Erie CounterNewsMedia

Tabloid time at the Erie Times-News

2009-07-13T01:21:00.007-04:00

Cementing its growing reputation as a broadsheet newspaper flaunting tabloid sensationalism of the National Inquirer ilk,the Erie Times-News ran a page one story Sunday above the fold at the right top of the page with a 42 point headline explicating a seedy sex triangle involving a low-level administrator at the North East Borough office.

In the meantime, the newspaper's editors and reporters ignore other far more important local governance stories in which top-level part-time, paid borough officials with roaring conflicts of interest routinely stiff North East, state and federal taxpayers of millions of dollars for gold-plated utility projects in order to pad their own professional fees.

Here is Times-News Sex Reporter Gerry Weiss's lead paragraph, straight out of STAR-type-tabloids:

"The North East Borough manager is being investigated by state police on allegations of criminal trespassing after his former girlfriend accused him of having sex with his estranged wife in the lover's apartment." It only gets worse

I ask you, could Weiss's lead have been more titillating? Or more irrelevant? While the subject of the piece is indeed the borough manager, in North East Borough's mercenary pecking order, his responsibilities and salary are barely above the level of a clerk typist.

With mind-numbing detail, Weiss quotes directly from a search warrant, ad infinitum and ad nauseum.

Putting out Sunday's newspaper on Saturday post meridian, the slowest news day of the week, is always a challenge for news editors. But the Weiss sex-fest represents a new low in Times-News annals where the norm usually scrapes the bottom of the barrel.

AP distorts Gov. Palin's decision to resign as Alaska governor

2009-07-08T11:28:00.004-04:00

Once again, the AP, acronym for Asinine Press, distorted Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's decision to resign as governor, fabricating a "possible 2012 Presidential run" in an article carried in the Erie Times-News today.

Palin has neither said nor in any way indicated she plans to run for president in 2012. She has given many reasons why she decided to resign, which the AP ignored, while publishing one she did not give, nor for which there is any objective evidence, once again substituting opinion for fact.

Read Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's reasons for resigning, not the news media's fictional creations

2009-07-04T07:40:00.005-04:00

Don't expect the mainstream news media, including the AP story in today's Erie Times-News, to give Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's unfiltered version of the reasons why she decided to resign as governor effective July 26.

They have all concocted fictional and speculative scenarios which place her decision in a bad light based on comments from her natural enemies both inside and outside Alaska, such as Democrats who fear her national popularity and crooked Republicans whom she has bested in ethical jousts.

For Palin's own words, go to http://www.adn.com., the website for the Anchorage Daily News, which is owned by the left-wing McClatchy chain based in Calfornia, the second largest-newspaper chain in the country, a strident critic of Palin.

Biden, Obama & Broadband

2009-07-02T12:04:00.004-04:00

Dan Galena astutely observes that the Erie Times-News and the Pittsburgh Tribune differ on the number of folks who attended VP Joe Biden's chat at Seneca High School in Wattsburg. The Times-Snooze said 500 attended. Here's the Trib's report:

Biden fails to draw crowd in Erie

Wattsburg, Pa. — "Vice President Joe Biden visited a small town on the outskirts of Erie today to talk to rural folks about federal stimulus money that can be used to expand broadband access to the Internet for rural areas that typically have poor connections.

"Apparently stimulus money and broadband are not all that interesting to the local folk here: Only around 100 or so people have showed up so far to hear Biden talk at noon at Seneca High School off Route 8 in Wattsburg.

"The room looked so sparse that about 30 or so chairs were removed by volunteers to give the illusion of a full house.

"The effect didn't exactly work.

"Pittsburgh native and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and Congresswoman Kathy Dahlkemper are also on hand to talk about access to high speed internet as an essential tool for success in business and in school in our struggling economy."

It's ironic that Biden should address school kids, and be lavishly praised in the local media by his old school chum Jim Lanahan of Mercyhurst North East in light of the fact that Biden was publicly disgraced for cheating at law school.

Does anyone really believe the Obama administration's push for universal broadband in the boondocks is altruisticly motivated when one considers that the president raised most of his election campaign funds via the internet in mostly urban centers, but did poorly in rural areas. This may be the first signal for his reelection aspirations.

The Erie Times-News and Open Records filings

2009-07-02T04:09:00.003-04:00

In an editorial published today, the Erie Times-News celebrated the new transparency in the commonwealth's operations fostered by the recently-enacted open records law which went into effect last January.

According to the editorial, some 500 requests for public records have been filed with the state's Open Records office during the six months since it's been in business. Guess how many requests have been filed by the Times-News's inquiring "investigative journalists."

Zip. Zero. Nada. None.

Harrisburg corruption you won't find in the Erie Times-News

2009-06-30T10:32:00.003-04:00

The following is from Tim Potts, founder and head of Democracy Rising PA, whose goal is to reform government in Pennsylvania, unarguably the most corrupt state in the nation.

WAMs - The Highest Cost of Corruption

Last week's back-and-forth between Gov. Ed Rendell and legislative leaders somehow walked around Walking Around Money, or WAMs. This was especially curious because Associated Press Capitol reporter Marc Levy's three-part series put the matter front and center. Yet high-profile interviews never touched on spending that, according to Capitol insiders, amounts to $750 million in the current year's budget.

A few reporters questioned the $201 million surplus in legislative accounts, but none pressed the case to find out why lawmakers think it's fair to keep a 67% percent surplus while telling school districts that they should use their capped 8% reserve to balance the budget. Or why the executive and judicial branches must shut down or endure payless paydays while lawmakers and their staff roll merrily along.

Add the surplus and WAMs, and you get close to $1 billion in dubious spending and possible savings that could help to resolve this year's budget dilemma.

What to expect. Don't expect either the governor or lawmakers to give up their pork while their constituents eat beans. Until there's a deal, leaders will meet privately with each other, the governor and the gambling interests, who have the access ensured by $4.4 million in campaign contributions.

