I read yesterday’s Times Leader blurb “Protest against mayor” with stunned bemusement, and then moved on to the real news. As I have been known to say to Wifey, only in Wilkes-Barre.
With no due respect to the ad-hoc gaggle of “protestors,” calls for the mayor to resign does not a mayoral campaign make. In fact, save for the calls to WILK’s Sue Henry, a couple of lot cleanups and the impromptu City Hall protests, the mayor’s two challengers seem intent on allowing the so-called scandals to bring the mayor down come election day.
It seems as if everybody and their red-headed step-sisters have submitted FOIA requests on every conceivable subject, but still, all they’ve unearthed is the old news that is the summer hires issue.
If you’re one of those who sees the mayor caught up in a swirling vortex of scandal, what would be your alternative: The candidate who claims to be too intimidated to wage a campaign, or the one who thinks we can do away with taxes?
I do not care what the coalition of self-aggrandizing “activists” may believe, if you vote against the demonstrated capable leadership, you will be voting for one of two wild cards who have yet to matriculate any semblance of a clear and concise understanding of the intricacies of managing a third class city. None.
Sez me.
This dust-up over the Coal Street project had me shaking my head again.
What will undoubtedly be the most amazing entrance to a city throughout all of northeast PA is somehow a bad thing in this city. The thing is, this town seems to be filled with disaffected malcontents.
No matter what projects have been proposed or constructed, they have brought nothing but moaning and caterwauling and outright anger.
What does that downtown theater draw? 600,000 visitors a year? Remember when the negative ninnies opined with abject certainty that it would be a profound failure? I do.
A splash pool? Oh, what a crime against humanity. The horror. The horror.
Ice rink? Won’t work.
New playgrounds? New basketball courts? Big deal.
A new neighborhood rising from the ashes of the Courtright Murray complex? So, so, so what!
752 additional parking spaces were added dead center in the middle of the downtown. Busses as well as taxis were eliminated from the Public Square. And somehow, there’s been nonstop grumbling about that, as evidenced by yesterday’s inept letter to the Leader’s editors.
Yet, throughout the entirety of my life I have been told that there was not enough available parking in downtown Wilkes-Barre. It must be me.
I’ve heard many a miscreant complain about the new riverfront amenities; there’s not enough this, they should have done that, blah, blah, freaking blah. I suppose those inaccessible weed-covered banks were preferable. Got me, man.
Now they’re grumbling about the proposed River Street makeover, by which we would no longer be taking our lives in our hands by trying to access said riverfront. Nope, they don’t like it and they don’t want it.
See, if the traffic is restricted and thereby slowed on River Street, drivers might actually be forced to drive at the posted speed limits while they text. And nobody wants that.
And the Coal street residents claiming they knew absolutely nothing of this gargantuan project right at their thresholds? That’s pure bullspit.
PENNDOT announces these meetings, see. And at these meetings they have charts and maps and graphs and artist’s renderings and engineers and so on and so forth. And by attending these meetings long before any ground is broken, residents can learn what is about to affect their lives and properties.
But if they’re too completely lazy, apathetic or stupid to attend these well-publicized meetings, then they are later reduced to bitching at their elected leaders when progress finally arrives by way of a bulldozer.
I’d go with lazy. With a sprinkling of stupidity.
Speaking of campaigns, has anyone seen anyone out campaigning? The election is less than a month away, and I am yet to meet anyone out pressing the flesh. I thought we had this historic county election afoot. Oh, and the insurgency in Wilkes-Barre.
So far, I’ve gotten a Leighton door hanger and a Ceppa business card stuck alongside my mailbox. That’s it.
Personally, I love mixing it up with those who would be kings. I’m not your average Wilkes-Barre voter. That is, I pay attention to a bit more than my commingling schedule.
Silly, ain’t I.
Later
With no due respect to the ad-hoc gaggle of “protestors,” calls for the mayor to resign does not a mayoral campaign make. In fact, save for the calls to WILK’s Sue Henry, a couple of lot cleanups and the impromptu City Hall protests, the mayor’s two challengers seem intent on allowing the so-called scandals to bring the mayor down come election day.
It seems as if everybody and their red-headed step-sisters have submitted FOIA requests on every conceivable subject, but still, all they’ve unearthed is the old news that is the summer hires issue.
If you’re one of those who sees the mayor caught up in a swirling vortex of scandal, what would be your alternative: The candidate who claims to be too intimidated to wage a campaign, or the one who thinks we can do away with taxes?
I do not care what the coalition of self-aggrandizing “activists” may believe, if you vote against the demonstrated capable leadership, you will be voting for one of two wild cards who have yet to matriculate any semblance of a clear and concise understanding of the intricacies of managing a third class city. None.
Sez me.
This dust-up over the Coal Street project had me shaking my head again.
What will undoubtedly be the most amazing entrance to a city throughout all of northeast PA is somehow a bad thing in this city. The thing is, this town seems to be filled with disaffected malcontents.
No matter what projects have been proposed or constructed, they have brought nothing but moaning and caterwauling and outright anger.
What does that downtown theater draw? 600,000 visitors a year? Remember when the negative ninnies opined with abject certainty that it would be a profound failure? I do.
A splash pool? Oh, what a crime against humanity. The horror. The horror.
Ice rink? Won’t work.
New playgrounds? New basketball courts? Big deal.
A new neighborhood rising from the ashes of the Courtright Murray complex? So, so, so what!
752 additional parking spaces were added dead center in the middle of the downtown. Busses as well as taxis were eliminated from the Public Square. And somehow, there’s been nonstop grumbling about that, as evidenced by yesterday’s inept letter to the Leader’s editors.
Yet, throughout the entirety of my life I have been told that there was not enough available parking in downtown Wilkes-Barre. It must be me.
I’ve heard many a miscreant complain about the new riverfront amenities; there’s not enough this, they should have done that, blah, blah, freaking blah. I suppose those inaccessible weed-covered banks were preferable. Got me, man.
Now they’re grumbling about the proposed River Street makeover, by which we would no longer be taking our lives in our hands by trying to access said riverfront. Nope, they don’t like it and they don’t want it.
See, if the traffic is restricted and thereby slowed on River Street, drivers might actually be forced to drive at the posted speed limits while they text. And nobody wants that.
And the Coal street residents claiming they knew absolutely nothing of this gargantuan project right at their thresholds? That’s pure bullspit.
PENNDOT announces these meetings, see. And at these meetings they have charts and maps and graphs and artist’s renderings and engineers and so on and so forth. And by attending these meetings long before any ground is broken, residents can learn what is about to affect their lives and properties.
But if they’re too completely lazy, apathetic or stupid to attend these well-publicized meetings, then they are later reduced to bitching at their elected leaders when progress finally arrives by way of a bulldozer.
I’d go with lazy. With a sprinkling of stupidity.
Speaking of campaigns, has anyone seen anyone out campaigning? The election is less than a month away, and I am yet to meet anyone out pressing the flesh. I thought we had this historic county election afoot. Oh, and the insurgency in Wilkes-Barre.
So far, I’ve gotten a Leighton door hanger and a Ceppa business card stuck alongside my mailbox. That’s it.
Personally, I love mixing it up with those who would be kings. I’m not your average Wilkes-Barre voter. That is, I pay attention to a bit more than my commingling schedule.
Silly, ain’t I.
Later
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