Omnibus (7 posts), plus About Me

Omnibus:7 posts, plus About Me
An abomination
OOPs
Going and Coming
Us & Them
Comment
Whither the Times-News
Lay, lay, lain
Egghead globalism
Agonizing what?
About Me

An abomination
No matter how much Erie city council, the redevelopment authority, the Times-News and the prospective developers of the Koehler property dress it up or try to disguise it, the “rarely used” type of public financing the promoters are proposing to use for the grandiose project is nothing more or less than old-fashioned revenue bond financing subsidized by the taxpayers who must pay off the bonds if the project fails. It removes the risk from the developers and shifts it to the taxpayers.

In an article in Thursday’s edition, the Times-News reported that “The revamped Koehler Brewery Square project is banking on being able to employ a type of financing rarely used on public projects.” According to the article, written by a reporter who is either naïve, ignorant, indifferent or all three, the proponents were to meet with council last night to discuss what the Times-News, in a paroxysm of obfuscation, euphemistically termed “tax incremental financing.”

The article said, without quoting anyone, that “tax incremental financing allows communities (read, the city of Erie) to issue (revenue) bonds for revitalization projects and repay the loan with property and/or sales tax generated by the project.”
In other words, the council would pledge the city’s full faith and credit to guarantee the bonds and obligate the city to pay off the bonds IF and when tax revenues flow from the project. If none materializes, the city would be stuck with paying off the debt from general fund or other available revenues.

What's so insidious about the type of financing being proposed circumvents the consent of the people and bears interest costs much higher than general obligation bonds.
Besides council,the financing scheme must also win the county and city schooldistrict.The question is: Will they collecively be gullible or complicit enough to swallow this proposed abomination?

OOPS!
On Tuesday, the Erie Times-News carried an editorial speculating on how the selection of State Senator Jane Earll of Erie by the state Republican Party as the nominee for a seat on the State Superior Court would affect the balance of power in the General Assembly where Earll has served as chair of the powerful Finance Committee. Would northwestern PA loose some of her clout if she were selected, then elected, the Times-News wondered? No problem: it was widely announced over the prior weekend that Earll had NOT been selected as her party’s nominee.


Going and Coming

In today's late online edition of the Erie Times-News, the retirement was announced of Publisher Jim Dible, who joined the Times-News in 1996 . He's being replaced by Rosanne Cheeseman, currently publisher of the obscure Rapid City Journal in South Dakota.
There was none of the customary plaudits or regrets, suggesting that Dible is leaving under less than amiable circumstances. Perhaps that will be clarified in tomorrow's print and online editions.Cheeseman will be taking over just a couple weeks from now on October 1, according to the announcement, unusually short notice for such a major management replacement.
Curiously, today's online edition of the Rapid City Journal makes no mention of Cheeseman's intention to leave there by the end of this month. The Journal has a circulation of 30,000 weekdays and 34,000 Sundays, less than half that of the Times-News. It's owned by Lee Enterprises, which has some 58 daily newspapers mostly throughout the west and mid-west, including the St. Louis Post Dispatch, the fourth largest newspaper conglommerate in the U.S. One of them is named The Times-News.
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Us and them and we and they?
In his Sunday column dealing with the backlash from the Times-News's series on how Steris is doing in MAyheeko, Managing Editor Pat Howard wrote: "In those more certain times past, for the workers at Steris and so many other factories of Erie's industrial heyday, there was us and them." (my emphasis),
Seems he's forgotten or doesn't know the difference between transitive and intransitive verbs, or that plural nouns take plural verbs. He should have written"...there were we and they," although common modesty dictates transposing the we and they.
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Comment
Joe,
Glad you took the Times to task for their coverage of the Steris move. I couldn't figure out why so much coverage for some thing that was such a sore spot for the employees of the company. I did read parts of the articles and felt they were trying to "put a good face on it"

Carl Karsh
North East, Pa

Whither the Times-News?

Following are one e-mail I wrote to Jim Dible, publisher of the Erie-Times-News, concerning certain of the newspaper's editorial policies, and another pertaining to its recent coverage of the Steris Company's current status in Mexico following its controversial relocation to Mexico last year, throwing some 450 Erie area employees out of work. Dible referred both of my e-mails to Kevin Cuneo, the paper's "public editor," so called.

Mr. Dible,

As one who has been a newspaperman for more than 40 years in several states. I'd like to offer some suggestions on your Letters to the Editor protocol.
I assume you know the Letters section is one of the first and best read features in a newspaper by serious readers. If so, why do you allow your editorial page editors to treat it like a stepchild, neglecting and abusing it with mindless indifference?
Submitting a letter to the editor to the Times-News is like playing Russian Routlette. One never knows what the outcome will be. That's why many people who normally would, don't. I rarely do, and then only with great trepidation, hoping - usually futilely - that I won't be embarrassed by the result. My most recent submission published Sept. 4 is a case in point. I barely recognize the letter I sent in, and now wish I hadn't.
With subscribers and ad lineage dropping perilously everywhere, I would think you'd prefer not to alienate engaged readers gratuitously. Yet you offer only a tiny hole in the center of the editorial page for letters, then restrict readers unreasonably to 250 words, then publish their letters two or more weeks after they've been submitted, long after the hot topic they address has turned glacial, and offer no opportunity for longer op-ed submissions.
There are a lot of smart, capable people in this area - a lot smarter and a lot more than you'll find in your news and editorial departments. They're a valuable informational resource which you should be wooing rather than alienating.
I suggest you and your upper management colleagues there take a hard look at your editorial space usage and come up with a plan that devotes much more space to local letter and op-ed submissions, welcome contributions rather than discourage them, and publish them before they turn geriatric. For starters, you could make more space for the editorial hole by eliminating the "public editor" column, so called, which makes a mockery of the genre. No reflection on Kevin. He's a good journalist. But he's no public editor.

