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BUT WILL HE RUN?
Posted on January 11th, 2013 6 commentsTHE GOOBER VS.
THE CHILDISH IMBECILE?Today’s front page story on missing nurse Toni Lee Sharpless, “Tips on whereabouts of LGH nurse missing since 2009 give family some hope,” (click here) comes from yesterday’s Philadelphia Daily News article, “Anonymous letter claims cop killed Chesco woman missing since ’09,” (click here).The follow-ups are great and may produce information but why don’t the Lancaster Newspapers do follow-ups on all of the unsolved murders in Lancaster? Why haven’t they done a single follow-up on the brutal murder of 83-year old Erma Kaylor last Spring or mother-of-three, Olga Sanchez-Reyes over two years ago?These comments in under yesterday’s story, “DIVORCE THE BUM, GAIL!”:—- If I were an advisor for the Republican candidate in the city of Lancaster, I would would make light of the 14 maybe 15 unsolved homicides since Gray took office. Since Gray likely will use Switzer’s numbers, I would also have a list available. I would expose his broken promises on the convention center and surveillance cameras. I would get behind the city fire fighters since the residents think highly of them and Gray does not. I would point out the annual rise of 150-200 violent offenses since Gray took office. I would deem the one hauler trash system as a monopoly and anti-American. I would also note to the public that Gray’s pursuit of an art district is nothing more than his wife’s wishes because she owns a gallery.—- Lets not forget Lancaster’s huge hispanic population which Gray has ignored.—- I hope Republicans come up with somebody because a Gray vs. Ruggieri ballot is humiliating. The Goober vs. the Childish Imbecile.I know who I’d like to see run for mayor! But, will he do it?Please check back later today…6 responses to “BUT WILL HE RUN?”
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To be fair, this comment just came in under the comments above under yesterday’s story and I am also moving it here:
…the problem that anyone who runs against Gray on a platform of Law and Order will face is that police and fire cost serious amounts of MONEY, especially since the Great Recession trashed everyone’s retirement funds. This is made worse by the fact that police and fire do NOT get Social Security; their only source of retirement income is their pension, which is fixed at the time of retirement and NEVER INCREASES.
To keep costs under control, Gray has cut staff across the board, including police and fire. Under Gray, Lancaster City Fire no longer has a second alarm response on duty, for the first time since Lancaster City went to all paid firefighters in the late 1800s.
What it will take to seriously combat crime in Lancaster City is to seriously increase the number of police and detectives. Smithgall did this with grant money, but when it ran out Gray was forced to deal with the dramatically increased costs. Anyone who would run for mayor on a law-and-order platform would have to explain how they would come up with the money needed to do so.
UNFORTUNATELY, as Federal and State funding continues to fade away, the only available answer is significantly increased real estate taxes – a tough sell in the best of times.
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As I noted directly under this comment below: improve the quality of the police force! We don’t need more officers and detectives – we need competent officers and detectives!
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We are struggling with money for police and fire fighters. One problem I have is paying inspectors to walk around and make sure our grass is under six inches and we have no satellite dishes on the fron of our homes. Lucrative raises to Randy Patterson and Charlotte Katzenmoyor certainly does not help. Spending taxpayer dollars to recycle rain water during the Great Recession was not a bright idea. Is it important? Yes, but not right now. Allocating 100,000 dollars a year to surveillance cameras in which we have no control at all and are operated by citizens with no REAL professional training is not smart. Their less than 1% clearance rate on violent crime shows their incompetence. That money could be spent on two more police officers. Lastly, having a downtown scene which actually appeals to non art lovers would bring in a lot of revenue. Lancaster after 7:00 pm is a ghost town and not very busy before then, regardless of the smoke Gray is blowing up our back sides. I know a nice night scene does not appeal to the in bed by 9 crowd but the possibilities are endless.
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To be fair... January 11th, 2013 at 15:28
…the Civil Service testing for hiring and promotion of both police and fire is difficult to the point of being brutal; 75% to 95% failure rate is not unusual. Fire is just now switching to behavior-based testing for new hires, but this has not yet been implemented in promotions. Perhaps ALL police hiring and promotion testing should include behavior analysis.
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For the sake of arguing, I will admit with rising costs of public service pensions, Lancaster cannot add a lot of police officers to it’s ranks. You add in the factor of many properties successfully reassesing themselves to pay less city taxes the problems don’t get any better. This kind of drives a nail in the theory of that worthless convention center driving up property values. One good idea would be to put half of city officers on bikes. They could not only be far more stealth but more interaction with the community as well. Lancaster city police officers could also manage their time better. I have a friend who’s wife was pulled over for a traffic violation. She was not posing a threat and yet it took three cruisers to give her a rolling stop violation. Another idea at least for revenue would be a downtown casino. I know all morality nuts in the county would not like this idea, but cities with casinos typically have less financial problems. Casinos and nightclubs could easily bring in dozens of restaurants. Gray loves boasting about all the restaurants that are opening downtown. In reality we got a Subway, Roburritos, and a Tropical Breeze! Gallery Row is a huge waste of space and if you stroll through during the afternoon and early evening as I do, you will notice how empty they are. The nature of their business does not require high volumes of customers to stay in shop. This means less people are frequenting downtown Lancaster!!
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carol power January 12th, 2013 at 19:50
I agree with kmb . A casino doesn’t sound like a bad idea. I kinda thought that was the plan behind close doors. It seemed like the supporters and the builders are smart enough to do research on other cities and see how their convention centers do financially, but I not sure if they did. It’s a way to sneak it into Lancaster. Back in the day some people in Lancaster didn’t want the Penn National OTW on Lincoln HWY to come here but it did. But that’s just my opinion..not sure if it’s correct.
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