8-15-2004

Urban?

Did anyone catch Shane Novak's open letter to Steve Barrouk in today's Leader? What in the muck was that?

Someone has been spending way too much time at Michael Moore's site and then treated us to an overblown "rich & wealthy" diatribe. Just another one of those Greenies that can't understand why so many of us laugh when they spew.

If some of you anonymous folks must continue to throw my words back at me, at least try to make a cogent point when doing so. Here we go again. Tit-for-f**king-tat.

real petitioners -- KB, 21:39:42 08/11/04 Wed [1]

I remember when some city folks were prodding me to run for a council seat.

Don't flatter yourself I doubt that you would have gotten the votes needed for the position. In that same statement no one made the current council members run for office they knew what they were getting into.

I'll interject here. My point was that I don't think the off-hours aggravation is worth the salary. That's just my opinion. Obviously, others feel differently. Duh!

As for flattering myself is concerned, you couldn't be more off-base Mr. Anonymous Smart-alec. Knocking off an entrenched council type in a one party city is quite a tall order. Please stick to trying to convince your spouse that you're brighter than your average dishwasher.

Now, who should I prefer to have running this city? A man that has rubbed elbows with presidents.

Why does rubbing elbows with a president make this person more qualified to serve on council? Remember we have a hot dog vendor who is doing a very good job.

If you don't already know, there's really no point in trying to 'splain it to you. Grab a dictionary and look up "learned." Again, you missed the entire point. Listening to a borderline fool tear down someone with an impressive list of accomplishments is a bit much.

And how much money does it cost us to cover council's salaries and benefits? $150,000 tops?

That's another cop or two.
And don't tell me some of the people that are fighting the petition are doing it for the good of the people. Read the names check their affiliations like you would have done last year. One is looking for a city job, one just got a city job, several relatives of city folks.
You thought it was fine to print come on Falzone Brothers. I don't know why you think they are the adults that should run the towing business

Another cop or two? Please try to stay with the f**king program, okay? Walter called for scaling back the costs associated with the council, not eliminating the entire council. Did you think that one up all by yourself, or did your poodle help you?

That's right. You don't know what I think about Falzone's Towing. As if it's any of your business, I deal with them through my job, and through my auto club also. And they are the quickest, most well-equipped, and most professional towing outfit in these parts. That's what I want for Wilkes-Barre. The best.

As for who fought Walter's petitions off, it matters more why some of us did it rather than who we are. Gee whiz! One of the guys who rose to the occasion was recently hired by the city. And that is proof of what? That particular individual is one of the best and brightest that Wilkes-Barre has to offer, plus, he's over-qualified for the position he took. He's a good man, he's a great neighbor, he's civic-minded, he believes in Tom Leighton and he's going to quietly take care of the business that we need taken care of.

But...you, whoever you are, have a problem with him.

Please, stick to SAYSO in the future. That's where your foolishness belongs.

But wait! There's more idiocy emanating from the forum page. Man! I had such high hopes for that experiment. Oh, well.

count me out -- CMO, 19:15:05 08/13/04 Fri [1]

I was planing on coming to the block party but now I have seen what a turncoat some people truly are,I would rather not rub shoulders with them and the politicos that will also be there.Too bad it all turned out this way,but many said it would and the proof is in the pudding

A turncoat? Hardy-har-har. As f**king if. Did I miss something? What exactly did we put Walter in charge of when we went to the polls? Judging by the less than spectacular results of his reckless and failed foray into governing by petition, he apparently does not do the necessary homework before leading his sidekicks into battle. That claim cannot be disputed at this point and he admitted as much to the press. So, if you were cheering his pathetic efforts on, you basically supported a guy that didn't know what the hell he was doing. And those of us smart enough to resist such an inept "vote-for-me" ploy should somehow be labeled as turncoats by anonymous cowards that will follow anyone as long as their self-serving agenda includes sticking it to council above all else?

Are you freaking serious? More than anything else, this entire debacle is a question of competantcy. You'd follow a guy with questionable motives that can't take care of the well-publicized business that he alone sought out? I think you'd support anything that any wayward nincompoop forced to the surface so long as it included hamstringing those that were duly elected by us. Just in case some of us have forgotten, this is the same guy that was stupidly emailing the high-falootin' financial people at AMBAC in hopes of sabotaging our ability to have our outstanding debts insured. He was wrong then and he's wrong now. And I'm a turncoat? In the future, please, please refrain from sharing your delusional thoughts with the rest of us.

You were planning on attending the block party? Really? Under what name? Mr. & Mrs. CMO??? Sorry, Goober, but disguises are not allowed at the yearly block party. And despite what you may mistakenly believe, our elected officials in this city are not the ogres they are made out to be by the unenlightened, the easily led, or the folks with an obvious axe to grind such as yourself.

