Quarterly psych tests required of prosecutor

If even half the scuttle-butt that I have heard of Lebanon County district attorney David Arnold, Jr. is true, then this society should really consider some sort of routine and regular ethics examination for positions like district attorney. Now, I know that by the time I am done with this article, haters, bullies, trolls are going to suggest that I am not one to criticize. But before that happens, the rest of the audience needs to be reminded that there is no evidence of any of their criticisms of me--especially not when it pertains to ethics. What they will cite as "evidence" truly amounts to corrupt law enforcement officials, like Arnold himself, abusing the powers of their office to accomplish a myriad of un-ethical goals, like silencing whistle blowers to protect their own political allies. If any one would like to read the transcripts that show that no evidence exists, just ask. And, even if you want to believe their BS about me, it doesn't make Arnold's bad behavior "good." Its still unethical.

Now, on to Arnold. The clear theme running through the "gossip" that I have heard indicates that Arnold is a man with very poor judgment--so poor as to question allowing him to hold any public office. 

1. While running for his first public office, his own domestic-violence issues were down played into vapor in a manner that enabled him to give the false appearance that he could and would investigate or prosecute domestic violence cases in an appropriate and unbiased manner. It also enabled him, in a more recent election where his former assistant was running for a public office, to appear so "clean" on the issue that he could support his friend's campaign by smearing his opponent with domestic violence accusations that his office helped the media (and the opposing candidate's ex) to spread among the voting public.  To secretly help him on this issue--you know, to make it look like he could properly handle domestic violence cases, as soon as taking office, he employed friends and business partners in the victim witness co-coordinators office. 

2. Then there are the constant rumors about his sexual activities with his female staff, and about some of these activities occurring in a county office. If these are true, the un-ethicality of the pattern of conduct speaks for itself as being reflective of a person not fit for public office:

a. First, the rumors suggest that he uses the public work space as his breeding grounds. The rumors consistently describe that he has had repeated sexual affairs with a line of women colleagues and even his own staff. His second wife worked as a LebCo juvenile probation officer at the time that Arnold worked in the public defenders office (and when he was married to his first wife, I assume). That second marriage took place pretty darn quickly after the first one tanked.  These are facts. Also, he is rumored to have bedded a female attorney on his staff who subsequently quit, and to have bedded another-- who was relatively recently confronted by his second wife.

b. Second, the rumors suggest that he rather openly creates and fosters an office culture where sexual activity is allowed, enabled, and even rewarded in county offices. One example is demonstrated by the rumor that his second wife even caught him being unfaithful in either his office or in his assistant district attorney's office. Then there is the well-known fact that he shielded a male colleague from investigation and prosecution for having sex with...ah, was it a confidential informant?, in the property/evidence locker? or some government space like that. He rewarded his second wife by helping to "convert" her public job as a juvenile probation officer to a private job with a lucrative county contract and a constant--and increasing, stream of juveniles that HE prosecutes.

c. Third, his rumored activities appear to be highly discriminatory--against men and against women in his office, albeit for differing reasons. At a minimum, even the rumors of his sexual escapades must create a highly charged and inefficient workplace environment. One rumor is that one of his affairs led to a "pregnancy scare"--and with a married staff member at that. I suggest that could be why one of his business partner-staff member quit on him, especially if the two women were friends. More recent rumors describe how a sexual relationship with another of his female attorneys has led to his second wife confronting the mistress, and led to the failure of his second marriage. And how would this make any of the males in his staff feel, especially if a relationship with the "boss" is used like a reward system in the office?

3. And then there are the non-rumors--the facts. 

a. One fact is Arnold's exceptionally conflict-laden act of keeping a judge's wife on his payroll where he continues to prosecute cases in front of that judge--even though the president judge told the public that the judge would be removed from hearing criminal cases. Arnold also lets his assistant district attorneys "moonlight" in family law cases that that judge hears. The conflict is so blatant that all a family law case participant has to do his file a one page objection simply saying "the conflict inherent in having a assistant district attorney serve in this family law case is obvious and egregious, and so the lawyer must be removed immediately." I have never seen it fought--or fail, yet. (BTW, if you know of a family law case that was assigned an assistant district attorney, please let me know the case number and party names.)

b. Another fact evidencing his un-fitness for office is that he lied about his finances in his ethics disclosures and the only thing that shields him from being held accountable for his lying is that the ethics entity wants to impose a fictional "statute of limitations" on a process which has no such limitation.

c. Oh, and another fact--he wrongfully convicts people that he knows are innocent, and abuses the powers of his office to silence people he considers political threats.

