Friday, June 09, 2006

Progress as promised

Oh yeah, that was the last guy's slogan. When I was driving around today I was listening to Sue Henry on WILK. She related a recent encounter with former Wilkes-Barre Mayor Tom McGroarity at the supermarket. According to her McG took credit for the ideas of building a downtown movie theater, a glorified bus stop and a new fire house at Hollenback Park. I'll give him credit for that, he had the ideas. But his problem was execution. It's hard to get things done when you go out of your way to piss off everybody you need to complete the projects. That and his lack of knowledge of arithmitic.

But anyway. Yesterday was good day for Wilkes-Barre. Finally something as basic as downtown streetlights are back.
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From the CV:

Streetlights have been an issue since 2000, when corroded light fixtures began to topple over. Replacements have taken six years to install.

Mayor Tom Leighton and Governor Ed Rendell simultaneously threw the switch. It took a while for the lights to warm up, but after a few seconds all of South Main Street was aglow.

Residents of nearby Provincial Tower looked on from their balconies and cheered as the lights grew brighter. They waved to Rendell and some openly praised his work. Rendell politely thanked them for their support.

The governor was in town to speak at the Leadership Wilkes-Barre graduation dinner, so he was able to accept Leighton’s invitation to help turn on the streetlights.

Rendell realizes streetlights might be insignificant to some people, but he sees them as a sign of progress.

“We’re proud to have been a part of this,” said Rendell.


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And we got a new fire station:

WILKES-BARRE – Making his third appearance in two days touting revitalization in the city’s northern section, Mayor Thomas M. Leighton officially opened the Hollenback Fire Station with a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Thursday.

The station, on North Washington Street north of the Cross-Valley Expressway, cost about $740,000 to construct. It will house two fire engines and two ambulances and be manned by four firefighters and one paramedic at all times.

The house will also accommodate a police substation.

Two new ambulances, each costing about $125,000, were also unveiled on Thursday. Leighton announced that the city will be receiving three new engines, each of which cost about $300,000, in the near future.

“As a result the entire city will be better protected,” he said.

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I'm too much of a cynic to start saying I believe but things are looking up.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Things are looking up? Try taking a walk across public square after sunset. I have nothing against a movie theater, but would it be too much to ask Mr. Mayor, if you could possibly put a few cops on the square? After all, who wants to risk a mugging to see a silly Tom Cruise or Jennifer ANiston film??

Anonymous said...

I'm angrier than Ann Coulter at a Tupperware party over the way my beloved Wilkes-Barre has deteriorated under our Commie Mayor! I remember when you could take a nice stroll downtown at night and leave your house with the doors unlocked. And if someone did start some trouble they would find their head on the receiving end of a billy club flung by a red faced Irish cop--and they loved it!! You see, in my day we had respect for the law and the police--not like the Hippy freaks today with all their Iron Butterfly music. In my day you knew you place and for the ingrates it wasn't on the square after dark--or even before dark if you know what I mean; everybody was happy and we all loved it!!! Now all we got is these liberal panty wastes who cry that we can't infringe on the rights of the poor to sleep on the square after they mug a hard working regular JOe of his spending money! God I can't stand the way all the Jesus hating, rotten scoundrel, commie rats have destroyed my great city! There's two solutions to this damned problem--first, we need a Irish mayor--and don't tell me Leighton's Irish--there's no self respectin Irishman that would recognize that wuss as one of the clan--we need a tough "REAL" Irish mayor (like Jimmy Walker from the good ol days of New York) and second, we need a whole slew of Irish Cops who aren't afraid to put a few notches in their clubs--or their guns. Then we can have our peaceful city back---Damn you heathen Facist, flower power brokeback mountain loving LIBERALS!! I hate you all!!!!!