This reduces many rank-and-file lawmakers to expensive eye candy. When not being wined and dined by lobbyists and cajoled by leaders, lawmakers clog golf courses, restaurants and phone banks where they busily dial for dollars. Legislators also debate a few important issues to kill time in between relatively inconsequential lawmaking and feel-good resolutions. Looking to make sandals PA's official summer footwear? Your time has come.

Meanwhile, with budget and tax votes looming, lawmakers hold out for election insurance, i.e. WAMs. Because leaders need 102 House votes and 26 Senate votes to pass a budget, WAMs are a carrot leaders use to extort votes, just as lawmakers use their votes to extort WAMs.

What's corrupt about WAMs? Secret programs invite abuse and illegality. Just ask the jurors who convicted former Sen. Vince Fumo, D-Phila.

Some say that WAMs let lawmakers get their fair share of state taxes. However, Levy's report illustrates that WAMs are a way for legislative leaders to give money to themselves at the expense of everyone else. For example, former Majority Leader Bill DeWeese, D-Greene, directed $82 per constituent to Greene County at the expense of citizens in Bedford County, who received only 20 cents per constituent during the last half of 2008.

Some point to worthwhile projects that WAMs support, such as libraries, senior centers and fire companies. But while funding for WAMs grows, lawmakers do not fund adequately the established programs that serve citizens statewide. Instead of allowing professionals with a statewide perspective to allocate funds on the basis of need, lawmakers siphon off money for WAMs that take from the weak and give to the well-connected.

WAMs are unconstitutional. This is why lawmakers and governors are so determined to keep secret how WAMs are allocated, where they are in the budget, how organizations apply for them and which organizations apply for WAMs but don't get them.

WAMs violate the separation of powers. The money for WAMs is appropriated to executive agencies. Once that happens, it is unconstitutional for members of the legislative branch to decide how the money is spent. This distinguishes WAMs from federal "earmarks," where the law appropriating the money states the project being funded and the lawmaker who got the earmark. Once the law is enacted, federal lawmakers have no further decision-making authority, a practice that maintains the separation of powers.

Second, some WAMs circumvent constitutional requirements for giving tax dollars to private parties. For example the Constitution says that appropriations to private schools must be in a separate bill from general appropriations. These are called "non-preferred" appropriations. There are dozens of them each year, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, to private colleges and universities. Yet DeWeese got a $1 million WAM for private Waynesburg University to renovate a science hall without a bill and a vote, as the Constitution requires.

The reason for the constitutional requirement is simple when you realize that the state's own public universities have science halls, dormitories and other facilities in serious need of repair.

Question:

How high will the cost of corruption have to go before we decide to stop it?

Tax hikes? How about paring the Legislature? Guest Column

2009-06-27T00:44:00.001-04:00

By Brian O'Neill, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Gov. Ed Rendell's campaign to raise the state income tax should be no more popular or successful than Walter Mondale's pledge to raise federal taxes in 1984.

Mr. Mondale got creamed in his bid to unseat President Ronald Reagan (who continued to blithely run up the national credit card). Mr. Rendell is going to lose this argument, too, as he should.

Because there is no way America's Largest Full-Time State Legislature can justify even a small increase in taxes until it pares its own budget.

Senate Republicans will prevail in blocking this tax increase (which would run about $5 a week for a person earning $50,000 a year). But before they impose the only alternative, massive cuts in education and elsewhere, legislators need to share more of the pain they're about to dish out.

The Republican-dominated state Senate passed a bill last month that would cut legislative appropriations by more than 10 percent from current levels (from $332.2 million to $293 million), but that isn't nearly enough. With 253 legislators, that still works out to $1.16 million per legislator. That's an unfathomable expense just to keep the chambers running.

Senate Republican spokesman Erik Arneson pointed to the proposed 10 percent cut and also to a 9 percent cut in number of staffers in the Republican caucus since January 2006 -- about 40 positions. But when 40 jobs represent just 9 percent of the total, that only reminds us that our Legislature has the most staffers of any statehouse in the republic. There were roughly 3,000 helpers at last count.

Legislative expenses should be cut by at least 20 percent, as some area lawmakers from both parties have suggested.

"I understand your point," Mr. Arneson wrote at the end of our e-mail exchange. "Given the way revenues have continued to plummet, it is absolutely fair to expect us to look at cutting the legislature further if we reach agreement to adopt a no-tax-increase budget that makes the other cuts included in Senate Bill 850 [which proposes the 10 percent cut]."

That would be wisdom were it not for the "if." There should be no ''if." Slashing the legislative budget should be dependent on nothing else. It's imperative.

Every few years, the Pennsylvania citizenry wakes up to what is happening in Harrisburg. The unconstitutional mid-term pay grab in the summer of 2005 was one such moment, and this idea of raising taxes during a recession is another.

It's true that the Legislature cannot balance the budget simply by lopping itself. The savings would be in the tens of millions of dollars, and the budget deficit is estimated at $3.2 billion. That doesn't matter. This is about sharing the pain.

There would be any number of places to begin. Lawmaking is not a physically demanding job like, say, firefighting or mining. Its demands are mental. Trying to justify yet another day in Harrisburg to snarf up the $158 per diem can tax the brain. So here's one quick savings idea: Let's call one $158 meeting to discuss eliminating the right of retired lawmakers to begin receiving a full pension at age 50.

That's at least 10 years too young, and we'd have more healthy turnover in the statehouse if there were no legislative pension. Put the lawmakers on a 401(k). One day soon they will have to deal with ticking pension time bomb for state workers, and they'll need to make their own sacrifices first.

Then there is, of course, the size of the Legislature itself. We have 253 lawmakers. Comparable states, Ohio and Illinois, get by with 132 and 177.

The Pennsylvania Constitution allows no voters' initiative to get a referendum on the ballot, and reducing the Legislature's size requires a constitutional change. But all downsizing proposals have sputtered in Harrisburg largely because the lawmakers have no reason to believe they'll be voted out if they don't reform now.