As I wrap this up, I want to remind the audience that his alleged mistresses are also public persona who could have been named herein. And to those public officials: You're welcome for the discretion. But you should really come to grips with the idea that the county's citizens already have your names, so your legacy is cast and your children are already at risk of learning any "secrets" from a person and at a time completely out of your control. I suggest that we would all be better off if parents taught their children the principle of "owning your own shit". "Mommy had her sexual needs met by her boss, but that doesn't mean that she loves you or daddy any less." or "Daddy had his sexual needs met by his female staff, and sometimes, while at work in the office, but that doesn't mean that he loves you any less." 

But it also doesn't mean that it makes him fit for office.

The reason why even small governments need checks and balances

Click on the link below:


Beloved Financial Secretary Steals 53 Million from Small City

Slapping a Board

So my new assignment has me interviewing attorneys, which has been exceptionally enlightening. Let me tell you briefly about one thing that I learned so far in this process.

I learned that under Pennsylvania law, Shareholders can directly sue the corporation. Minority Shareholders, even....can sue the corporation for not providing access to its financial information (hmm--I wonder if not telling the shareholders about government investigations of its tax reporting counts here), for allowing and engaging in self-dealing (you know, the kind where the Board annually issues its LARGEST expense contract to a voting officer of the Board--without a written contract or even a bid), and/or for destroying the value of the shareholder's investment.

Yep, you see that correctly: MINORITY SHAREHOLDERS CAN DIRECTLY SUE THE CORPORATION.

And the remedies can range from judicial assignment of an entity to "supervise" the Board/Corporation or even to dissolution of the corporation. Most PA cases, however, end in buyout of the shareholder's investment.

You know what this means don't you? This means that a single shareholder in the PA Chautauqua corporation can directly sue that pitiful excuse of an HOA.

Just fucking fascinating, don't you think?

Oh, now, I know that the grand-poopah solicitor will likely try to reassure you that it can't or won't happen. But I would not get all greasy-eyed yet. Make sure he tells you that the case law supports that a minority shareholder holding less than 5% of shares can directly sue the corporation, and that the legislature intended the applicable definitions to be determined on a case-by-case basis (like pornography--the court will know it when it sees it). god forbid that that day comes when your solicitor has to backtrack and then explain how it is indeed possible for one shareholder's suit to survive to trial...and win.

Now see, if a Board doesn't like that a shareholder is asking you to show him the financial information that he needs to determine the value of his investment--or to determine the value of the buyer-of-his-investment's investment, or if you don't like that a shareholder asks for this information or that she asks for you--Board, to do your fucking fiduciary duties, without a smile on her face, well then you need to take some time to come to grips with yourself and put those big, big, big girl and boy pants on and either bow out, or act like the observant christians that you profess to be--or at least act like a person that cares about the minority shareholders and their investments.

That whole thing about getting more with honey goes both ways...except, of course, when the honey is forced up the shareholder's ass.

Little bit of Lebanon down in Kyle

Looks like Lebanon County DA and Mount Gretna aren't the only government entities in the habit of abusing the government's powers of criminal prosecution to silence whistleblowers. Down in Texas, a police chief fathered a son with a doctor's wife and then the chief used the resources and powers of his office to organize a campaign of harassment against the doctor. That campaign included a trumped up charge of domestic violence against the doctor, for which he pleaded to a lesser charge. The doctor has now sued the town's employing the police chief, and that event allows the doctor to collect evidence from the towns and their departments and officials.

This abuse of power sounds excruciatingly familiar. In late 2007, I began researching the finances of the Borough of Mount Gretna by reading budget documents and financial reports, and by interviewing self-appointed "Queen of all things Gretna" and Lebanon County Republican Party "Boss" Kathleen Snavely. Snavely also has the ear of Republican-groomed county district attorney, David Arnold. Not long after his bankruptcy and failed marriage (which included confirmed allegations of violence that he perpetrated against his then-wife), local state politician Brightbill apparently handpicked Arnold to run against the current DA, who was allegedly not cow-towing enough to the Republican entrenchment.

Brightbill lost his re-election, but Arnold won, and has expressed a painful amount of deference to "his" local party ever since. Immediately upon taking office, Arnold also proceeded to get the county judiciary in his pocket by hiring a local judge's wife (Ann Kline) as a prosecutor, and proceeded to get partners in his campaign-finance real estate investment business (ASH Investments) on the county payroll as well. (Note that he failed to properly disclose his financial dealings in his ethics statements that he filed during those years) It also apparently didn't take him long to find other uses for his office furniture, as allegations of romantic trysts and infidelities percolated forth. And, he and his new wife, a county probation officer in charge of state/grant-funded juvenile probation programs, implemented a strategy that made her work "private" and paid through a lucrative services contract with the county (in addition to the grants that Arnold obtained from the State).

