Facing off against Republicans was easy back when GOP thugs were bashing Big Bird and marauding down Sesame Street with the ease of looters after a summer riot.
Nowadays, WVIA's "Big Boss" Bill Kelly makes such a common sense defense all the more difficult.
So do board members at the local public broadcasting outlet.
While begging money from dedicated viewers to ensure the continued airing of kids' programs and other community-minded offerings, Big Boss recently accepted an annual paycheck of $199,000 to serve as hustler emeritus and chief fundraiser.
People who don't earn such great sums of cash often attack those who do, he told me in an off-the air conversation yesterday that felt like talking to the Queen of England about why she's got the crown jewels and we don't.
Big Boss was unapologetic and said he deserves every penny – even after layoffs and cut-backs at WVIA.
I explained that even average public broadcast supporters might have a hard time justifying his paycheck that's drawn in part from public funds that hard-working people contribute through their federal taxes.
So I suggested that Big Boss come on the air and justify his wealth taken from the public trough. I thought maybe I could convince him to see the light and take a salary cut and, if not, at least expose him for the greedy public servant he seems to be.
Big Boss told me I would have to get permission for him to talk from the chairman of the board - not that he would have to get permission but that I would have to get permission for him to talk with me.
Big Boss' logic seemed class-backwards but, then again, that's our Big Boss.
So I called the chairman of the board, interrupting his vacation with his grandchildren. Don't blame me, I said, blame Big Boss, whom you agreed to reward in light of a crumbling economy and countless coal crackers in your service area who are out of work, out of time and just plain out of luck.
The chairman, who's a locally famous doctor, launched into a lecture about how important Big Boss is to the future of the WVIA enterprise.
At least my medical insurance wasn't getting billed for his advice, I thought.
But my taxes are.
The chairman said he'd call Big Boss.
And all systems were go for the interview, something Big Boss knows a little something about since he's in charge of the kissy-face interviews with business people that Big Boss hopes translate into corporate cash contribution to WVIA.
Big Boss is to interviews what Log Cabin syrup is to hotcakes. Nobody leans back in his chair, crosses his legs, dangles his fingers like he's holding an imaginary cigarette holder on the Riviera and flutters his eyelids like Big Boss.
But behind closed doors it's all "show me the money."
Big Boss got snippy during my invitation, by the way, criticizing me for sometimes cutting people off during tense interviews. So I promised to be gentle.
After receiving permission and after the show began, Big Boss left a message for me on my office voice mail. In turn, my producer called Big Boss and left a message telling him to call the show.
The call never came.
My guess is that he was listening and didn't like what he heard – not just from me but from caller after caller, most of whom support public broadcasting, lambasting him and the privileged posse that authorized his salary.
So, if he won't call to explain himself why should you call to support his paycheck?
Good question, huh, Big Boss?
Maybe he'll call today. I'll invite him because I'm not finished with this story.
Big Boss only renewed my interest in his station and the way they do the people's business.
Maybe WVIA can make a documentary about the colleague that Big Boss and others once told me took some station money a few years ago. Rather than call police and report a crime, Big Boss and the board of directors called the suspected thief and asked for their money back. He returned the money, Big Boss said, and nobody was the wiser – especially the poor suckers who truly believed that Big Boss and Company took good care of the dollars they contributed to ensure quality community programming.
When it comes to WVIA, it might be time to change the channel.
When you kill a guy you really ought to expect people to ask you about it - especially if you're running for judge.
Prominent Scranton lawyer, former federal prosecutor and magisterial district judge Jim Gibbons killed a guy.
And now, after winning both the Democratic and Republican nominations in the May 21 primary election, he's all but a shoo-in for a seat on the Lackawanna County Court of Common Pleas.
But Gibbons, 55, seems insulted that more and more people are asking about the April 11, 1984 accident that left Jacob T. Topa bleeding on Cedar Avenue after Gibbons slammed into him while Topa was crossing the street.
Topa died in the hospital three days later.