This "temporary" tax increase, which Gov. Rendell says would last three years, provides the opening for the tedious process of changing the constitution. Call your state senator and representative and offer this simple advice: "Tax me? Cut you."

That probably won't work, but it would be good for one's soul.

Erie Times-News drops the ball again

2009-06-25T11:36:00.008-04:00

The Erie Times-News carried an AP story today (State grants grow as criticism persists, Practice said to be unfair election tool) which exposes the longstanding practice of state legislative leaders to corral tens of millions of taxpayer dollars illegally every year and dole them out as special community grants to favored legislators outside the constitutionally prescribed budgetary process, using it primarily as a reelection campaign tool for select incumbents.

It's standard newspaper practice in such matters to localize a story like this by contacting local legislators and grilling them on what role,if any, they have played or are playing in such unsavory practices, and expose their malfeasance to local citizens, if any.

This story gives the Times-Snooze a perfect opportunity to play a role in ongoing and so far unsuccessful efforts by some legislators and citizen activists and groups to reform the legislature and curb rampant abuses like this one by bringing to the attention of local voters how legislators they have elected have and are performing on this issue so they can decide whether to retain them at the next elections.

For example, local State Senator Jane Earll, a Republican, as chair of the Senate Community, Recreational Development and member of the Gaming committees is one of those hallowed "legislative leaders." Does she condone and persist in this practice, or is she one of the reformers? How about the other half dozen area state legislators? Have they participated in this annual boondoggle?

Holding local legislators accountable for their actions in office is standard newspaper practice except at the Times-Snooze, which consistently prattles on in its editorials on how important freedom of the press protections under the First Amendment enable the press to function, but ignores the concommitant responsibility to exercise that freedom to expose legislative wrongdoers on behalf of the broad public interest.

More Rendell Pay-to-Play from Democracy Rising PA

2009-05-21T12:53:00.002-04:00

This is from Tim Potts's blog. He's the founder and head of the citizen advocacy group, Democracy Rising Pennslvania, which advocates government reform in the Commonwealth. It's the kind of gutty investigative reporting you'll never find in the Erie news media.

Last week the Harrisburg Patriot reported that Gov. Ed Rendell's administration has signed a seven-year, $201.1 million contract with a Minnesota testing company. Data Recognition Corp. (DRC), which provides tests for the state's current standardized testing program, got the contract to create a new, statewide graduation exam even though the General Assembly has not authorized the testing program.

Where might pay-to-play come in? According to state records, DRC executives made these contributions to Rendell's gubernatorial campaign:

February 24, 2006 - $5,000 from Russell Hagen (chair of DRC's board)
September 21, 2006 - $1,000 from Hagen
September 23, 2006 - $1,000 from Susan Engeleiter (DRC's CEO & President)
January 18, 2007 - $10,000 from Hagen

Two weeks later on February 1, 2007, Rendell expressed support for "a single standard for high school graduation" based on recommendations from the Commission on College and Career Success, which Rendell convened in August 2005.

Questions:

Why would a Minnesota corporation pay so much attention to an election that was a foregone conclusion in PA? (Rendell won 60%-40%.)
If the object of a campaign contribution is to influence the outcome of an election, why did Hagen's largest contribution occur after the election when Rendell still had $1.7 million in campaign funds and no debt to retire?
Why is Rendell accepting contributions for a gubernatorial campaign when he can't run for governor again?

Implications for the budget. This is not a new trick for Rendell. In 2007 he held up the budget, demanding increased funding for motion picture production. Unknown to lawmakers was that Rendell had secretly signed a letter committing $3.5 million to Lionsgate, a film production company in California. Lionsgate was represented by former Rep. Mike Veon, D-Beaver, who had lost re-election in 2006 following his vote not to repeal the Pay raise of 2005 and who is now awaiting trial for his alleged role in the Bonus Scandal.

Question: Will Rendell delay this year's budget until he has retroactive authority for the DRC contract?

That other notorious coincidence. The DRC contract is reminiscent of another coincidence between contributions to Rendell's political fortunes and a contract for the contributor. See theApril 9 edition of DR News presenting the Wall Street Journal's report on Rendell and a Houston, TX law firm.

Rendell's not alone. Although he got the lion's share of campaign contributions from DRC executives, Rendell was not the only PA political figure to benefit. Here are other contributions:

October 5, 2007 - $500 from Hagen to Friends of Jess Stairs (Stairs, R-Westmoreland, was then chair of the House Education Committee)
May 14, 2007 - $1,000 from Hagen to Dominic Pileggi for Senate Committee (Pileggi, R-Delaware, was and is majority leader)
May 9, 2007 - $500 from Hagen to Friends of Jim Rhoades Committee (Rhoades was then chair of the Senate Education Committee)
November 17, 2006 - $1,000 from Hagen to Friends of Jim Rhoades Committee
November 13, 2006 - $600 from Hagen to Friends of Jess Stairs
November 6, 2006 - $500 from Hagen to Raphael Musto for Senate Committee (Musto was then minority chair of the Senate Education Committee)
November 3, 2006 - $500 from Hagen to Friends of James Roebuck Committee (Roebuck was then minority chair of the House Education Committee)
November 2, 2006 - $1,000 from Hagen to Friends of John Perzel (Perzel, R-Phila., was then Speaker of the House)
September 20, 2006 - $400 from Hagen to Friends of Jess Stairs
May 11, 2006 - $1,500 from Sandra Wiese (DRC's VP of Governmental Affairs) to Friends of Senator Jubelirer Committee (Jubelirer was then president pro tempore of the Senate)
May 9, 2006 - $1,000 from Hagen to Friends of Sen. Dave Brightbill Committee (Brightbill was then majority leader)
January 18, 2006 - $1,000 from Wiese to the Committee to Elect Mike Veon (Veon was then minority whip)

Question:
Why have there been no contributions since October 2007?