But, now back to late 2007, where my research efforts were open and obvious. After having several conversations with Snavely about the political mechanisms of Mount Gretna, Snavely "notified" her peeps about my queries and so at a January 2008 staff meeting, Arnold instructed his staff to strategize a path towards charging me (and my partner) with a crime.  Arnold's real estate business partners and County employees, Emily Scipioni and Tammy Hartman-Hankins routinely attended these meetings, and on that day, one of them left the meeting and repeated, nearly verbatim, Arnold's instructions to a number of people outside that meeting. But none of that ever reached me for quite some time...years, really, until certain members of his staff could brook no more of his "leadership" and left his employ.

By February of 2008, the research revealed some very disturbing things. One disturbing thing I learned is that the Borough consistently under-reported $250,000 to $300,000 a year to the public and that same amount of money could not be accounted for.  The second was that the 87 acre Borough--which has no public works infrastructure, had a full-time public works crew of 4 (at least) whom hardly ever could be witnessed performing work within the Borough. Yet, at the end of each pay period, each staff member submitted to the Borough a timesheet upon which that staff member stated that they performed 40 hours (or more!) of work for the residents of the Borough of Mount Gretna. Well, that simply was not happening. So, I reported the findings to the next person in the "chain of command", so to speak, and that was the local district attorney, whose response I knew would be to have to forward the information to a "non-conflicted" law enforcement/investigative entity--so, either the state police or the state attorney general. Imagine the confusion my innocence blossomed when his response--his immediate response, was that he was "not going to investigate that...that's never going to happen."

So, I started to put my research online in a blog, this blog, and within weeks, my partner and I were being charged with crimes that no evidence of would ever be submitted for and for which three of the persons I reported would provide known false testimony at my trial. Also, the judge (Samuel Kline) whose household was regularly receiving a paycheck from the prosecutor's office (and who was supposed to be recused from hearing criminal cases because of this) pulled our case and proceeded to "lose" recordings, to prohibit me from attending proceedings, and refused to let out the facts that the three Borough "character" witness' had been previously accused by me of financial improprieties, that a local news reporter published news stories (and meeting minutes existed) that showed the falsity of their testimony, and that the property upon which the alleged criminal activity took place was actually maintained by one of the witnesses--the public works director, William Care.

In the middle of the trial, I was threatened with abandonment by my attorney (Robert Keys) and to be jailed if I took the stand. My attorney also failed to notify me of the three Borough witnesses, and recommended, as my partner's attorney, a "friend" of his (Christopher Coyle) who would eventually convey ALL of our confidential information (and nearly all of his work product!) to the prosecutor--a former employee of his whom he would later describe as a "dear, family friend" that he has drinks with two or three times a week and visits regularly at his home, who would forge my partner's signature on a continuance request that neither of us knew of or would have approved of but which the prosecutor needed), who would later lie to the lawyer's conduct board by saying that he did actually get my partner's signature when in fact, he did not),  and who, we would later find out, had a long-standing services contract with the local judges. Both attorneys-and only those two attorneys, had these contracts.

The "complainant" (Scott Yoder)  had stalked us at our home for days, and, as we found out soon thereafter, was a "police officer" whom Snavely admits that she has known since he was a toddler, and who had recently, while off-duty, threatened to shoot a woman and her family because he didn't like the way she parked her car. (He was charged and convicted for that bad conduct.) The "responding" local police officer testified at trial that he had no evidence--and conducted no investigation, that in any way linked the alleged criminal activity to either myself or to my partner. Interestingly enough, the day that led to the trumped-up charges started with Yoder stalking us at our house and with him trespassing on our property and refusing to leave and threatening us after I told him to get off our property. (After seeing him lag by slowly and peering up at our house at least four times within one hour, I then witnessed him on our porch attempting to get into our home.)

Interestingly enough, since my publication of these financial issues, the Borough's budget that they publish to us, the public, has tripled with no real justification or explanation except that they were told to "report" things differently. They also admit that the auditors have made some critical comments to them. I'll take that. I'll take that as a corrupt organization's admission that I was correct and that they were doing something wrong. Still, though, the numbers show a gap between what comes in and what goes out, and no one has explained that. Nor has any one admitted, even when asked, who told them what and when  when it comes to auditors comments and the reporting changes demanded.