Thirty years later Gibbons' bid for higher office is alive and well.
Still, his credibility has taken a severe hit.
After ducking my phone calls for three weeks, after I broke the story in two online columns and on the air, Gibbons finally spoke with a local newspaper reporter about the case and the million-dollar wrongful death settlement document that is now missing from the county office charged with safeguarding official court records.
After I requested a copy of the Gibbons settlement last Thursday, Clerk of Judicial Records Mary Rinaldi called to tell me that the report had vanished.
Gibbons also requested a copy and was told about the disappearance. He then went to see county District Attorney Andy Jarbola, who ordered an official investigation into the theft. The soft newspaper story in yesterday's Times Tribune made it seem as if Gibbons alerted Jarbola to the disappearance.
Jarbola actually knew about the missing court document before Gibbons told him. I had earlier alerted an official at the district attorney's office about the report. The official dismissed the rumor. But the rumor was true and the file remains missing.
On Tuesday I publicly identified Gibbons on the air as the political candidate who worked diligently with his primary election campaign to keep the story about his role in Topa's death quiet. I detailed everything I discovered during the three weeks it took for me to feel confident about reporting the details. I also wanted to give Gibbons every opportunity to address this tragedy.
But Gibbons refused to talk with me even after a friend offered to intercede and asked him to speak with me.
Gibbons' responses in the soft newspaper story that appeared after I first told the story fell short of answering several major questions that still remain. Gibbons told the reporter that he was not drunk at the time of the accident. But we still do not know if he had been drinking in the hours leading up to the crash. Nor do we know why the police failed to test Gibbons for alcohol.
Gibbons also told the reporter that he didn't try to influence the investigating office by dropping the name of his politically powerful boss – a name the investigating officer made sure to note on his report – when they officer arrived on the scene. Gibbons said he merely answered the question about where he had been before the accident. Gibbons, whose father was a federal judge at the time, was working as a law clerk for federal Judge Richard Conaboy. Gibbons told police he had just dropped off Conaboy at his nearby home.
I left a message yesterday for the vacationing Conaboy – who is a far more powerful judge today than he was 30 years ago – asking if Scranton police had interviewed him after the accident to confirm Gibbons' story and inquire about Gibbons' mental and physical condition on the night in question.
That sad night in question remains relevant today.
Gibbons' defenders have been calling my show for the past two days to berate me on the air for telling a story they do not consider news.
This is news.
That's why I called Gibbons for the eighth time yesterday to invite him to talk with me on the air. Again, he did not return my call. But I left a message asking him several follow-up questions about the accident and settlement. I also asked who appointed him to sit on the special Interbranch Commission for Juvenile Justice charged with the solemn duty of investigating the "Kids For Cash" scandal in Luzerne County during which two politically powerful county judges sold children into slavery for personal profit.
An alert listener sent me a newspaper article that confirmed how current federal inmate and former state senator Bob Mellow personally appointed Gibbons. Of all the people this admitted criminal and political gangster could have chosen, Mellow chose Gibbons. When this Democratic warlord crashed and burned Gibbons joined the ranks of countless other politically powerful friends of Bob Mellow who simply moved on in their public service without him.
Gibbons' cruel opportunism now defines him.
And his sad selective silence remains his biggest sin.
When you run for judge, especially after killing a guy, voters expect you to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
The other arrived from the dark side of Cedar Avenue in Scranton's South Side.
When their lives crossed in the early evening on April 11, 1984, only one young man walked away.
The other died three days later from injuries he suffered when the driver's 1981 Subaru slammed into him as he tried to cross the street.
Almost 30 years later, the privileged man is even more privileged – poised to be elected in November to one of the most powerful political offices in Lackawanna County. Yet, he and his most ardent campaign supporters, also men and women of privilege, continue to conspire to keep quiet what police long ago deemed an accident.
Within four months after the victim's death, his widow and three small children accepted a settlement that totaled more than $1 million spread over 60 years. A law enforcement source who supports the candidate says that the widow even supported the primary political campaign of the man who killed her husband.
