Erie Times-News Reporter Kevin Flowers, who seems to be County Executive Barry Grossman’s personal propagandist for his beleaguered community college proposal, authored yet another polemic in Sunday’s newspaper anticipating Grossman’s planned trip to Harrisburg to confer with state officials on his pet project’s diminishing prospects.
The article presents, ad nauseum, all of Grossman’s pat and discredited arguments in favor of his proposal, a paroxysm of contradictions, circular illogic, pyramiding assumptions, mis-truths, half-truths and outright lies, many of which may be found verbatim in the editorials of the Erie rag.
I suspect Flowers has a “SEND” key on his computer programmed to transmit with robotic precision reconfigured versions of Grossman’s cliché-ridden litany of community college rhetoric on a pre-set schedule without having to apply additional thought.
Penning his article in advance of Grossman’s trip to the commonwealth’s capital provides two more redundant opportunities for the Times-News to reiterate the county executive’s tiresome fabrications disguised as news stories, typically adorned with a mug shot of the snowy-bearded solon: another while he is in Harrisburg, yet another upon his return.
Flowers quotes Grossman as saying: “"I'm not going to lie to them. I'm going to tell them (state officials)exactly what the situation is here…" Why would Grossman have to disclaim any intent to prevaricate, unless it’s part and parcel of his mind-set? Indeed, it’s a matter of public record that the county executive has not always told the truth, on the one hand pledging publicly that county property taxes would not be needed to finance his pipedream, but on the other privately pursuing strategies to acquire them precisely for that purpose.
Grossman is also quoted by his personal publicist as saying that “I want them (state officials) to understand that we have the vast majority of our business community asking for this college. That we have financial support already. We have support from labor, and the minority community, and a lot of the nonprofit groups.”
But what he undoubtedly WON'T tell them about is the vast opposition throughout the county to his hare-brained scheme, which two informal media surveys, one of them by the Times-News, have measured at more than 80 percent.
Reporter /publicist Flowers wrote in the article: “Grossman also said that pursuing a partnership with an existing community college could be possible, but county officials prefer to start their own school to maintain local control over curriculum.”
To which county officials would he be referring besides himself, as there are no others on record to that effect? In any event, that’s a red herring, because any model of that configuration would provide for a local advisory board to set local community college curricula.
Flowers also wrote: “Grossman has said that the Erie region could be one of the largest areas in the country without direct access to a community college.” Another falsehood. For example, Butler County Community College just to the south of us has already announced plans to provide a college credit tourism training course for Edinboro University students, and has for years provided first-class training for firemen from Erie County communities.
Although more than three-fourth’s of Flowers’ lengthy Sunday article consisted of Grossman’s previously-publicized and readily rebuttable rationalizations in favor of the community college, and very little about opponents' arguments against it, Flowers did note at one point buried deep within the story, that “County Council's Tuesday night vote drew cheers from many community college opponents in the area, who have long argued that Erie has adequate higher-education options, and that both the county and state government cannot afford a community college.” Amen.
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