And, still, Care and his staff submit routine timesheets falsely stating that they worked for the Borough and so they have a right to compensation from the Borough, and to state-run retirement accounts. Where I come from, that's intentional deception--fraud, and the public officials that enable this activity are, at a minimum, committing theft of services.

And I hear that Arnold's has sabotaged his second marriage via extra-marital activities. I wonder what that will do to the "privatized" juvenile services programs that his wife runs and that he feeds juveniles to by prosecuting them and making attending her programs a mandatory part of their "sentence".

Down in Texas, reporters are repeating the police's characterization of the whistleblower-cop that is providing evidence to the civil suit against the town and the chief as "selling insider information". Insider information?!--have they lost their damn minds?! There is no "insider information" in a public entity. This is tragic, that a media outlet will repeat the mischaracterization of government activities in a way that down plays the responsibility of government entities to be transparent and for each citizen to hold government entities accountable for their action/inaction. And its tragic that my neighbors let the media and the government officials get away with these failings.

Its a tragedy because my neighbors' apathy has turned Mount Gretna, and the Chautauqua that mirrors it, into an intellectually and ethically vacuous community.  And the entrenched bullies (and "apathetics") deserve the quagmire of their current putrefaction--low summer programs attendance, persistent and growing"quality of life" complaints by residents, reduced music programs, precipitously-fallen property prices, and what I can only imagine must be the highest murder-rate in any Chautauqua or intellectual/arts community or in any 87 acre municipality.

Protected Asset Classes in Mount Gretna

Recently, the MG Borough Council paid the borough lawyer to work on a morals-guiding "rental ordinance". Now, among some other "guvment takings" that brilliant piss of work included, it gave the guvment--here, Chuck Allwein and/or William Care,  the right to come into your property/home to make sure that you did not have more than two adults sleeping in any one room. Absent from the proposed ordinance is any definition of when "sleeping" hours begin or end. That scenario--watching Bill Care or Charles Allwein, come knocking at 2a.m. in the morning on any of our doors to count adults, seems like it may be worth the price of admission, but it reminds me that we already have entertainment venues in the borough. (And you think Bill Care would have had his fill of going to his neighbors' houses and pursuing an interest in the adults and beds therein after what I heard happened in the 70's.)

And that makes me wonder why Chuck is hands-off those venues....because those venues really do attract a lot of unhealthy folk to our small and intimate neighborhood. They attract boatloads of cars that take up our own parking spaces, park on our lush green park grass, costing us a boatload of tax dollars maintaining the parking infrastructure and repairing the parks. So why isn't Chuck leading the complaint about those scallywags and using OUR money to pay for the development of an ordinance that makes the venues tell us the names of who their visitors are, and the names and dates of who is going to be using OUR parking availability, and crafting a "licensing" regime that controls and inspects against improper morals--including parking on park areas, and including feeding children sugary, chemical-laden, junk foods? Oh, that's because its Chuck's own activities with his leased-property that we are talking about--property that he practically got from US for FREE. And you bet that he intends to squash any competing property interests that infringe on him maximizing his Jiggershop profits. The less parking spaces taken up by re-uniting families in rented cottages, and the less re-uniting families and other revelers cooking it up in a cottage kitchen, the more capacity for business for Chuck's Jiggershop.

Funny, he doesn't seem to care that he stole from us borough residents the enjoyment of a real rental income from OUR Chautauqua property. And now he wants to make sure that we can't enjoy a rental income from our individually owned Chautauqua-situated property.

 How did he steal property from us, you ask. Well, the Jiggershop sits on commonly-owned Chautauqua property (commonly owned as in the shareholder/residents of the Chautauqua (which is the same place as the Borough), and Chuck Allwein--Borough Council President, used Borough Lawyer Keith Kilgore to negotiate a commercial land-lease for the Chautauqua land that his Jiggershop is on by negotiating with the Chautauqua, whose lawyer is also Keith Kilgore. Can you believe their luck--or would they want us to call it "skill", at negotiating a c. $2 per square foot restaurant land lease when the going market rate, last I asked the experts, was more like $20 per square foot, and for, oh, what was the term--a hundred years?

OUR ASSETS' LOSS IN VALUE CAN BE DIRECTLY ATTRIBUTED TO THE BOARD'S FAILURES...?