The widow, who still lives in Scranton, failed to return a phone call yesterday requesting comment.
The candidate failed to return several.
In the past three weeks since the May 21 primary election, I have left seven detailed messages for him at three different telephone numbers - at the candidate's current public office and his two private cell phone numbers.
I agreed when a "friend" of the candidate offered to call him last Thursday and suggest that he sit with me and explain what happened that terrible night. That friend told me yesterday that the candidate told him he absolutely refuses to talk with me.
"He's worried that you're going to ambush him," the friend said.
The candidate is more likely worried that I will ask him questions that he doesn't want to answer, questions that nobody has ever publicly asked him.
Was he drinking the night of the accident? Did police test him for alcohol? Did he and his politically powerful father visit the widow in the days after the victim's death? Why agree to a million dollar settlement for an accident that police said wasn't his fault, an accident for which police said they had no witnesses and took him at his word about what happened? Did he suggest keeping the death quiet during the campaign or did his closest campaign advisors – lawyers like himself - urge him not to talk?
A few days before the election, I received in the mail at my home a copy of the official accident settlement agreement that is filed in Lackawanna County Court. Political rivals of the candidate who also knew about the fatal accident wanted me to break the story before the election. Some political experts believe the candidate would have lost his bid for office had the story erupted.
Campaign workers for two of the candidate's rivals told me that a man had approached them and offered damaging information about the candidate in exchange for $15,000. The campaign workers said they refused the offer.
And I refused to rush the story. Instead, I found out all that I could and gave the candidate more than enough opportunity to tell his story to voters who deserve to know exactly who our political candidates are when they ask for the public trust. But the candidate dismissed my phone calls and turned down his friend's suggestion that he speak with me.
Last week I heard from a source close to the race that somebody stole the official court record from the main storage repository.
County Clerk of Judicial Records Mary Rinaldi called me within hours of my requesting the record to report that "the case is missing." Rinaldi told me Friday that she has no idea how the record disappeared and that a mystery of this kind is rare.
Several sources told me that suspects' names are circulating throughout the courthouse and the political and legal community.
A source told me yesterday that the candidate recently visited the clerk's office in the Brooks
Building in downtown Scranton and requested to see the record of his court settlement.
Officials there told him that the document had simply vanished, the source said.
The candidate is not happy, the source said.
District Attorney Andy Jarbola, who signed a widely-circulated letter of support for the candidate during the primary campaign, said yesterday that he also is not happy about the missing file.
"We're looking into it," he said.
I interpret that to mean that the county's chief law enforcement officer has launched a preliminary criminal investigation into the possible theft of an official court document from a supposedly secure county office that is off-limits to the public.
County court employees are able to retrieve court documents from the repository, officials said, but they are required to leave a note identifying themselves.
No such note exists, Rinaldi said.
In my attempts to report this story I have tried my best to be fair. But the candidate refuses to help me understand exactly what happened so long ago as well as during his successful campaign for higher public office.
At 3:15 this afternoon, I will identity the candidate on the air.
Then the people will decide for themselves if this well-respected man who claimed during the campaign to have the highest integrity of all the candidates is deserving of the public trust.
Or, has he simply forgotten how he took the life of a young husband and father, an average man stepping from the shadows and left bleeding on the street, as an above-average young man of privilege told police his version of what happened, dropped the name of a powerful judge for whom he worked and continued living the good life that helped him keep climbing the ladder of success?
Tuesday, June 04, 2013
The plain white business envelope with no return address arrived at my Scranton home on the Saturday before the Tuesday May 21 primary election.
Inside I found a folded 10-page court document from 1984.
Until then I had never seen the name of the dead man referred to in the official record. Almost 30 years after his death, most of us have never heard his name. Although his name is familiar to some important people, it is doubtful that they want to speak publicly about him.
I left three telephone messages for one man who should clearly remember the dead man and his family but he has not returned my calls.
Sources say that the dead man's widow and three children are living in Scranton.
