How many more financial outlays can one financially overstretched county take on?

I’ll be the first one to admit to wanting that piece of our anthracite heritage preserved for the ages. But, I seriously doubt that the county should pull the trigger on any more deficit spending.

Stay tuned.

Oh, and resist the urge to join the troubling out-migration train running from here to darn near everywhere else.

This is so typical of the disaffected lunatic fringe, it ought to be punishable by repeated prostate examinations.

They cause the completely needless and misplaced incident in the first place, and then rail against the “corrupt” system, the “jack-booted” authorities and the “uninformed” dumb asses such as ourselves when they get themselves in hot water. If you’re given to bouts of useless, mindless and predictably stupid protesting and reading this, I am begging you to cut the rest of us much more happier folks a serious break by committing suicide. Your parents failed you and you have failed yourselves. Rather than continuing to be “oppressed” by everyone not under the influence of illegal opiates such as yourselves, do the right thing, do your first ever productive thing and end something that should have been aborted long ago.

Snuff it, freaks.

Do elected officials ever get to the point where they realize they made a mistake, admit to said mistake and then cut their losses? Or more correctly stated…our losses?

I swear to Allah, if feeble minds were a readily-accepted currency, these people would be convening their meeting of the minds at the soup kitchen on Jackson Street.

Dam supporters say it would encourage economic growth and recreation. They say it would enhance the county’s $23 million riverfront beautification project, which includes an amphitheater, boat launch, fishing piers and two scenic openings in the levee near Northampton and Union streets.

Sh*t? Sh*t would “encourage economic growth and recreation?” Sh*t is the vehicle by which untold millions of tourists would be lured to this city’s edge? Sh*t? I ask again, sh*t? Sh*t and “beautification” are commingled as part of the same ill-advised project? You’re joshing me, right? Sh*t? Wilkes-Barre needs sh*t?

Sh*t???

What was it my cousin Will used to always say way back in junior high school, but always much to my dismay?

“Suck the brown!”

This one came out of leftfield and it probably needs to head right back out to that lonely warning track.

Tony George, who spent about 26 years on the city police force, said Mayor Tom Leighton has ignored the city’s neighborhoods while focusing on invigorating downtown Wilkes-Barre. “I believe in the revitalization of downtown, but he’s doing it at the expense of the neighborhoods,” said George, a Democrat.

Um, excuse my obvious insolence, but this is the mind-numbingly inept campaign platform du jour in this obviously rebounding city right now. Can even one of the nascent political wannabes differentiate themselves from the others at this point?

Well, the Mayor has done some great things in the downtown, but what about those leaves down on the corner? He‘s not cleaning the storm drains and, if elected, I intend to.

Snore.

Sorry, but generating significant revenues by way of a much-improved downtown will make the regular cleaning of such mundane things as storm drains easily affordable as it once was.

My mind drifts back to Mayor Leighton’s much-maligned “I Believe” speech from June 9, 2005.

At the beginning of my term, the perception in Wilkes-Barre was that the City was DEAD and had no future. Upon taking office, I encountered: $10.8 million dollars of unpaid bills, streets that needed immediate paving, countless stalled projects, like the infamous hole in the ground, crime and drugs, low morale throughout the City workforce, residents and visitors, unsuitable equipment and city owned buildings in poor condition No hope could be found in our City. No one believed in our future. Ask yourself right now, ARE YOU JUST ANOTHER PERSON WHO DOES NOT BELIEVE IN WILKES-BARRE? If you are, I ask you to listen to my words this evening, because for those of us who do have faith, we cannot win this battle by ourselves or by taking shortcuts. There will be days when we hit bumps and get knocked down, but I can tell you, when we get knocked down, we will get back up and complete our job. WE WILL NOT STAY DOWN, WE WILL BE SUCCESSFUL. We must stay strong and have a POSITIVE BELIEF in the City and in ourselves. The question we must ask ourselves is: Do we want to be successful or do we want to live with failure?

Hope. Yeah, hope. Where once we had absolutely none, now we have plenty to be hopeful about. For some it’s a still nervous hope, but hope just the same. There are clear priorities, there are unrelenting financial necessities, there are tough decisions to be made and then there are those who would promise to remove the leaves from down on the corner.

