Fix the fountain

"It's one of those stupid things that stupid minds do when they're trying to get political advantage for stupid purposes. That's a terrible thing using stupid three times, but that's what it is - it's stupid."--Paul Kanjorski

This next one is completely unacceptable to me.

W-B fountain money down drain

WILKES-BARRE – The fountain on Public Square will not be repaired, Mayor Thomas Leighton said Wednesday.

Citing high costs, the mayor said the city can’t afford to have water spouting at the center of the city’s downtown focal point.

“The costs to repair it are excessive,” Leighton said. “At this time, the city is not in a position to spend money to fix the fountain.”

I commend the mayor for resisting deficit-spending at all costs, but while the governor is happily handing out $20 million to build temples honoring the elected, and yet another $20 million promised to the Cordaro Yankees, I say we cash in a political chit and completely remodel the fountain.

Never having owned a pool in the old days, my kids and I preferred bicycling and frolicking in the fountain on the hottest of days. And now, even though I own a pool, my grandkids much prefer bicycling and frolicking in the fountain to staying at home with the pool.

And now that the downtown is as busy as it ever was, now that the formerly boarded-up storefronts are filled, something seems terribly amiss when I go downtown only to find the fountain out of order all over again.

$20 million for Murtha?

$20 million for Specter?

$20 million for the Yankees?

Yeah, well, I want $50,000 to fix my beloved fountain.

Wish me luck with that.

No matter where the roads may lead us when we don bicycle helmets, they always lead us back to the same place…the fountain.



While I’ll admit that, on it’s face, it’s hard to believe someone could be charged with theft for the scooping up of a few newspapers, I also recognize that screaming at investigating police officers and abruptly slamming doors in their faces vastly increases one’s odds of being charged with theft. Remember, "it's all about ethics."

Throw the book, er, throw the Times Leader yearly almanac at her.

She wants to run the world, but she can’t afford the morning paper?

Puh-leeze!

Hooray!

County election chief shoots down W-B council's referendum

Leonard Piazza puts the kibosh to further tumult bordering on chaos.

Thank (politically correct) goodness!

WILKES-BARRE - A week after city council gave its approval, Luzerne County's director of elections rejected a November referendum on abolishing district-based city council elections.

In a letter faxed Wednesday, Leonard Piazza III told Assistant City Attorney Bill Vinsko Jr. a state-mandated five-year waiting period had not elapsed before council submitted its ordinance Monday for legal review. As a result, the ground has been tilled for a potential third lawsuit in less than a decade over Wilkes-Barre's election procedures.

"I don't want to speculate into what their interpretation may have been," Piazza said of the council's legal thinking. "For many years now, it just seems the city has been trying to take unripened fruit from the electoral tree."

As I have said before, in this city referendums are like assh*les, in that, damn near everybody’s got one. And city council should know better than to get the hornets all riled up all over again.

Enough.

And finally, the case of the disgraced county commissioner currently looking at being incarcerated…

Let me see here, the arguments against going to jail. Oh, here we go...

1. Ignorance of the law.

2. Dependant children.

3. Old football injuries.

I sentence you to be hanged by the family jewels until you man the fu>k up.

Later