Did Phil English game Kevin Cuneo?

2009-05-12T02:01:00.004-04:00

Back in February, Kevin Cuneo wrote in his gossip column the following:

"Former U.S. Rep. Phil English will keep busy with his work on the National Commission for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. English was recently appointed to a three-year term on the commission. He'll serve on the task force on cultural issues."

In response, I wrote here, addressing Cuneo:

"Kevin, where's the rest of the story? By whom was he appointed? Is this yet another example of Congress feathering its own nest and looking after its own defeated members? Is this a salaried position, with travel, per diem and expenses perks? Does it extend and enhance the former congressman's lavish retirement, per diem, health and pension benefits"?

Needless to say, Cuneo, who publicly boasts of dialoguing with readers but in reality engages mostly in drawn-out soliloquies, never answered those key questions.

Then, on April 15, this article appeared in PM in the Legal Business, a beltway publication;

Former Rep. Phil English Joins Arent Fox

Arent Fox has added former Rep. Phil English (R-Pa.) to its Washington office as a senior government relations adviser, the firm announced today. English’s first day at the firm is today.

English lost his bid for an eighth term in November to Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper (D-Pa.) after representing Western Pennsylvania’s 3rd District from 1995 to 2009. In the 110th Congress, he served as the ranking member on the House Subcommittee of Select Revenue Measures.

At Arent Fox, English will be advising clients and generating business in areas similar to those he focused on in Congress, including health, energy, tax and trade legislation. He will not be lobbying during his first year at the firm in keeping with federal guidelines, a firm spokesman says.

English currently serves on the U.S. National Commission for the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, which advises the State Department on educational, scientific, cultural and communications issues pending before the international organization.

English could not be reached immediately for comment.

Posted by Jeff Jeffrey on April 15, 2009

How is it that English will, as Kevin put it, "keep busy with his work" on the National Commission, when he's working fulltime for Arent Fox? And why would Cuneo, who purports to be a newsman, write about English's appointment to the National Commission, but ignore his hiring by Arent Fox?

My guess is English, or a surrogate, wanted to publicize his appointment to the Commission, and fed Cuneo a blurb on it, but for his own reasons wanted to keep his job with Arent Fox quiet (which raises all kinds of conflict of interest issues), so he kept his own counsel.

It's a classic example of how crafty politicians game unwitting newsmen. And it makes a mockery of so-called "revolving door" laws which are designed to keep former lawakers like Engish, who have been privy to mountains of classified secret information, from using information they gained as "public servants" to compromise the public's interests while working for lobbying firms representing special interests.

Social engineering at the Erie Times News

2009-05-10T01:38:00.005-04:00

Sunday, May 10, 2008

In his weekly column today, Pat Howard, managing editor of the Erie Times-News, writes glowingly of the public forum held last week engineered by him and his colleagues at the paper.It was called "Times-News...,"uh sorry, "Erie Agenda '09." It was like reading a review written by the playwright of his own play. All raves, naturally.

According to Howard, about 150 people attended the forum, the discussion of which was "guided" by himself and three other of his newsroom colleagues, Liz Allen, Kevin Cuneo and Kevin Flowers whose qualifications are suspect, to put it kindly. And, by the way, aren't newsfolk supposed to report the news, rather than make it?

In the interests of full disclosure, I neither attended the forum nor watched the streaming video of the hyper-hyped event on my computer, so I can't evaluate the performance. But Howard's words speak volumes. Headlined "Erie's agenda comes into focus amid spirit of realism, optimism," his column extols and sums up the forum's ambiance. "It was very cool," he writes, with sophomoric eclat.

Those who happen to disagree with Howard's and the Times-News editorial board's myopic vision of what they see as Erie's future are portrayed as "loudmouths at the end of the bar" evincing "a strain of sour defeatism...that generates a hollow whine." Wow. And this is the guy who says "We're all in this together."

Howard's pet topic, on which he preaches incessantly but cluelessly, is "regionalism," once known as "metro government," which seeks at the furthest extreme advocated by Howard to lump most or all of the county's municipalities and functions under a single government umbrella.

Can you imagine an Erie city or county council, with their petty politics and relentless penchant for self-agrandizement infecting every other municipality within the county, big or small, writ large? It boggles the mind.

Apparently some regionalism advocates at the forum weren't prepared to go as far as Howard and the Times-News would lead them, and "came at the question from a different angle," with more limited visions of Big Brotherism.

While Howard prefers that big government be foisted on home rule venues wholesale by the corrupt gang in Harrisburg, he grudgingly concedes "that's not going to happen, so the incremental regionalism" described by others "is probably the best path available."

Most alarming of all was Howard's punch line: "...the dialogue on Wednesday night should be only the beginning. Here at the Erie Times-News and GoErie.com, it's our job to see to that." Shallow cliches aside, with the Times-News, it's never a dialogue. Think, rather, a monologue.

Half-baked concoctions guide Times-News '09 agenda

2009-05-07T00:27:00.003-04:00

Why would any thinking and intelligent folks care what the Erie Times-News and its hand-picked assemblage of bureaucrats, ivy-towered academicians and pompous third rate editorialists have to say about shaping the future of the Erie area?

The failing newspaper, which has had to unload a bunch of staff persons and cut the salaries of the rest while shrinking its news coverage to an irreducible minimum, should focus its dwindling energies on its own broken publishing infrastructure.

If the Times-News would do the job its supposed to of adequately informing its readership of the state of public affairs rather than trying to manipulate them in its own selfish interests, the community would be better served.

The community doesn't need the half-baked concoctions of an arrogant and power-hungry editorial board to tell it what it should or shouldn't do, especially a publishing monopoly which can't competently manage its own business and professional affairs, awash in a tsunami of demoralized staff.

In a feeble attempt to bolster its waning relevance within the community, the Times-News cobbled together what it fatuosly labelled "Erie Agenda 09," a time warp reference it would seem from the worn-out rhetoric surrounding it, to 1909 A.D., pitching it as a catalyst for change, but inadvertently invoking the ageless truism that the more things change, the more they are the same.