One source says he spoke with the widow recently and she was willing to speak about the April 11, 1984 death of her 27-year-old husband a few days after a vehicle struck him on Cedar Avenue in the South Side section of Scranton.
Then she suddenly backed out.
One of the dead man's children later told the source that people were trying to use his mother to hurt "somebody." The source said he told the man - who was a child when his father was killed - that he only wanted the truth.
But the man refused to cooperate.
The widow spoke to a lawyer who advised her and her family not to speak about the accident, the source said, and she does not want to revisit the terrible time she endured in the aftermath of her husband's death.
But as bad as life turned for the woman and her three minor children, the court document shows that she was well compensated for her loss.
Just four months after her husband died, a court settlement filed in Lackawanna County court decreed that she receive an immediate cash payment of $90,000 and "beginning January 1, 1987, a monthly payment of $1168.42 for a period of time of sixty (60) years, making a total payment to the surviving wife of $841,298.40."
"A total payment of $90,000 to the three minor children of the decedent," is "payable as follows: $30,000 to (child number one) on attaining the age of 18 years on March 9, 1993; $30,000 to (child number two) on attaining the age of 18 years on May 16, 1994; and $30,000 to (child number three) on attaining the age of 18 on November 4, 1997."
The court document confirms that the total paid to the "surviving wife" and children comes to a "total value of $1,021,298.40."
Some people wanted this story to be told before the election. But I didn't have enough time to uncover the facts and figures I needed to be fair and to offer the people involved an opportunity to tell their stories.
After all these years, the man's death remains a contemporary tale.
Another source said he was told by a Scranton city police officer that no police report exists to document the terrible event that night on Cedar Avenue. A law enforcement source told me that he would not be surprised if no investigative report exists because in those days bad things could and did happen at the Scranton Department.
When I checked the county records, a clerk told me that the settlement document I possess is the only record available about the settlement.
Then a source told me last week that the record is missing.
I'll check to see if that is true.
I'll also check to see if the police report is missing as well.
The settlement occurred on behalf of a young defendant who had a bright future even if the court settlement alleges that the "petitioner's claim is the alleged negligence of the defendant in the operation of his motor vehicle, thereby striking and fatally injuring the decedent."
Was that alleged negligence thoroughly investigated by Scranton police? What were the circumstances of the incident? Where had the driver been before crashing into the man? With whom? Where and when did he stop his vehicle after striking the man? Did he make a statement to police? Who was his lawyer? Was the accident his fault? What did he do for a living? Did her come from a good family?
And, of course, where is that man today? How has his life progressed? Did he find the bright future that those who knew him then swore awaited him?
These are all relevant questions that have recently arisen in my mind with the arrival of a plain white, business envelope with no return address that showed up in the mailbox at my house on the Saturday before the Tuesday primary election.
First Liz Randol lost her loaded gun.
Then she lost the election.
Now it looks like she could lose whatever sense of political principle her supporters always thought she had.
The Democratic candidate in the Scranton mayoral election seems a little too greedy for political power in ways that surprise some supporters who always thought it was about public service and not about Liz.
Surprise.
It’s all about Liz.
And she seems willing to do whatever it takes politically to get elected mayor.
The worst example of her ego occurred election night after she conceded loss to opponent Bill Courtright, a Democrat with his own ego problems. Liz even lost her own South Side neighborhood.
But Liz gave no concession speech.
Instead she whipped her supporters into an embarrassing frenzy that raised the hopes of people who deserved better. She promised, not hoped for, but promised that she would win the Republican nomination thanks to a sneaky write-in campaign that relatively few people knew about.
Had more people known, she actually might have won.
But bad planning, despite her Ph.D. in Philosophy and Buddhist Studies, took her out of the mix.
No matter what Liz says or how her beautiful people supporters try to spin it, bad planning troubled her campaign from beginning to end. One campaign worker told me she was never organized enough to send the army of get-out-the-vote workers to campaign in the days leading up to Election Day. A smart political consultant who worked another race told me that Liz treated the polls as it she owned them and had already won.