Sincerely,
Joe LaRocca


Lay, lay, lain

An article entitled “Land is vast, but space seems tight” appears in today’s Erie Times-News which is written in the style of an editorial with first person constructions, but bears no byline.
The article, which appears to be a montage of someone’s inchoate and disconnected impressions, in one sentence states: “In the back of the truck, sprawled out on a mountain of ladders, buckets and other tools, a fourth man lays sleeping in the hot afternoon sun.” Whoever wrote this construct, and the editor or editors who approved it, are in dire need of some grade school instruction in the conjugation of the verb form “lie, lay, lain.”

Egghead globalism

Another article in the same edition entitled “U.S. Not Alone: Other countries lose factories too” deals with the loss of jobs under current U.S. law which gives U.S. manufacturers an incentive to move their operations to foreign countries where they can amass more profit because of lower wage and operating factors.
The article extensively quotes an economist at Penn State Behrend, Jim Kurre, who thinks that in the grand scheme of things that’s okay. According to the article, Kurre teaches his students at Behrend that retaining jobs in the U.S. producing goods and commodities that can be produced more cheaply elsewhere doesn’t make economic sense. “…in the end,” Kurre is quoted as saying, “it's not a terribly efficient way to live. Who, after all, wants to grow their own food, build their own house, sew their own clothes and build their own car? Instead, we specialize a little bit," he said.
"I work on teaching, and somebody else works on cars, and we trade. It winds up being more efficient." "Nations have different resources, different abilities. As a result, some countries can produce some goods cheaper," Kurre said. "Just like it makes sense for people to specialize, it makes sense for nations to specialize…Globalism is that same concept applied to nations, not individuals.”
Kurre’s warped logic perfectly illustrates the disconnect between egg-heads in Academia’s ivory towers and the real world. The export of U.S. jobs has nothing to do with “efficiency.” It has everything to do with corporate greed and insensitivity to the exploitation of the impoverished work force and lowered environmental standards in developing and third world countries which make offshore business operations so appealing to globalists. It is fervently hoped that Kurre’s students don’t swallow his twisted ideology and recognize it for the nonsense it is.
Superfluous redundancy
In today’s Times-News article, “Meet Steris' new landlord: Roberto Alanis,” Reporter Jim Martin wrote : “The existing 100,000-square-foot building was too small, but within months Avante had added on an additional 200,000 square feet.” ReDUNdant! “Avante added 200,000 sq. ft.” would suffice. Where are the proofreaders/editors?
Say what?
In a companion article, “Port business heats up,” Jim Carroll quoted a port authority official as saying: "We have been approached by (Lake Erie Biofuels) with the possibility of loading 1.5 million gallons of biodiesel a month for shipment to Europe."
The reporter failed to ask the next obvious question. Say, is that the same biodiesel fuel which is expected to be produced by that controversial “tires to fuel” plant proposed to be built on the former IP/Hammermill site? And if we’re so dependent on imported oil, why are we planning to export domestically produced fuel to Europe? Especially fuel produced at what many believe will be a heavy environmental cost to Erie’s air and water quality.

Agonizing what?

This appeared in a Times-News editorial today on the airport runway extension: "Erie International Airport's agonizing runway extension project requires purchasing residential and business properties that are in the path of airport progress.”
Agonizing runway? I didn’t know inanimate objects like runways could agonize. However, I do sympathize with the patient neighbors who have agonized for years over the runway's delay.

About Me

Born and reared in Erie County, Pennsylvania, I lived most of my early life in North East, PA. I was graduated in 1949 from North East Joint High School, then attended Behrend College, the Erie branch campus for Pennsylvania State University, then a one-year institution.

After one academic year, I transferred to Slippery Rock, Pa. State Teachers College (now University), from which I was graduated in 1953 with majors in literature/English/history, specializing in Victorian and American Literature, and a Bachelor of Science degree. Later, in 1981, I earned an MPA degree in Public Policy at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Upon being drafted into the U.S. Army in 1953, I underwent basic training at Fort Dix, NJ, was assigned to Morse Code radio school where I learned to send and receive 23 words per minute ,then was shipped to Korea, where I served for 16 months attaining the rank of corporal and earning four service decorations.

My first job in journalism was with the Painesville, Ohio, Telegraph as a reporter and writer, then, after two years, with the Erie Morning News (now Times-News), Erie, where I worked as a reporter, writer and city editor.

