being endorsed in the primary....."Bob's liberal credentials didn't meet the standards of some, but (with) anybody other than Bob Casey we'd still have Rick Santorum in the Senate."
First of all, I took issue with TJ saying Bob had liberal credentials......what are you smoking TJ? Bob a liberal? That's a funny one. He is just as conservative as Santorum is, what are you talking about TJ? And secondly, Barbara Hafer could've beaten Santorum as well, but she wasn't given the chance. TJ, when is your term as Chairman up? It's about time for you to pack your bags and go back home. Jeez Louise!
Citizens of Pennsylvania, we must demand OPEN primaries! Do not let the party big whigs make that decision for you, that is our right, not theirs. Demand better and demand it NOW!!
So anyway, I read a comment by TJ Rooney, the PA Democratic Party chairman, talking about Bob Casey being endorsed in the primary....."Bob's liberal credentials didn't meet the standards of some, but (with) anybody other than Bob Casey we'd still have Rick Santorum in the Senate."
First of all, I took issue with TJ saying Bob had liberal credentials......what are you smoking TJ? Bob a liberal? That's a funny one. He is just as conservative as Santorum is, what are you talking about TJ? And secondly, Barbara Hafer could've beaten Santorum as well, but she wasn't given the chance. TJ, when is your term as Chairman up? It's about time for you to pack your bags and go back home. Jeez Louise!
Citizens of Pennsylvania, we must demand OPEN primaries! Do not let the party big whigs make that decision for you, that is our right, not theirs. Demand better and demand it NOW!!
Monday, December 3, 2007
A new week..........
I wonder what this week will bring in the way of more ugly incinerator news, King Reed's rants and such?
I bust on Reed a lot, but I will say this about him.......I do acknowledge that King Reed has done an awful lot for the City of Harrisburg during his reign. He lifted this city up out of the bowels of filth and decay and did a lot of good for the city.
But the last few years he has become drunk with power. He used the Harrisburg Authority as his personal piggy bank. People were appointed to that board that wouldn't question King Reed's authority. All hail King Reed!
He reigned terror down on all those that dared to question his actions, especially City Council. He blamed City Council for all the bad things that were going on, and then he himself took credit for everything that was good. King Reed and his chief spinmeister, Randy King, were great with the art of the spin, weren't they? But, King Reed lost Randy King to Triad Strategies, a big lobbying group in the Burg. King Reed then hired a fresh-faced young man 1 year out of college at a very good starting salary of $50,000. I can see maybe starting him out at maybe $30,000, but $50,000?? Is it any wonder the city has fiscal problems? Jeez Louise!
I bust on Reed a lot, but I will say this about him.......I do acknowledge that King Reed has done an awful lot for the City of Harrisburg during his reign. He lifted this city up out of the bowels of filth and decay and did a lot of good for the city.
But the last few years he has become drunk with power. He used the Harrisburg Authority as his personal piggy bank. People were appointed to that board that wouldn't question King Reed's authority. All hail King Reed!
He reigned terror down on all those that dared to question his actions, especially City Council. He blamed City Council for all the bad things that were going on, and then he himself took credit for everything that was good. King Reed and his chief spinmeister, Randy King, were great with the art of the spin, weren't they? But, King Reed lost Randy King to Triad Strategies, a big lobbying group in the Burg. King Reed then hired a fresh-faced young man 1 year out of college at a very good starting salary of $50,000. I can see maybe starting him out at maybe $30,000, but $50,000?? Is it any wonder the city has fiscal problems? Jeez Louise!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