But Liz lost.
Liz beat herself.
I will always believe that the gun incident – that is not over from what I’m hearing – took her out of contention.
Had Liz not lost her gun that turned up loaded on a city sidewalk a block away from an elementary school, more people would have embraced her campaign and contributed money and name power to her bid for office. Liz could have won and would have made the best mayor – for whatever that’s worth.
But she also lost the support of too many regular, responsible voters and too many women over 50 who thought Liz was too glitzy and looked like her jewelery cost more than they and their husbands made in a week.
Smart women candidates downplay the glimmer.
Liz was a novice who lost her only previous electoral bid who refused tell her own people the truth when she misled them on Election night.
“Game on,” she howled at her after election party. “Game on.”
And her fans cheered.
But she had lost the write-in, too.
Now word on the street is that Gary Lewis, who won the Republican nod, might pull out of the general election. That rumor was on the street before the election but now it’s hot. Republican bosses are saying they could then appoint a candidate.
Would Liz really accept the hated Republican endorsement.
Is the Pope a Catholic?
This perceived liberal feminist abortion rights supporter might be the weirdest Republican since Jimmy Connors. But since it’s all about Liz I will not put it past her. Will she make deals and promise a big piece of her world to Republican devils? Next time you see Liz, ask her.
This scenario, if true, should erupt in the next few days. Secret meetings and sleazy operatives meeting in back rooms will once again be in vogue. And Liz loves vogue. But is Scranton ready for beautiful people Republicans?
Maybe Liz can will say a novena at St. Ann’s and raffle off an assault rifle to show how serious she is about her new non-partisam political science.
Because, in Scranto, every day is Election Day and all the votes are for sale.
When it comes to politics, it’s never over.
Thursday, May 23, 2013
On primary Election Day I talked on the radio for seven hours, excitedly commenting about regional politics and the severe impact that candidates who win will have on the quality of our lives. As the May 21 election drew near, I spent days talking about nothing but local politics. Not once during my daily four hour show did I run out of information to share, news to break or reasons to fight the power.
But voter turnout Tuesday was dismal.
People didn’t care.
They really didn’t care.
I believe people do care about their lives and the quality of their communities. It’s just that people have lost faith in political candidates who seem mostly to be about political business as usual. And, in Northeastern Pennsylvania, the business as usual politics we know so well has helped maim the public trust.
Public trust survives with the weakest civic heartbeat.
Yet, if we refuse to give in to the powerbrokers who have grown so used to getting their way, we can one day swing through the political jungle like Tarzan out to rescue the losers and the lost. As long as we bend to the power rather than rising to fight the powers that be, we remain the losers and the lost.
They win. They control. They benefit. They laugh all the way to their next elected office.
I understand the frustration. In hard coal country, giving up is sometimes even viewed as victory rather than defeat. Some people believe they win when they refuse to dignify the sewer of politics by participating in any way.
I urge you to join me in jumping into the muck.
Politics never fixes itself.
Left to its’ own hysterical devices, the sewer gets worse and the rats that cavort among the flotsam carry a perpetual disease that spreads germs of toxic cultural destruction. That sounds gross because the process of fighting back is gross.
I fight the rats because I will not be ruled by rats.
So now I’m offering you a job with the biggest pest extermination company in the land – a powerful start-up company run by the people for the people.
We must volunteer to step willingly into the muck together, battling until the end. Even if we never prevail in our lifetimes, we must take our victories wherever and whenever we find them,
On Tuesday, believe it or not, we found a few.
Kathy Dobash, of Hazleton, won a Republican nomination to run in November’s election for a seat on the Luzerne County Council. Dobash lost in her previous bid yet never wavered in her commitment to do whatever she can to hold public officials to the same standard of accountability that she holds herself.
Dobash has little money and little power in her life. Yet she campaigned by bringing honor to a field of dishonor and emerged victorious. I wish her well in her continuing mission to fight political corruption, government waste and political abuse. People such as Dobash can help lessen the impact of nepotism, cronyism and patronage – breeding grounds for the culture of corruption.