Scarcely reassuring was the assertion in the Times-News and Goerie.com Wednesday that the discussion during last night's "forum" would be "guided" by such ineffectual luminaries and psuedo-journalists as Managing Editor Pat Howard, Public Editor (so-called) Liz Allen, Assistant Managing Editor Kevin Cuneo, and Reporter Kevin Flowers, all of whom many of us see as part of the problem rather than part of a solution.

FAVORITISM AT GOERIE.COM

2009-05-06T21:41:00.002-04:00

It seems the headline on my last post on the Erie Yacht Club's "gift" membership to State Rep. John Hornaman should have read "Favoritism at Goerie.com," The Times-News's online edition. Kara Rhodes at the Times-News tells me the story ran in the print edition of the Times-News on Tuesday.

However, there was no sign of it in the Tuesday online edition, or thereafter, which is the only version of the Times-News I read. And in the "Stories Most Read" section of Goerie, there was no mention of the Hornaman story, even though it would certainly have been that day's most read story had it appeared in the online edition.

Nevertheless, the taint of favoritism at the Times-News still applies because the print version treated Rep. Hornman's conflict of interest, and the elitest Erie Yacht Club's obvious attempt to influence public policy in its favor with kid gloves, by minimizing their ill-conceived actions. Don't expect an outraged editorial condemning them.

I tried to retrieve the print version of the story from the newspaper's online Archives, but could only get the first few lines of the story without shelling out $2.95 to the Archives service. Many newspapers which archive their print editions online enable readers to retrieve the current week's or month's published material free of charge, only assessing a fee for earlier published articles. As usual, the Erie Times-News has taken the low road, requiring a retrieval fee after the first day of publication.

Sue Weber and the courthouse flood

2009-05-05T11:07:00.000-04:00

Erie County Controller and gadfly Sue Weber has commented on my earlier post pertaining to the malfunctioning water filter at the Erie County Courthouse which so far has cost an estimated $600,000 in repairs, although some estimates rise to $1 million or more.Her comments are shown below, with her consent:

On April 29, Weber commented:

Good blog. I have been keeping my eye on this. In fact, I called Kevin Flowers a few days ago with the new total of damages, which I am keeping my eye on, and then he wrote the article. I have inspected the filter in question, called the manufacturer, etc. I was my dad's tomboy and love fixing things. Anything mechanical or construction related is interesting. You will recall after the original article came out I commented that this fiasco was going to cost the County hundreds of thousands of dollars. Then in the media, the Divecchio Administration basically said I did not know what I was talking about, blah blah blah. THERE IS A CAUSE TO THIS and the taxpayers shouldn't just take it lying down. We have the huge deductible and now the loss has gone beyond the limits of our CCAP insurance coverage. Our future premiums will go up because of this claim.

If this were your home or mine, we'd be climbing all over the individual who installed this unit and/or the manufacturer. THE UNIT WAS BRAND NEW AND WAS JUST INSTALLED. I think you should come to the courthouse and I will show you the unit, explaining how it works. You will then find it bizarre that they "can't find the cause" of this disastrous flood.

Sue Weber, County Controller-451-6367

A couple days later, Weber added:

Erie County is in the insurance pool with the County Commissioners Assn. of PA. It gives the County better rates. As I understand it that limit is $500,000 and then Luigi Pasquale says another carrier's coverage begins. I need to discuss this with him further but I would guess that is similar to stop loss insurance for health care. Hope you can pay a visit so I can show you this device. Incidentally, they did not need this filter. It was put in for the fifth floor grand renovation. The rest of us just drink the unfiltered stuff and it's fine. I have a copy of one of the change orders for the fifth floor renovation. It's $76,000 for solid cherry paneling. Just for fun, I measured the baseboard in Mark D's office and have a stick sitting on my desk with that measurement of his wonderful cherry molding.

The amount of new furniture coming into the courthouse daily as they keep moving offices around is astounding. The total value of all the furniture in my office is probably less than $1,000. I bought my small conference table myself. Our desk chairs are so old it's hilarious. Our carpet is a zillion years old and is ripped and beyond cleaning. We are there to do a job, not look chic.

I could write a book on why the County is broke.

Sue

Rep. Hornaman took $700 Erie Yacht Club membership

2009-05-04T23:32:00.004-04:00

State Rep. John Hornaman of Erie County was one of about 60 Pennsylvania lawmakers who accepted a total of $60,000 in travel, meals and other freebies last year, according to mandatory statements of financial interest newly filed with the State Ethics Commission, the Associate Press has reported.

According to the AP story filed today, Rep. Hornaman,a Democrat, collected a membership in the Erie Yacht club worth more than $700. He has attended tourism and fishing events at the club, and had dinner with his wife at its restaurant.
"When they offered it to me, quite frankly" Hornaman told the AP,the cost factor didn't enter into my mind" It didn't even come to me, I thought it was a nice gesture."

According to the AP, About three dozen of the 253 state representatives and senators disclosed gifts or free "transportation, lodging, hospitality" in the reports that were due in Harrisburg on Friday.

They let others pay for their football and baseball tickets; golf fees; travel to Japan, Australia, Turkey and Switzerland; and legislative or political conferences at various locations within the United States. They also accepted donations for senior expos and similar events worth an additional $15,000.

Who's Guilty? The county's million dollar (?) water damage costs

2009-04-26T15:01:00.005-04:00

In a follow-up to his intermittent serial saga of stories on the malfunctioning water filter at the Erie Courthouse back in November of last year, Erie Times-News Reporter(?) Kevin Flowers reported today that the bill for the repairs has reached $600,000 and is still climbing.

Flowers further reported today that: "The Nov. 21 incident was caused by a malfunctioning water filter in an equipment room on the courthouse's sixth floor. (Luigi)Pasqual (procurement and maintenance supervisor) said county officials and insurance adjusters are still trying to determine why the water filter malfunctioned."

