Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Petition challenge

I'm surprised there are not more. Past wannabe Commissioner Bill James made some objections to wannabe Prothonotary Walter Mitchell's nominating petitions and financial disclosure forms.

Bill claims he has altruistic motives

“Things brought questions into my mind, and I just had to step forward.”

James has pointed out some problems with Mitchell's paperwork including an incomplete financial disclosure.

Mitchell did not give complete financial disclosure because he cites as sources of income “various insurance companies” but does not give any names or addresses. It also states that Mitchell’s signature only appears on one of the 20 separate nominating petitions he filed, and that he fails to give the name of the office he seeks. James is asking for eight of the 20 petitions to be invalidated because Mitchell does not list the electoral district on them, the document states. As a result, Mitchell would only have 233 signatures, falling short of the required 250.

It looks like Bill James is backing Carolee Medico in her quest to recapture the office. I think Carolee wins the Republican primary going away and will probably cruise to victory in the fall so this challenge may be unnecessary. According to the TL Lance Strange from Lackawanna County is the point man for Mitchell's camp and thinks this is a desperate tactic.

"We are not going to speculate to exactly who is behind the challenge,” Stange said, adding Mitchell’s campaign “will be moving forward with a vigorous defense.”
In the end, Mitchell will be on the ballot and win the upcoming election, Stange said.


W-B Area School Director candidate Christine Katsock is challenging James Susek right to be on the ballot. Katsock states Susek did not file a required statement of financial interest before the March 10 deadline. If Christine keeps running for office she may eventually get elected to something.


The best petition challenger around for the last few years has been Republican Liz Sichler but her title search company Priority Search Inc. has seemed to have adopted the same business practices as Bernie Madoff. So she is unavailable for comment.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I would have to agree that Medico will waltz to victory; if Lance's record is assessed, he's had loser after loser - Santorum, Sherwood, Cordaro, Meuser.

Anonymous said...

What's up with Dizzy Lizzy Sichler? Is she in prison yet?

Anonymous said...

WHEN YOU'RE DEALING WITH THE WORLD OF INVESTMENT/FINANCE, IT IS IMPORTANT TO KEEP A COOL HEAD AND NOT TO PUT ON THE LINE ANY AMOUNT OF MONEY THAT YOU ARE NOT WILLING TO LOSE. MADOFF'S CLIENTS SIGNED ON TO A DEAL WHICH HELD AN UNREALISTIC RETURN QUOTIENT. ANYTHING BEYOND 12 PERCENT IS NOT GONNA HAPPEN. I DON'T FEEL BAD FOR ANY OF THE SUCKERS WHO INVESTED WITH HIM AS THEY ARE AS GREEDY AS HE WAS--AND AS STUPID.

Anonymous said...

the thing about Madoff's scam was that he wasn't giving urealistic returns and many people made money with him, granted it wasn't return on investment it was just other people's money. kind of like social security...
his scam was going on for years... Madoff also had genuine credentials at one time he was non executive chairman of NASDAQ.
if you are a broker you would have realized that madoff did not give the above 12 % number you stated.
if the market did not suffer and people were trying to get large amounts of cash madoff may still be getting away with it. the funny thing is, that if it wasn't exposed people may not have lost the large amounts of money they did..
to blame the investors in this one is simple minded, madoff's marketing was a modest consistent rate of return, to an exculsive clientel. he was up until the bottom fell out reputable.