Up north in my Scranton hometown, 23-year-old Robert Casey emerged as the high vote getter in the Democratic primary race for Scranton School Board. The political newcomer is finishing up a college degree and works in customer service at the Gerrity’s Supermarket on Meadow Avenue.
Casey, who’s no relation to the local Casey political dynasty, helped dump longtime school director and political leech Bob Lesh.
Guided by his dad of the same name, a former Scranton school director himself, the kid came out of nowhere. I admit that I didn’t vote for Casey because I didn’t know anything about him. But the young man has already taught me a lesson.
A few days before the election, while standing in the check-out line, I spotted young Casey on duty in Gerrity’s. Walking at a brisk pace with that smiling Irish mug on him, he suddenly stopped in mid-step, stooped and scooped up a piece of paper that some slob had dropped on the floor. In one smooth, continuing motion the kid flipped the trash into the garbage can. The grin never left his face.
Other workers would have either not noticed or avoided the job.
But Casey was paying attention.
Casey’s clean sweep stands as an innocently simple, yet stunning, example of the best that must be yet to come.
Dobash and Casey have inspired me to keep punching. You, too, should be ready for the sound of the bell and the opportunity to step into the center of the ring.
Nobody can beat you as long as you’re willing to fight one more round.
We’re really just a few days out of Primary Election 2013 – an election that shapes the things to come.
You might not realize just how important this election is. I do, and want you to understand the importance as well. The quality of life in Lackawanna and Luzerne counties depends on the outcome.
With good reason, most of us still do not trust public officials – particularly county judges.
That’s why the judicial race in Lackawanna County is crucial.
So far, Patti Grande Rieder and Jim Gibbons have distinguished themselves – not as good candidates, but as people who do not rise to the level of judgment we need o the bench.
Rieder babbled her way through a recent on-air interview with me, refusing to tell us what happened when she got fired and then re-hired as a county judicial clerk. She also defended and downplayed the role of a suspended lawyer who works on her election campaign. She al;so seems to have flat-out lied about an audible "whisperer" who tried to provide answers to my questions.
Gibbons left me a voice message in which he defended a well-known lawyer member of his finance committee who acted as moderator for the only debate of the season – a clear conflict of interest and an obvious appearance of impropriety – which seems to be a clear violation of the state judicial code of conduct. Frankly, because Gibbons is a magistrate, I believe an ethics violation might very well have already occurred – before he even becomes a county judge – something voters must make sure does not happen.
Another big race is the Scranton mayoral contest.
No matter how many candidates aspire to the job, only two have a chance – Democrats Bill Courtright and Liz Randol.
Neither will get my vote.
Courtright has botched his job as the Scranton tax collector and Randol lost a loaded handgun that turned up on a city sidewalk a block away from an elementary school. Intelligence must be measured by more than academic degrees. If anything, Randol’s Ph.D. should have taught her discipline and responsibility, two traits lost in her armed and dangerous shuffle.
Scranton needs common sense whether or not you have a doctorate.
Another dandy race in Scranton is “Little Billy” Gaughan’s run for city council.
Gaughan is the ticking time bomb candidate who I believe accosted me and my WILK News Radio colleagues two St. Patrick’s Days parades ago with a barrage of foul language and homophobic slurs. He was clearly under the influence of recklessness and made a complete fool of himself as we watched in awe. In a bizarre on-air interview with me, Gaughan said he could not remember the encounter. He did not deny the episode that at least a dozen eyewitnesses observed. He just said he could not remember.
Gaughan went on to use his mental prowess and local Minooka section of Scranton political connections to obtain a job as a teacher in the Scranton School District – which makes all sitting school directors who approved his hiring – including Bob Lesh and Bob Sheridan, who are running for re-election – incompetent to serve the public and not fit for public office.