I later took a job as press secretary for the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in Harrisburg for a year. I then worked for three years as an investigative writer and field representative for the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission based in Pittsburgh, PA., traveling throughout the U.S. and Canada, investigating, authenticating and writing detailed reports on reported acts of heroism to determine whether they qualified for the world-renowned Carnegie hero medals and awards.

Thereafter, I took a job in Fairbanks, Alaska with the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner as assistant news editor. I was later assigned as legislative correspondent and sent to the state capital of Juneau to cover the annual sessions of the state legislature. Shortly after my arrival in Fairbanks, world class oil and gas reserves were discovered on Alaska’s North Slope adjoining and offshore in the Arctic Ocean, the larges hydrocarbon deposits ever found in North America.

I was the first newsman to report firsthand on historic developments from there, and from 1968 to 1977, I covered the design and construction of the $10 billion trans Alaska oil pipeline, the largest privately-financed project in history, as well as Alaska's tumultuous political scene. During the interims between legislative sessions, I was named the newspaper’s Resources Editor, which involved producing a weekly tabloid insert for the paper dealing with the development and/or conservation/preservation of Alaska’s vast natural resources, especially North Slope hydrocarbons (oil and gas), the first special newspaper section of its kind in the nation.

At one stage as a reporter, I worked undercover and incognito as a construction stiff on the pipeline project (Operating Engineers) to gather hard-to-get information on cost-effective construction, safety, environmental and local/minority hiring practices. Fort more detail, refer to my book per last paragraph below.
In 1969, I sailed aboard and reported on the progress of the S.S. Manhattan, then the world’s largest tanker ship, during her historic voyage through the ice-choked arctic archipelago known as the Northwest Passage, an experiment sponsored by Humble Oil (now Exxon) to determine the feasibility of shipping oil from Alaska’s North Slope over the top of North America to U.S. East Coast, Great Britain and European refineries. The Manhattan was the first ship in history to traverse the Northwest Passage east to west, then return.

After three years with the Fairbanks daily, I became a news reporter, commentator and legislative correspondent for KFRB Radio & TV in Fairbanks, and its parent, the Alaska Broadcasting System, broadcasting legislative coverage to ABS affiliates throughout the state..

In 1972, I launched a monthly journalism review and public affairs journal, Alaska's first, an award-winning magazine in slick format which I edited and published, called CounterMedia. For the next fifteen years, I worked as an independent reporter and correspondent in Alaska, reporting and writing variously and concurrently for, among others The Anchorage Times, The Juneau Empire, the All-Alaska Weekly, KINY in Juneau, as news director, and The New York Times as its Alaska field correspondent.

In 1975 I was appointed founding director of the Fairbanks North Star Borough’s (county) Trans Alaska Pipeline Impact Information Center, responsible for gathering, analyzing and disseminating information to the general public and institutional organizations relevant to the adverse social, economic and environmental impacts of the construction and operation of the trans Alaska oil pipeline on the community and state. It was the first agency of its kind anywhere, was recognized by the National Association of County governments as achievement of the year, and was subsequently emulated as a model by other jurisdictions throughout the country under-going major resource development projects.

While in Alaska, I was the recipient of numerous Alaska Press Club awards for reporting and writing, received an award in the annual University of Missouri national competition for excellence in writing on business and economics, and was the first recipient of the Alaska Communications Conservationist Award in 1970, jointly awarded by the Alaska Chapter of the National Wildlife Association. and the Alaska Sportsmen’s Council for “Outstanding Contributions to the Wise Use and Management of the Nation’s Natural Resources.” Later, in 1990, I received an award from the Ohio State Bar Association for “Excellence in Writing on the Legal System” in an Ohio newspaper.

After spending 20 years in Alaska, I returned to my original home in North East, PA where I now reside, and have written for numerous newspapers including, among others, The Pittsburgh Post Gazette, The New York Times and the Buffalo News.

In 2004, I was invited by the University of Alaska, Fairbanks to take part in its “Living History” program which recognizes those who have contributed to Alaska’s historical development, delivering several lectures and talks in both classroom and public settings. In 2006, I was invited to lecture at one of my alma maters, Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania.

Though retired, I continue to dabble as a freelance writer and author. I travel extensively, and spend part of most summers in Alaska.

In 2004, I wrote and published a book on which I had been working off and on for about a decade entitled Alaska Agonistes: The Age of Petroleum – How Big Oil Bought Alaska (Professional Press, Chapel Hill, NC, hard cover, 460 pages), based primarily on my 20-years’ work as a newsman in Alaska. Non-fiction, the book is an anecdotal political history of the modern oil industry in Alaska and some of its social, cultural, economic and environmental implications for Alaska and the nation.

The book, which includes 25 pages of historical and contemporary photographs, most of them from my personal files, was favorably reviewed by all the major Alaska newspapers; by “Alaska History”, the journal of the Alaska Historical Society, and was favorably commented upon by the Columbia Journalism Review, NYC. To obtain a copy, please write to me at jlar5553@verizon.net; or 23 Clinton St., North East, PA; or call (814) 725-8926

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