It's not credible that county officials have not yet determined who or what caused the malfunction. Their failure or reticence to do so suggests that certain county "leaders" from Executive Mark DiVecchio on down are avoiding accountability to cover up wrongdoing on someone's (s') part, with Flowers's witting or unwitting concurrence.

Nor has Flowers, as a presumed "investigative journalist" (see Managing Editor Pat Howards self-serving column recently on press awards), made any apparent attempt to get to the bottom of the mystery, which has cost the county far,far more than the mere repair costs cited above in terms of lost county work hours and other residual expenses.

Neither Flowers nor any responsible county official has even acknowledged additional collateral costs, much less ventured a guesstimate of them, which almost certainly will approach or exceed $1 million.

By injecting the role of "insurance adjusters" into his story, Flowers implies that whatever or whoever caused the malfunction (factory defect, incompetent installation, operator/human error, etc.),county taxpayers are protected. But even if the insurer or insurers pay the repair bill cited above (though not the collateral costs), there is still the hefty $25,000 upfront insurance deductible county taxpayers will have to pay, if they haven't already.

This isn't the first time I've blogged on his matter. Back in November of last year, I wrote:

According to an article in the Erie Times-News today written by Reporter Kevin Flowers, around 3 am. Thursday, a stainless steel water filter on the sixth floor of the Erie County Court House failed during extensive renovations there.

"The breakdown sent as many as 900 gallons of water cascading downward through the courthouse’s east wing, soaking ceiling tiles, saturating carpets and splashing computers, telephones and other office equipment", Flowers wrote. " It also set off a chain of events that postponed scheduled hearings and shut down business at the courthouse, 140 W. Sixth St., for the entire day.

"Among the areas damaged was the fifth floor, where a $3.9 million renovation project is nearing completion. Although courthouse rumors Thursday put the damage at as much as $1 million, DiVecchio and other county officials said it could take a day or two to determine that," according to Flowers.

Flowers said "Luigi Pasquale, the courthouse’s manager of procurement and the supervisor of county facilities, said insurance is expected to cover most of the loss.

'I think it’s under control now,'’ said DiVecchio, who consulted with President Judge Elizabeth K. Kelly, Sheriff Bob Merski and other county officials before deciding around 8 a.m. Thursday to shut the building down and send roughly 600 courthouse employees home for the day.

According to Flowers,Pasquale said the water filter was installed about four months ago. The county has a $25,000 deductible for such damage, Pasquale said, which means that county dollars would cover the first $25,000 of repair and insurance would cover of the rest."

The above is yet another example of poor, partial and superficial reporting by the Erie Times News.

The article answers the fundamental questions of what, where and when, but neglects the crucial question of "why." Why did the filter fail? Was it factory defective, or was there human error in installing it?

In either case, taxpayers should not have to pay for the damages and repairs, or for the costs of sending home 600 county employees while repairs are effected..
Basic investigation could and should determine where the blame for the failure lies, and the accountable party or parties should be assessed accordingly.

Do your job, Kevin and quit glossing over and covering up the failures of your buddies at the courthouse.

Tody's article demonstrates that neither County Executive DiVecchio nor Flowers has stepped up to do his job. Maybe it's time for feisty County Controller Sue Weber to step into the breach.

Erie Times-News Press Awards - The Rest of the Story

2009-04-12T17:42:00.002-04:00

In today’s edition, the Erie Times News announced that “thirteen Erie Times-News writers, photographers and page designers earned 18 top awards” in the Pennsylvania Newspaper Assn’s 2009 Keystone Press Awards statewide competition (By my count, it’s 17, but whose counting?).

In that context, Managing Editor Pat Howard boasted: "These awards reach into all corners of our newsroom to highlight excellence both in print and online. It's well-deserved recognition for the journalists being honored, and a reflection of the talent and commitment our entire staff brings to bear every day in serving our audiences in ways no other news organization in the region can.”

That seems curiously at odds with my longstanding contention that the Times-News’s press credentials are, with a few exceptions, by and large mediocre at best, its news and editorial coverage of issues, people and events important to its Erie readers usually inept, shallow, biased, unprofessional, irrelevant, mis and uninformed.

Unless I'm wrong, how could the Times-News seemingly have scored so lavishly in this year’s press awards competition?

Let’s put that into perspective. The article said that “The Times-News competes in Division II, for newspapers in the 50,000-to-99,999 circulation.” What the article didn’t do is put that distinction in context, which is needed to grasp its implications.

For purposes of the Keystone Awards, the commonwealth’s newspapers are divided into eight divisions. Division I includes Pennsylvania’s most prominent newspapers with the largest circulations. There are only seven of them: the largest, the Philadelphia Inquirer which also publishes the Philadelphia Daily News; the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, the Allentown Morning Call, the Pittsburgh Tribune, the Harrisburg Patriot-News and - although it’s technically a statewide cooperative news service, not a newspaper - the Associated Press.

Division Two consists of six newspapers: the Erie Times-News, the York Daily Record/Sunday News, the Scranton Times-Tribune, the Reading Eagle, the Bucks County Courier-Times, and the Lancaster Intelligencer Journal/Sunday News. In each division .there are about 40 award categories, with awards being given for first and second place winner, and in a few cases honorable mention. That means there are about 120 different award opportunities available to Division II newspapers, of which the Times-News received awards in 17.

However, less than half the categories deal with the principal news and editorial writing functions, which are the hallmark of any newspaper, and about half of those encompass sports writing, a lesser function in terms of the broad public interest.
In the most important news writing category, investigative reporting, the Times-News did not score, beat out by the York Daily Record/Sunday News and the Scranton Times-Tribune.

In another key function, editorial writing, the Times-News took a second place. In commentary/columns, the Times-News was outwritten by the Lancaster Intelligencer Journal and the York Sunday News. In the spot news category, the Times-News was bested by the York Daily Record and the Reading Eagle. In the ongoing news category, it tanked, losing out to the Bucks County and Scranton newspapers.