I don’t know about you, but if the leaves were the most pressing issue now facing my long, long-dispirited city, I’d be feeling pretty damned good my city’s suddenly upbeat future.

The leaves? Vote for me and I’ll do something about the leaves?

Such is the foolhardy stuff of the pretenders to the throne.

Alrighty then! Let the Nord End voting by district games begin.

You know, before we get into this, I want to point out one potentially harmful flaw in all of this voting by district tomfoolery. The Nord End is unique in that it is the only voting district in the city without a sitting council person. So, what that means is that a political neophyte is going to be representing this district come January of 2008. And here’s the inherent flaw.

What if only four residents in this district decide to attempt to ascend to council? And what if the four of them are on parole? Or, what if the lot of them appear as though they recently escaped from a maximum security loony bin? Maybe they just seem unqualified and then some. Then what do we do? Hold our collective noses, vote and then hope for the best coming from the worst? Whatever. I’m just saying. Shoot me if you must, but this district set-up is fraught with danger.

With all of that circumlocution having been typed, lo-and-behold, the Nord Ends’ very first city council hopeful has made the precarious jump from political obscurity right into the center of the public frying pan. Here we go, kiddies. It’s damn near election time all over again. Man, I so love this non-contact sport.

Any-funking-way, since winter would not be denied by this absolutely fabulous global warming we’ve been experiencing, I made my way out front this morning to gauge just how cold this winter bullsp*t actually feels on a couple of bare, but powerful legs. I reckon it weren’t so bad. There’s really no need for anything other than shorts. And when I turned to reenter the modest adobe, what did all four of my disbelieving eyes spy? Yippee! Campaign literature from our very first contestant on “I wanna represent the Nord End.”

Ron Silkosky…Come on down!!!

He’s even up and running on this all-important newfangled medium called the internet:

Personally, I have never heard of the guy before, but I fully expected to be typing as much while residing in the only city voting district not currently represented by an entrenched member of city council. I’ve heard some rumors about some more familiar names, but I knew all along that somebody unbeknownst to many of us would jump into the political fray. I love it. Real grass-roots politicking going on here, baby.

Then again, this upstart council hopeful may have never even heard or me, but if that’s truly the case, he had better bring himself up to speed in a big hurry. I do not plan to be an apathetic spectator while an election this localized rages on in my own neighborhood. I’m of the opinion that the Nord End is the best damned neighborhood in all of Wilkes-Barre and I means to keep it that way. I love the north end of this city, I always did and I will not see it reduced to what some of our other more troubled neighborhoods have been reduced to by years upon years of breathtakingly inescapable incompetence coming from those who glad-handed their way to a position of some importance, only to put the city on automatic pilot immediately after accessing the generous public sector trove. No matter who may decide to join this localized political scrum, I’m going to be hanging on their every word, their every deed and their every misdeed.

That is not a not-so-veiled threat as much as it is a promise. This is a mostly peaceful bedroom community, and I demand that it be represented by someone very likeminded. And being that the Nord End is unique in that it is the only voting district currently wide open to the political neophytes, it is also the only voting district in this city that is home to a long-established internet muckraker than thinks city first, and everything else second. I want the soon-to-be elected Mayor of Nord End to be transparent, above all reproach and measured in their legislative approach after this rebounding city finally divides itself into warring fiefdoms at the referendum behest of the usual, clueless activist suspects.

Note to Ron: We need some background, some credentials…a resume if you will.

Let the bloodletting begin!

Hugo and Dave Lupas’ fates are intertwined? Oh boy, and then some. There are those times when I get the distinct impression that Hugo has Lupas in his sights, and that’s just bass-ackwards. If Hugo really is the murderer they accuse him of being, I’m thinking he missed his bigger calling somewhere along the bumpy way.

He’s obviously smart, he’s engaging, he’s photogenic, he’s charismatic and that’s exactly why he’ll make one hell of a county commissioner. He’s got what Skrep and Todd haven’t got.

Sez me.

I gotta go. The cell phone is going haywire with calls from people wanting to know who the new guy is. Google searches and such what aside, we’ll soon learn who the new guy is. It’s all politics, kiddies. And what’s not to like?

CYA