Ok, so here's a guy who knows all too well how homeowners associations board members get all full of themselves and loose sight of their financial responsibilities:

http://neighborsatwar.com/2015/03/hoas-claim-embezzling-is-rare-lmao/#comment-14639


But, before you go see his site, ask yourself why, again, has the PA Chautauqua Board blown smoke up its shareholders' arses and NOT done what they committed to to do by the end of the last Shareholders Meeting. What is the big deal about providing the people who OWN THE ASSETS with a real website that allows real access to real documents. That the Chautauqua secretary--Kathleen K Snavely, can't even get her attitude correct enough to provide THE ASSET OWNERS with meeting minutes via a website is true testimony of her disdain for THE ASSET OWNERS and OF her megalomaniacal dysfunction of self-righteous self-importance.

Then also ask yourself why, even after it has been made clear to the Board members, the numbers still don't match up and just why aren't they explaining to us shareholders--again, THE REAL ASSET OWNERS, exactly how much money we are spending on no-bid stuff improperly arranged by Board members and people who won't show us the real books.

Mind you

This author would like to point out that the Mount Gretna Borough Secretary and Council President have proven that the Mount Gretna Borough's budget--and the reporting shenanigans, that I pointed out to borough citizen's 5 years are, in fact true.

Back in 2007, when we first purchased a house in the borough, we witnessed several elderly residents' complaints to Council President Charles Chuck Allwein ignored. Every year at the Homeowners Association annual meeting, and at several borough council meetings, we watched many elderly persons bring their concerns to Allwein and to the HOA Board and BOTH would acknowledge the complaint in the meetings and then completely ignore the person and their complaint.

Feeling complete dissappointment in our public officials' failures to treat their constituents with any degree of respect, I started researching how things--politics and elections, worked in Mount Gretna. When LebCty Republican Party Co-Chair and HOA Board member Kathleen Kathy Snavely found out what I was researching, she "reported" it to her fellow republicans, including David Arnold. Arnold took that information and, at a January 2008 staff meeting, asked his staff to brainstorm a way to criminally prosecute the "two women living as lesbians in Mount Gretna". Snavely continued to present herself as a helpful Board member, though, while really conspiring with her party allies to stifle any discovery of their bad behavior and thieving.

Despite the secret efforts to stifle discovery of their bad behavior, I found stuff--lots of stuff. And what I found shocked me. Short story: I found out that Mount Gretna Borough doesn't have any public infrastructure--all the property within the borough boundaries are privately owned. Nevertheless, I also found out that the Borough had a Public Works Crew that siphoned around $250,000 a year from our pockets.  Umm---a public works crew that works on a non-existent public infrastructure....

Stay tuned--Chapter Two out next week

Deed Restrictions PA Chautuaqua

Here are the deed restrictions that we are told applies to PA Chautauqua (which are not the same as the ones that are for the Chautauqua Heights, up the hill:

Chautauqua secretary KATHLEEN SNAVELY violated PA Chautauqua Bylaws

This year's Pa Chautauqua Annual Shareholders meeting will be held in violation of the Bylaws, which require the Secretary send the shareholders written notice of the proceedings 30days in advance of the meeting.

Snavely only provided 28 days notice.

This puts everything decided and acted upon at the meeting at risk and opens shareholders up to the costs of litigation.

Wicked smart move.

She is also supposed to provide shareholders with 30days notice of any amendment to be voted on at the meeting..... Uh, that didn't happen either.

'Nutha wicked smart move from the WSM Queen
                                                                                                                                                                

On a more humorous note, can you guess which red-nosed mug is that of the Chautauqua Secretary...

Property for sale Mount Gretna

Quaint village, peaceful location, charm of the past.
Music, theater, art.
That's what real estate in the Borough of Mount Gretna may get ya!

CLICK ON POSTER BELOW TO GET
ITS FULL SIZE IMAGE

Click on poster for full size image !

Dixon treasurer, loved horses, sentenced to 20 years for stealing town's money

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-rita-crundwell-dixon-theft,0,1377939.story




and


http://www.pjstar.com/news/x1213307423/State-charges-dropped-against-ex-Dixon-comptroller?rssfeed=true

New Assessments

Under PA law, in the first year after new property assessments, the collecting municipality can NOT enjoy a windfall in property tax revenue and it MUST adjust (meaning lower) the milrate. This is a requirement--not an option.

To ms kathy snavely, my luv

It never fails to amuse me how entertainingly "hippo"critical mount gretna christians are---pun intended [the morbidly obese ones know who they are].