The Times-News took a first in the Special Projects category and second place in the “niche” category, whatever that is. It also took a second place in news series writing, firsts in feature and /feature beat writing, a first for a business/consumer story, a first in sports beat reporting, a second in feature photo, first in sports photo and second in online journalistic innovation (the internet). It lost out in News Beat reporting to the Reading and Lancaster papers. Photographer Jack Hanrahan distinguished himself with a top Specialty award in the visual category in competion with all of Pennsylvania’s newspapers, including the Big Seven.

Though the Times-News appears to have won its proportionate share of press awards, the most telling factor is that none of them was in the top most vital news and editorial reporting and writing categories

Another interesting point to note is that all of the Times-News’s A-list reporters, writers and columnists were skunked in the competition, like Howard, Ed Mead, Kevin Cuneo, Kevin Flowers, John Guerriero and Ed Palattella.

Also noteworthy is that most of the top news and editorial writing awards went to newspapers in the more densely populated eastern part of the state, where, unlike the Times-News, they face intense competition from other newspapers, including big metropolitan sheets.

Legislative pay raise payback is self serving

2009-04-08T05:52:00.003-04:00

A staff-written article in today's Erie Ties-News reports that nine of ten state legislators from northwestern PA. say they are returning, or will return to the state or donate to charity the automatic 2.8 cost of living pay increases they received effective the beginning of this year, about $2,200 for rank and file legislators. Those in leadership positions voted themselves more.

One online commentor wrote: "Let's remember our legislators, all 253 of them, are the second hoghest paid in the US. Only Calif. are paid more. With 67 counties PA could do with 100 legislators not the 253 we have. That alone will save 200 million."

I don't know whether "hoghest" was a Freudian slip, a pun, or a typo, but it's highly appropos. While PA legislators have the second-highest salaries, their total compensation packages including, per diem, travel allowance, staff allowance, health and pension benefits, etc., are the highest in the land, making the PA legislature the costliest in the nation. By most reckonings, it's also the most corrupt.

If those legislators who say they are contributing their pay raises to charity think they are off the hook, they must think that charity begins at home, because they are the beneficiaries nevertheless of the pay hike by virtue of the fact that they are using it to buy votes, in effect, a bribe.

Whether they return or donate the increment, it still goes towards their eventual retirement benefits.

The article doesn't tell us how long these legislators intend to return or donate the increment. Is it just until the end of the fiscal or calendar year, or the end of the legislative biennium, or beyond? Or just until the next middle-of-the-night/no-public-hearing pay raise comes along?

The article also does not report whether these legislators will support legislation now pending which would reduce the size of the legislature by half. Like most Erie Times-News articles, it filters self-serving legislative pronouncements through rose-colored glasses.

News media which once bashed "convicted" Alaska U.S. Senator Stevens, now ignore his exoneration

2009-04-05T04:49:00.004-04:00

When former U.S. Senator Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, the longest serving Republican in U.S. history, was indicted last year, then convicted in federal court a mere seven days before last November's general election, on charges of failing to disclose gifts from an Alaska friend and oilfield executive, the Erie Times-News, scores of other newspapers, editorialists and pundits penned tens of thousands of disparaging words condemning Stevens and gloating over the political demise of one of the most powerful figures in beltway politics in recent decades.

Stevens narrowly lost his reelection bid last November by a mere 3,000 votes out of more than 290,000 cast. Nearly half Alaska's voters believed he was innocent and voted to reelect him notwithstanding his conviction. His narrow defeat was irrefutably attributable to the taint of his conviction.

But last week, when U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder issued his stunning announcement that he would ask the judge who presided over Stevens's trial to reverse the conviction and dismiss the charges with extreme prejudice (meaning the Justice Dept. could not refile them),nor seek a new trial due to gross prosecutorial misconduct, and withholding vital exculpatory evidence, the silence from Sen. Stevens's news media and other captious critics has been deafening.

The prosecutorial team which engineered Stevens's false conviction, professional bureaucrats appointed under an earlier Democrat administration, has been removed from the case by Holder and is under internal investigation. Two of the three team leaders are Democrats who contributed to Barack Obama's presidential csampaign.

Other than the obligatory story reporting the attorney general's shocking announcement,the Erie Times-News and countless other newspapers, editorialists and pundits have ignored Steven's exoneration.

Simple civil courtesy demands apologies from those media who mercillessly bashed Stevens for gratuitously defaming an innocent person falsely convicted.

U.S. Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska vindicated

2009-04-01T15:57:00.002-04:00

Back in Nov 28, 2008, Ed Mathews (Mead) wrote in his column:
"Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens, 85, had held that Senate seat for 40 years, longer than any Republican in history. After being convicted recently, it was hard to see how he could expect to keep his seat against his Democratic opponent,Mark Begich. He lost the seat in a close race."

In response, I wrote:

"The reason Ted Stevens lost his reelection bid to the U.S. Senate is because he was stuck in Washington, D.C, defending himself against dubious charges during his trial and unable to campaign for reelection in Alaska, while his opponent campaigned freely throughout that vast constitutency. Stevens has appealed his conviction on grounds of proven prosecutorial and juror misconduct which should have resulted in a mistrial,if not dismissal of the charges."

Stevens, who was the U.S. Senate's longest serving Republican with 40 years of service, was fully vindicated today with an announcement by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder that the charges against him have been dismissed and his conviction reversed due to prosecutial misconduct, tampering with evidence and mishandling prosecution witnesses, among other things. Stevens was charged with failing to disclose gifts and services he allegedly received valued at $250,000.

AG Holder also said there would be no retrial. The federal prosecutors who handled the case were removed from it and are under internal investigation by the Justice Dept. Stevens' conviction in federal court in Washington, D.C. in October of last year came ony seven days before the November election in Alaska, yet he lost to his Democrat opponent by only 3,000 votes out of 290,000 cast. Despite his (flawed) conviction, nearly half Alaska's voters believed he was innocent.