Gaughan seems to have more signs on the street than numbers in his IQ yet seems to be a favorite to win. Scranton is in for trouble if this young lout takes a city council seat. He’ll be great for the news business and terrible for the city.
But Scranton is used to misery.
And, of course, misery loves “Little Billy” Gaughan & Co.
Down south in Luzerne County, sitting county Controller Walter Griffith is in trouble since the district attorney accused him of illegally recording telephone and other conversations. Griffith has not been arrested but the attorney general’s office is investigating. As a result, Walter refuses to talk with the press or even give a deposition in a lawsuit filed against him and the county.
As weird as Luzerne County politics has been, and it ranks right up there with the worst that can happen,. Griffith is to my knowledge the first candidate running for re-election who refuses to answer questions from the press.
Beautiful.
I no longer trust Walter Griffith.
I used to trust him but no more.
I used to trust Liz Randol.
But no more.
Politics is getting scarier and nastier in Northeastern Pennsylvania.
We’re really just a few days out of Primary Election 2013 – an election that shapes the things to come.
You might not realize just how important this election is. I do, and want you to understand the importance as well. The quality of life in Lackawanna and Luzerne counties depends on the outcome.
With good reason, most of us still do not trust public officials – particularly county judges.
That’s why the judicial race in Lackawanna County is crucial.
So far, Patti Grande Rieder and Jim Gibbons have distinguished themselves – not as good candidates, but as people who do not rise to the level of judgment we need on the bench.
Rieder babbled her way through a recent on-air interview with me, refusing to tell voters what happened when she got fired and then re-hired as a county judicial clerk. She also defended and downplayed the role of a suspended lawyer who works on her election campaign. She also seemed to flat-out lie about an audible "whisperer" telling her the answers to my questions.
Gibbons left me a telephone message defending a well-known lawyer and member of his finance committee acting as moderator for the only debate of the season – a clear conflict of interest and obvious appearance of impropriety – which is a precise violation of the state judicial code of conduct. Frankly, because Gibbons is a magistrate, I believe an ethics violation might very well have already occurred – before he even becomes a county judge – something voters must make sure does not happen.
Another big race is the Scranton mayoral contest.
No matter how many candidates aspire to the job, only two have a change – Democrats Bill Courtright and Liz Randol.
Neither will get my vote.
Courtright has botched his job as the Scranton tax collector and Randol lost a loaded handgun that turned up on a city sidewalk a block away from an elementary school. Intelligence must be measured by more than academic degrees. If anything, Randol’s Ph.D. should have taught her discipline and responsibility, two traits lost in her armed and dangerous shuffle.
Scranton needs common sense whether or not you have a doctorate.
Another dandy race in Scranton is “Little Billy” Gaughan’s run for city council.
Gaughan is the ticking time bomb candidate who I believe accosted me and my WILK News Radio colleagues two St. Patrick’s Days parades ago with a barrage of foul language and homophobic slurs. He was clearly under the influence of recklessness and made a complete fool of himself as we watched in awe. In a bizarre on-air interview with me, Gaughan said he could not remember the encounter. He did not deny the episode that at least a dozen eyewitnesses observed. He just said he could not remember.
Gaughan went on to use his mental prowess and local Minooka section of Scranton political connections to obtain a job as a teacher in the Scranton School District – which makes all sitting school directors who approved his hiring – including Bob Lesh and Bob Sheridan, who are running for re-election – incompetent to serve the public and not fit for public office.
Gaughan seems to have more signs on the street than numbers in his IQ yet seems to be a favorite to win. Scranton is in for trouble if this young lout takes a city council seat. He’ll be great for the news business and terrible for the city.
But Scranton is used to misery.
And, of course, misery loves “Little Billy” Gaughan & Co.
Down south in Luzerne County, sitting county Controller Walter Griffith is in trouble since the district attorney accused him of illegally recording telephone and other conversations. Griffith has not been arrested but the attorney general’s office is investigating. As a result, Walter refuses to talk with the press or even give a deposition in a lawsuit filed against him and the county.