More importantly, snavely's persistent interest in persons she has no responsibility for or relationship/business with is a revealing obsession--if, as she insists, there was no merit to the financial hankypanky scheme that I discovered, then why is she wasting so much time on what she is wanting the public to believe is not a credible source? Well, she remains obessed because she has full knowledge of the money that is being/has been skimmed out of the pockets of mount gretna borough and pennsylvania chautauqua citizens---and doesn't it look a lot like she is trying to help cover it up by harassing and silencing the source?

Back in 2009, when I first discovered this financial imbroglio, my estimate was that 2.4 million is unaccounted for--and that's the gap that I could see from the documents and reports that I managed to get my hands on. Who knows what grants, transfers, etc. never made it to any document, budget or ledger. I also did the correct thing and reported it to the district attorneys office, specifically naming at least four public officials that had to have knowledge of the improper activities. Coincidentally, one of the activities described to him was the misreporting of work hours to inflate paychecks and to qualify for and receive benefits.

Instead of doing what he was ethically bound to do--pass it on to either the state police or the attorney general, weeks later he charged my wife and i with criminal activities that we never committed and used three of the four reported public officials (Linda Bell, Andrew Allwein, and William "Bill" Care) as "reputation witnesses" at our trial [at which these persons gave false testimony, by the way]. The fourth public official--Chuck Allwein was just as conspiratorial and active in this farce, by working with the da to silence the publication of details of the financial scheme, inter alia. And during all this, Snively was doing her part to discredit, harass, and intimidate by using her access to the local media, to the local political parties, and to the financial reports and "books", to assist in the cover up and to prevent proper investigation into the matter. (If you have another way of seeing it, please, do tell--but give facts, not opinions.)

Now you don't have to believe my assertions that misreporting your hours worked in order to inflate your wages and benefits is a crime. In fact, don't pay any attention to me at all. Just look to the district attorney's office itself and you will see that its a crime. In the two and a half years since my reporting of such activities to him, the da has clearly demonstrated this via the prosecution of two lebanon county public officials for misreporting work hours: he has prosecuted/participated in the prosecution of a former police chief for misreporting a few hours of overtime, and he is prosecuting a former myerstown town clerk/financial secretary for misreporting hours worked. Ironically, the chief's alleged misreporting did not result in that public official deriving any personal gain. On the other hand, the clerk's alleged misdeeds resulted in tens of thousands of dollars of personal gain for her. By the way, the myerstown clerk's alleged ill-gotten bounty pales in comparison to what Linda Bell has had unfettered access to...and to what Bill Care has raked in. Pales.

More importantly, however, is that these prosecutions show that the lebanon county da has a clear understanding of how he was supposed to handle the reported financial improprieties, misreporting, etc, and thereby reveals his own knowing participation in/support of the misdeeds.

So when HACC instructor kathy snavely uses her darling "social media" to publish knowingly false information about someone that even she admits has not published anything to annoy or to poke her fat ass for over a year, she is proving that neither religiosity (at least her version of it, anyway) nor social media require integrity from their participants, even if those participants call themselves "experts" at it and are paid to teach on the subject at a local community college.

Kathy dear, does Harrisburg Area Community College know that you use your subject matter (social media) in this manner--for malfeasance, ill-will, and obsessing? Maybe they should be made aware. Maybe they should be shown how questionable your self-professed "expertise" with social media really is. How do you put this shit on your resume: "Used Twitter succesfully to engage in pattern of bullying and intimdation to foil the request for investigation into financial improprieties involving entity of which I am a voting board member"; "Adopted extremely fexible/adaptable philosophical belief system in order to achieve the appearance of integrity and ethics without really having to live with integrity or demonstrate positive ethical traits";...

Its slightly entertaining how such a large person can actually be so vacuous of any substance.

Hugs and Kisses, my dear.

Same criminal behavior, different town

Recently reported in the LATimes, a judge questions the criminality of a police chief's nontransparent and superinflated salary, sounding striking familiar to comments posted here about our own loyal public servants.

Read below:

"Judge questions why Bell's former police chief isn't facing corruption charges"
By Jeff Gottlieb, Los Angeles Times

4:38 PM PST, December 19, 2011

"From the day authorities handcuffed and led away eight Bell administrators and politicians in a massive public corruption case, people in this small working-class town have wondered why it wasn't the Bell 9 instead.

Missing in the line-up of defendants — from city administrator Robert Rizzo to the pastor who said his lavish paycheck for serving on the City Council was a gift from God — was the town's police chief.

For running the city's 46-person Police Department, Randy Adams made more than the Los Angeles police chief or the Los Angeles County sheriff. His contract, prosecutors said, was drawn up so that citizens would be unable to learn the real size of his paycheck.