Got a request? So long as it's not Rap, Hip-Hop, or Country music, I'll play it. But, sadly for you, you won't hear it. You'll be holed-up somewhere feeling bitter and sorry for your confused self. That's why our block party is always such a smashing success. We don't invite losers. I'm happy to know that your elbows will be nowhere near mine come Saturday. Rock on!!!

And while we're at it...

...let's explore your new-found hero's propensity for telling the truth.

From the Friday edition of The Citizens' Voice:

Ultimately, Griffith felt that too much taxpayer money would be spent on fighting his push to slash salaries.

"Rather than have the city spend taxpayer money, it may be wise to just withdraw," he said.

Yea!!! A committed taxpayer watchdog to the very end. Not only will that move save taxpayer dollars right here in floundering Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, it could, in time, save America herself.

God Bless America! Land that Walter loves. Stand beside him...and vote for him...

NOT! Let's consider one single line from the petition that I signed and the ramifications of said line when Walter's shabbily-done petitions would eventually be rolled up, ignited and smoked for lack of anything better to do with them.

Directing the filers of said Walter L. Griffth's petition to pay all costs, including investigative fees, attorney's fees and witness fees, incurred in these proceedings by Petitioners.

Call it what you will in AnonymityVille, but what the guy initially told the voters was that he was looking out for their wallets when he hastily decided to withdraw from his self-initiated, but hotly-contested battle, but in actuality, all that he was doing was protecting his own wallet.

And this is the newly-ordained, self-proclaimed champion of the obviously short-sighted residents, the "retired" that can't afford to pay their taxes and simultaneously frequent the many casinos with any regularity, and the Wilkes-Barre firefighters that absolutely hate what their elected union bosses have done to them in the name of long, long overdue and much-needed fiscal responsiblilty?

Backing the longshot horse named "Mr. Negativity" will never, ever result in a resounding win for Wilkes-Barre proper. But, based solely on the feedback I'm getting as of late, negativity seems to be the abject darling of the always overly-disgruntled fans that pay scant attention, if that.

Since the newspapers...

...had no qualms about publishing the names of those that sought to quash Walter's personal vendetta disguised as democracy in action, let's take a gander at the names of the folks that carried his petitions, shall we?

Say what you will about those folks, but I have crossed paths with quite a few of them in the past. Some of them are good, well-intentioned people and they should not be smeared for having backed Walter's completely misguided efforts. Others are not what they pretend to be.

Enter one Linda J. Stets. She carried one of those now defunct petitions, signed it herself, and listed her occupation as that of being a "student." Whatever. She was recently assigned a position from which she could oversee the students at L.C.C.C., but that had nothing to do with the fact that she runs with our minority commissioner on most days. As if. I don't have a problem with her long-running efforts at ensuring anarchy for Luzerne County so long as they are properly identified. She is a frequent caller to WILK, but the listeners have no way to discern what her underlying motives really are.

In my polluted mind, she's little more than a willing attack dog for the Christine Katsock/Steve Urban barely below-the-radar cabal of the undeclared Revolution Party in this county, but she and her confused ilk are never called to stand by their actions, or the actions of their lone elected compatriot. Let's take a stab at that here.

When we filed our righteous challenge to Walter's petition nonsense, the Times Leader spared no effort to contact me. My phone number is unlisted and has been for years on end, but Lane Filler, a Times Leader correspondent, somehow managed to break through my defenses that I pay a monthly stipend to maintain. For Lane and the Leader, my privousy was not important, but they purposely failed to contact a County Commissioner who signed each of the three petitions seeking to wreak havoc on the pay scales of our elected leaders in this city.

Why didn't they call him? Our minority commissioner thought that signing a petition calling for further anarchy in the county's seat was acceptable, but Lane Filler was more concerned with finding out why I did what I did, or which city politico promised me what to do what I did.

Steve Urban, our "protest vote" minority commish, until we finally kick his do-nothing, "I object to progress" ass out of elected office, willingly signed on the not-so-dotted line, but The Times Leader sought me out while totally ignoring his sordid participaton in a less than honorable attempt to subvert the folks that we elected in this struggling city?

While mutual cooperation amongst the most important powerbrokers has become the order of the day in this long-suffering county, one of our elected folks keeps talking out of both sides of his convoluted mouth.

And that clueless pretender is none other than Steve Urban.

If he thinks that progress will stem from his mucking about with the compensation levels of those that are fighting against the odds to change Wilkes-Barre's long-sagging fortunes, he's got another thing coming. And that thing will manifest itself on election day.

Commissioner No! did not speak out on this issue in any meaningful way, but his signature that was purposely ignored by the ever-intrusive press seeking comment on Walter's petitions speaks volumes about what he's all about.

If ridiculousness posing as responsible government should drag a contender for city government down, why shouldn't it bring down a clueless county commissioner?

Whatever. You tell me.

Some of us not nearly capable of coherent thought are threatening to boycott the block party?

Good.

We'll rock without you.

CYA