As weird as Luzerne County politics has been, and it ranks right up there with the worst that can happen,. Griffith is to my knowledge the first candidate running for re-election who refuses to answer questions from the press.
Beautiful.
I no longer trust Walter Griffith.
I used to trust him but no more.
I used to trust Liz Randol.
But no more.
Politics is getting scarier and nastier in Northeastern Pennsylvania.
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Finally, thankfully, we now have a group of well-connected citizens who represent an institution of higher learning that actually learned something.
If the news is true, Lackawanna College trustees will rename its’ beautiful and expensive Mellow Theater, dropping the name Mellow and restoring some sense of honor to the hopefully hallowed halls of education.
I’m pleased to say that I take some credit for applying pressure to the former friends of Bob Mellow who control the school, mostly powerful, political men who call the shots at the college that is known more for its menacing football team and players’ off-field shenanigans than for its’ academic excellence.
The school is lacking in leadership as well.
The top position as president has been filled with Mellow men and Mellow men only.
Then bold namesake, former longtime state senator and fierce Democratic political warlord Bob Mellow got busted for political corruption. Then he admitted his crimes and his guilt. Then he cried in court and headed off to a federal prison in South Carolina where he pines for days gone by.
But the Mellow men refused to budge. Steadfast in their loyalty to this degenerate gangster, they stood unflinching in their defense of a man who disgraced the community, himself, his family and the college he controlled.
Their pious approval of his “mistakes” became a treacherous and defamatory attack on the character of the school they claimed to serve. They made fools of themselves. They tried to make fools of us, trying to drag us down into the gutter of dirty politics in which their hero wallowed for decades.
And they actually expected good people to support them in their duplicity.
Good people refused.
Day after day, week after week, month after month we railed against the masters and their bad example. I questioned how they could willfully damage the reputation of a school where young people matriculated with hope of a decent, honest future fueled by the sweet knowledge they culled from classes on the architecturally majestic Scranton campus.
But the bitter friends of Bob Mellow stood firm in their ignorance.
Their names now matter little. They are still and will forever remain nothing more than mealy-mouthed friends of Bob Mellow.
The former college president whom Mellow appointed to the state gambling commission who stood by a felon friend accused of associating with organized crime is now and will always be just another friend of Bob Mellow. The current college president whom Bob Mellow appointed to the state ethics commission of all places and who served with honor at the Pentagon during the Sept. 11 attack is now and will always be just another weak-kneed friend of Bob Mellow. The state senator who replaced Bob Mellow and serves in his shadow while refusing to say a bad word about the criminal is now and will always be just another friend of Bob Mellow.
Like their weak spirits, their power will eventually wane.
What will remain is the legacy of strength and honor that characterized those of us who are not friends of Bob Mellow.
I also remain terribly skeptical as to the truth and the motive to drop Mellow’s name from the theater. I applaud no one on the board of trustees. They are a day late and a dollar short, which, I believe, shapes the real reason they decided to throw Bob Mellow under the stage.
Money is behind this decision.
Just as money and power drove Bob Mellow, money and power drive this decision.
Had the college directors been truly concerned about the school’s reputation and truly acted in the best interests of students and staff, they would have moved on this decision the day after Bob Mellow pleaded guilty. Not only did they refuse to change the theater name, they issued a press release putting the world on notice that they would no longer even answer questions or further discuss the matter.
Such pompous power posture is pure Bob Mellow.
Months later, they suddenly changed their minds.
Am I suspicious?
Ha ha.
Is Bob Mellow a despicable con man?
The Lackawanna College administration and trustees do not lead. They follow whenever opportunity arises. They do for themselves and their friends and cronies. They play a pathetic political game that is slowly but surely beginning to lose power over the lives of decent people.
Yes, the Lackawanna College gang that couldn’t think straight seems to have finally learned something.
But do not trust this gang.
Trust your instincts.
Do not be known as a friend of Bob Mellow, defined as a person whose sole motivating characteristic for progress is the profit margin.
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