Now, the judge who is hearing the case against the Bell 8 is also questioning why Adams is not facing criminal charges along with Rizzo, his chief assistant and six former City Council members accused of draining the city's budget with oversized salaries and benefit packages."

latimes.com/news/local/la-me-bell-adams-20111220,0,4709254.story

latimes.com
Emphasis in text added.

Today, Opaque Equals Scandal

Excerpt from recent Economist article:

...the real push for transparency has come from the scandals that often breed in opaque government. The most notorious example, uncovered last year, is Bell, a tiny blue-collar city near Los Angeles, whose leaders paid themselves exorbitant amounts and, in effect, used the city coffers as personal banks."

The article goes on to admit that today's technology has made putting government data online easier. I would go further to say that today's technology makes putting data online so easy that a government really has to put more effort into NOT putting the data online. That entity really has to contort themselves, their reasoning, and their decision to NOT publish, into some really convoluted and shallow positions. Further, given that a government entity has a responsibility to be transparent, its decisions to NOT publish data online strongly suggests ethics lapses and even criminal activity.

And given that American citizens have a duty to hold their representative and democratic government accountable, there should be no tolerance for Board or council members who do not know the true or factual details of their governing body's finances. Virginia Minnich, do you know what the Borough's liability will be for Bill Care's retirement annuity? Did you know that he will receive more than a career, top-level and distinguished, Central Intelligence Administration officer? Charles Allwein, do you know that the Borough's "real" budget is around $600,000 each year?

Municipalities all over this nation are using their websites to provide as much data as possible, and the world has not ended for any of them. For example, residents of Alberquerque, NM, are even able to follow their mayor's expense charges and their government staffs' earnings. Vendor contracts, expense reports, salaries and benefits--its all there for the taxpayer and constituent to follow--as it should be in a country, commonwealth, and community that is founded on transparency and accountability, and that has nothing to hide.


*excerpt from The Economist, Nov. 19th, 2011, page 36.

The Economics of Historic Preservation

The National Trust for Historic Preservation provides several books and white papers discussing current research on the economic elements of recognizing a community as an historic district. Ample text is dedicated to showing that there are many economic benefits to historic preservation. Examples include that it is less costly to preserve rather than to demolish and rebuild (which has a secondary economic benefit of providing a lower cost way of maintaining residential and commercial real property stock in a community). Other studies show that Historic Preservation facilitates Heritage Tourism--a recreational activity that yields more revenue per tourist than other forms of tourism and that is occuring in larger numbers than other forms of recreational activities.

The secondary effect of this latter example is that the money spent by Heritage Tourists also generates increased revenues for local municipalities--more revenue than is generated by other forms of tourism or recreational activities.

Here, in the Chautauqua (aka, Mount Gretna Borough), however, the statistical reality that historic preservation activities provide the community with economic benefits could not be farther from reality.

In this community, there is much talk of the buildings and area being historic. In fact, the Chautauqua reports to the IRS every year that one of its "charitable" activities is the maintainence of historic buildings. BOth the Borough Council and the Chautauqua Board give overtures every so often that they are pursuing historic designation. The Chautauqua also tells the IRS that the purpose of its activities is to minimize the shareholder fee. However, if either local entity is indeed pursuing historic designation, it certainly can't be to generate revenue for the Chautauqua or for the Borough and its taxpayers.

How do we know we will never benefit from any economic benefit normally generated by Historic Preservation activities? Because we know that any revenue generated by Heritage Tourism, or any other form of recreational activity pursued here, only produces revenue for private entities--all private corporations, who, in recent decades, have never used their revenue to offset the cost of maintaining the infrastructure of this area (whether designated historic or not). In fact, pursuit of maintaining these local buildings and environs as historic as only served to "justify" outrageously inflated expenses and fiscal "leaks" that are never made transparent and for which the shareholder or the taxpayer can not follow the money spent.

Over $330,000 a year is spent on these endeavors--maintaining the area's historic buildings and environs, and neither the Borough nor the Chautauqua see fit to publish that fact to its taxpayers or shareholders. They hide it from you, lie to you, and misrepresent the truth to you.

In fact, the entity within the Borough that generates the largest revenue (from tourism) is the Borough Council President's and Gretna Water/Sewer Authority Boardmember's (Charles "Chuck" Allwein and son, Andrew "Drew" Allwein) Jiggershop. Not only does this private corporation NOT ever share its profits to help offset the infrastructure costs of providing the "bucolic" historic setting that it relies on for its marketing and branding, it actually results in being an economic burden on the community.