Just the facts,please, Ed

2009-03-25T00:11:00.002-04:00

In his column today, Ed Mathews (Mead) wrote, among other things: "(Alaska Governor Sarah)Palin dismissed Alaska's safety commissioner, Walt Monegan, who refused to fire a state trooper who was the ex-husband of Palin's sister."

This is a classic example of the folly of the three-dot school of journalism as practiced by Ed. His clear, but false, implication is that Palin dismissed State Trooper Commissioner Monegan because of the marital discord between her sister and her sister's Trooper ex-husband, whom Monegan refused to fire.

Monegan SHOULD have fired the errant gun-toting trooper because (a) he tasered an 11-year-old boy for kicks, a felony under Alaska law; (b) illegally shot a moose out of season, a "capital" offense in Alaska; (c) was caught drinking beer while driving a state trooper vehicle; and (d) before witnesses, threatened to kill Palin's father, a retired high school coach and teacher.

Palin did nothing illegal when she fired the commissioner. Under Alaska law, she is empowered to hire and fire him WITHOUT CAUSE. There was plenty of cause to fire him, but she didn't need any.

Just the facts, please, Ed.

Times-News beer editorial shows contempt for fairness

2009-02-27T06:27:00.004-05:00

In an editorial today entitled "Wegman beer approval good move," the Erie Times-News, itself an examplar of non-competitive operations, signalled its contempt for a competitive retail environmnent.

Its editorial endorsement of beer sales exclusively at Wegman's ignores the lack of fairness in giving one retail or commercial entity a distinct advantage over others of its kind, namely the many other food markets throughout the Erie area. They will inevitably find some of their clientele shifting to the entity with the unfair competitive advantage.

It's naive to suppose that making beer sales available at a single outlet is a desireable first step in the direction of eventual commercialization of all alcoholic beverages at multiple venues, which seems to be the thrust of the Times-News editorial.

On the contrary, all it does is take some of the pressure off that goal, making it less accessible than ever.

While most of us realize that Wegman's is a choice source of newspaper advertising, Times-News editorialists should think these issues through more carefully before rushing into rash and irretrievable judgments.

In a one newspaper town, other food marketeers have no other effective advertising choices for their wares and can't realistically withhold their advertising from the Times-News in retribution.

Gwen Ifill's 'prostitutional journalism'

2009-02-25T19:57:00.006-05:00

In his Times-News syndicated column today, David Broder raved about
psuedo-journalist Gwen Ifill's book, "The Break-Through: Politics
and Race in the Age of Obama," just released last month.

For those of us without Broder's ingrained bias, Gwen Ifill lost all
credibility as a journalist when she agreed to moderate the vice
presidential debate last Fall between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin without
revealing that she had already written this wildly pro-Obama book
scheduled to be released on presidential inauguration day in January
of this year, then refusing to step down once her blatant conflict of
interest was revealed.

Despite Ifill's pronounced pro-Obama/Biden bias as moderator, betrayed
by her obvious choice of questions designed to play to Biden's strengths
and Palin's weaknesses, Palin clearly "won" the vice presidential "debate,"
riddled with Biden's glaring factual errors.

Formerly with the left-wing New York Times, now with the ultra liberal
PBS News Hour, Ifill brazenly allowed Biden to rebut Palin time after time,
while cutting off Palin's attempts to rebut Biden.

Because of the obvious conflict of interest inherent in the belated disclosure
of her book, and her failure to step down as moderator once it was belatedly revealed, Ifill should have been yanked as moderator.

Had Obama/Biden lost the election, Ifill's book would have tanked. But with
their election, and the slavish praise by fellow ideologues like Broder,it's on track to sell tens of thousands of copies, enabling Ifill to profit from her prostitutional journalism.

Kevin, where's the rest of the story?

2009-02-21T18:49:00.002-05:00

Kevin Cuneo wrote in his latest column the following:

"Former U.S. Rep. Phil English will keep busy with his work on the National Commission for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. English was recently appointed to a three-year term on the commission. He'll serve on the task force on cultural issues."

Where's the rest of the story? By whom was he appointed? Is this yet another example of Congress feathering its own nest and looking after its own defeated members? Is this a salaried position, with travel, per diem and expenses perks? Does it extend and enhance the former congressman's lavish retirement, per diem, health and pension benefits?

PA's New "Right to Know" Law: A Work in Progress

2008-12-04T23:10:00.005-05:00

Pennsylvania's new "Right to Know " law, which goes into effect
next month, governs public access to public records. Its
"Sunshine" law governs access to public meetings. As reported
today in the Erie Times-News, the General Assembly made some
significant improvements to the existing Right to Know law earlier
this year, which were signed into law by Governor Ed Rendell in
February. It did not address the Sunshine law, which remains
woefully deficient.

The new Right to Know law leaves much to be desired in terms of
transparency, and should merely be viewed as a work in progress.
Right to Know advocates should continue to pressure legislators
for more transparency and openness. They should also continue
their efforts to reform the commonwealth's Sunshine law.

The new Right to Know law’s two most important features are its
unprecedented inclusivity; it draws virtually every publicly
funded agency,including for the first time, the legislature,
state universities and some private recipients of public funds,
within its reach;and it shifts from the requester to the agency
the burden of proving whether information being sought is public.

While the new law requires public agencies to assume that all
records in their hands are public unless they are expressly
exempted, it also establishes a staggering number of exemptions.
There are 30 broad categories of exemptions, plus numerous
sub-categories, bringing the total number of exemptions to
nearly 100.

The new Right to Know law could, with only a slight bow to
hyperbole, be subtitled, the Pennsylvania Continuous Attorney
Employment Act of 2008, as the commonwealth’s hundreds of
agencies at every level wrestle to comply with its intermingling
provisions, laden with legal jargon, especially during the
early years of its implementation before its provisions become
settled law.