Accuracy, the Winter Wonderland and Harrisburg

In regards to the hiring of the Director of Public Safety the Morning Times article was not accurate to yesterdays commissioners' meeting but the DailyReview article was. I am hoping the Times puts a clarification in tomorrow.

The Morning Times did a good article on the gas severance tax issue the other day...article here. I just can't understand how anyone can say local residents can endure these impacts through property taxes, people just can't afford it.

Ah yes...the snow is beautiful but the aftermath is always less than fun. I was in Harrisburg Tuesday and Wednesday. I left Tuesday after the tourism committee meeting which ended at 4PM which had me arriving at the hotel in Harrisburg after 8Pm, only that late because I got lost trying to find the hotel..yeah, yeah laugh it up. I checked in and went down the street to get some chow, and went over all of the next days meeting documents while eating. In case your wondering is the high-life of a commissioner, eating alone at 9PM, 31/2 hours away from my wife and going over papers for meetings the next day (please note: last sentence stated with humorous sarcasm..lol).

As part of the county commissioners association board I met with three candidates for governor which were taped for PCN (schedule below). I thought they all offered pretty broad ideas but not a whole lot of detail from any of them on how they will actually achieve what they want and how they intend to realistically pay for it...notice I said the word realistically. At least Rohrer and Onorato were on time, Wagner was well over a half an hour late.
We also met with thePennsylvania State Association of Township Supervisors (PSATS) board to discuss strategy on how to get a local share of the proposed gas severance tax. It was interesting to here perspectives on how other people view our region and our situation with natural gas drilling. If your not right here there seems to be very little understanding of it.
Anyway at the end of it all we finished up with governor candidate Dan Onorato at 6:30PM and I promptly got on the road and was glad to get back to Bradford County late Wednesday night.




SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2010

County Issues and the Race for the Governor - County Commissioners Assoc. of PA
2:00 PM Sam Rohrer, Republican for Governor
3:25 PM Jack Wagner, Democrat for Governor
4:40 PM Dan Onorato, Democrat for Governor

For Mr. Wilson...

It's true Mr. Wilson I have not updated this blog in a while. I promise I will do better, thanks for reminding you that people enjoy this thing.

Last night I arrived back home at after 10pm. I was out in Wellsboro with county commissioners from both Tioga and Sullivan counties. We were meeting with a representative from the governors office trying to convince them to ensure a portion of the proposed gas severance tax is fairly appropriated to local governments. Letting it all go to Harrisburg to disappear into state government is just not acceptable. Today we gave a tour him around the Northern Tier. I believe that it went very well.

In other news we have still been working through the Energy savings project. We are inching closer on that but there are few more projects that we are still questioning pricing on. I hope we can mover forward in the next few weeks. We have a full slate of other projects for this year that we need to get underway. I think the last few weeks have been proof enough that this kind of overhaul is much needed. In the last few weeks the one of the boilers at the courthouse went Ka-poo-wee...is that a word....anyway that was $28,000, yes that is $28,000 unexpected dollars...yeah you said it..Ouch! Then the hot water heater at the manor has suffered the same fate and will probably, when said and done, be even more than that!

We recently received a set of prints for the renovation of the building that will be for District Judge Clark and other offices. There were a few corrections to be made. Then we can sit down with the entities involved to get all the plans finalized, those are just a few of the things going on.

Next week I have to go to Harrisburg for governor candidate interviews for the county commissioners association, We are interviewing all candidates for governor. We have three of them on Wednesday.

As many know we lost a good citizen of Bradford County with the passing of Emerson Abell. He was a member of the county planning commission, as well as volunteer of many other things, for as long I have have been alive. That is great amount of service to the county for a position that was voluntary.

energy savings, re-addressing, state cuts (again), interviews, renovations...and telepathy:)?

We had our meeting with Johnson Controls at the end of last week about the guaranteed energy savings audit. Two binders full of information and of course our committee had many questions which we hope to have worked through by the end of this week. I know I have probably said it before but guaranteeing a loan paid for by the saving of energy gets complex, especially with the diversity of all seven buildings being included into the project. Regardless, we need to get this hammered out and in motion.

Re-addressing will be hitting the news as we have started to deliver addresses in the first region. We did try every avenue of media to get the word out and even spent nights making phone calls to hundreds of residents. Yet somehow there are still people that are not aware of it which make things more difficult. I am sure we will work through it. The second region is being approved by the post office and we hope to get started with that as soon as we get the go ahead.

We did recieve more cuts in human services as well last week. Our legislators and governor really need to get it together down there. I found it interesting last week, when I was at the state capital, in the main rotunda, that it was so quiet with so few people you could have probably heard a pin drop. There were more people in the Bradford County Courthouse than what I had seen in Harrisburg last week. This is no joke, you could have parked closer to the capital building than you could the courthouse in Towanda! I am amazed everytime I go there with one thing or another.

Today we finished up our first round of interviews for the public safety director position. I am very happy with the candidates.
We are also moving forward with both the library restroom renovations as well as the new building for the District Judge Clark. Construction bids for the library will be awarded Thursday. Some initial work has started and engineering will begin for the district judge building hopefully next week.

On the lighter side of things John Sullivan was awfully sharp today, so sharp that Doug and I thought he may possess some sort of telepathic abilities. He was literally finishing peoples thoughts and cracking jokes at lightning speed. He and Doug, were at one point today, in complete sync with each other. In fact those two have been ganging up on me the last few weeks and I have been the source of their laughter. I must admit I try hard not to be on the recieving end of the inner-office sarcastic humor, I would much rather dish it out...LOL.

Here is a link to a story about the potter county presentation I did last week.
http://today.pottercountypa.net/?p=4205

Coudersport Tonight, Harrisburg Tomorrow

I just returned home from Coudersport in Potter County. I was asked to do a presentation on our experiences thus far regarding the natural gas industry. They had a nice turnout and great discussion, it was alot of fun with great residents and commissioners.
It's a busy week with going to potter county tonight and a trip to Harrisburg for tomorrow. Then Thursday we have our regular commissioners meeting along with a meeting with Fortuna Energy, and a meeting with Johnson Controls to present their energy audit for Bradford County to our energy committee. Friday we have a natural gas advisory committee meeting in which two college professors are presenting the different studies they are doing in relation to the gas industry.

Budget Passed...

The Bradford County budget passed today $55,848,995. There was no fanfare as the meeting only garnered about five visitors. That included press and county employees, but no one from the public attended. A few changes to the budget occurred over the last few weeks to bring the number down from over $56,000,000. Namely the airport loan that we decided against this year. There was some added expense to the budget with some employee reclassification's. We also added to part time nurse positions at the jail which will eliminate the "not so good" current practice of corrections officers distributing prescription medication. Other than that things have been tense as the year was wrapping up with the budget and other situations that are too much to get into tonight.

Best Wishes and Merry Christmas!

A Nice Editorial in the Daily Review....

"Benefit of Sound County Leadership now is Paying Off"

http://thedailyreview.com/opinion/benefit-of-sound-county-leadership-now-is-paying-off-1.464603

The Budget is Out!

Read about the budget in my report to the taxpayers...

2010 Chairman's Report to the Taxpayers

2010 Proposed Budget