First, these municipal leaders-entrepenuers demanded a significantly below-market rate lease with the entity that is fiscally responsible for maintaining these allegedly historic buildings and environs--the Chautauqua. We shareholders could be leasing that site out for ten times what these municipal leader-entrepeneurs are paying and using that revenue to offset our annual shareholders fees. But that is not practiced here.

Second, the lease could also contain a profit-sharing clause--a lease term that is common practice every where but here in the Chautauqua (aka Mount Gretna Borough).

Third, in order to maintain the "historic" environs relied on in the Jiggershop owners' marketing and operations, the municipality and the landowner (the Chautauqua) must hire excessive "public works" staff, commit to municipal retirement benefits for this staff (in addition to paying for every other type of employee benefit you can imagine), hire and supervise parking staff,etc, etc. etc. This cost alone pulls over $350,000 out of OUR pockets, as it is covered by revenue generated from tax revenue and shareholder fees--without any attendant licensing fee, permitting fee, business operations fee, or profit-sharing arrangment imposed on these private business. Private businesses owned by municipal leaders that are enjoying significant profit from our continued passivity when it comes to demanding to be told exactly what money is going to whom and how often.

Thus, Historic Preservation--whether followed under a formal designation or followed in practice, as we see here, has actually turned out to be an economic sinkhole for us taxpayers and shareholders. So, the powers that be were right to scrap, file in the round file cabinet, or toss their pursuit of historic designation for any building or area in the Chautauqua or Mt. Gretna Borough. It simply would be a lot of effort that would only result in a formal legal obligation to use shareholder and taxpayer money to continue to fatten the profits of certain municipal leader-entrepeneurs.

Nicest place to live--real integrity, folks

Looky here, a police department that publishes its daily logs: http://www.northamptonpd.com/daily-logs.html

And to think that here in Mount Gretna, the Borough can't even provide monthly meeting minutes with any sense of real transparency to the average citizen. Don't blink, 'cause the last meetings notes will be gone in a flash.

And, where over half of the Borough budget involves the Chautauqua, don't even bother asking for those numbers--you don't have any right to see that portion of this municipality's budget, you nasty little thing, you.

On top of that, Northampton is one of the most peaceful, serene, and civil places to live--a true village with a community spirit that truly lives the talk.

Taser International to Pay $10 Million for Failure to Warn

Taser International to Pay $10 Million for Failure to Warn

The Jiggershop operates for free

If you ask a local commercial real estate guru what the going rate is for a land lease for a seasonal restaurant located in a town with a lot of visitors, they will tell you its about $20 per square foot. Compare that to the rate that the Jiggershop owners, Chuck Allwein and Andrew Allwein, pay for leasing the land that their Jiggershop restaurant is on in Mount Gretna: about $2 a square foot. No, that's not a typo.

It is probably more like a reward for letting the land owner, the Pennsylvania Chautauqua, use the Allweins' public official authority to approve the use of public resources to provide this private company with a boatload of taxpayer subsidized property maintenance services.

Yep, that's right. In return for letting their dear family friend and Mount Gretna Borough Public Works Director, William Care, use Borough staff, vehicles, and equipment to mow the private company's lawns, to repair and paint the private company's buildings, and build, pave, and otherwise maintain the private company's parking lots (which keep the environs of the Allweins' Jiggershop loaded with paying customers), Borough Council President Charles Allwein and Gretna Sewer and Water Authority Boardmember Andrew Allwein realisticially get the land for their Jiggershop restaurant for free.

On top of that, this author has been provided no substantiation that the Jiggershop owners, Chuck Allwein and Drew Allwein are actually paying for the Jiggershop's Sewer and Water Authority fees.

And, dear friend Bill Care now gets to not only request a full-time paycheck from a public employer for what is really only a part-time job (remember, the Borough actually owns no land or buildings within its boundaries), but Bill Care also gets an average of nearly 700 hours of overtime a year and health, dental, vision, disability, etc benefits. His state retirement contribution is also completely paid for by the Borough. Which is to say that the only entity on the hook for Bill Care's $120,000+ compensation package is the Borough of Mount Gretna.

No matter what the Allweins, the Borough and the Authority and the Chautauqua Financial Secretary Linda Bell, or the Chautuaqua, the Borough, the Authority, and the Gretna Playhouse Public Works Director Bill Care SAYS to you about there being some other entity paying the costs here, they can not substantiate it with hard evidence. The fact remains that Care "bills" the Borough, and the Borough alone, for his $120,000 compensation package.

So it seems that these public officials-family friends have managed to enjoy quite the lucrative arrangement of profiteering from their public offices.