Jim O'Meara for Plains Township Commissioner

I had a nice chat with James O'Meara Sr tonight who is running for a place on the Plains Township Board of Commissioners. He doesn't have much of a chance as a Republican running in an overwhelmingly Democratic town but you never know. He had previously run for State Representative against Eddie Day Pashinski because no one else would and wanted to give the voters a choice and got clobbered. You have to admire that commitment to the democratic process.

In the Plains Township race he said much of the same thing. I asked who was the last Plains Republican Township Commissioner and neither one of us could up with an answer. Help me out trivia people.

The big issue in our little burgh is how to spend the windfall for being the host of the Mohegan Sun Casino. For the most part that has been put to good use paving streets and adding police patrols to deal with the problems that the place has produced.


In addition to the host municipality fee Plains Township gets for putting up with the place there is another pot of money for the health, safety and economic development projects in those counties where the casinos are located. In the last 3 years the Plains Twp Board of Commissioners have kicked backed a million dollars a year to the Casino to pave the parking lot that is located on top of the old East Side Landfill neglecting other needs such as purchasing a new ladder truck for the fire department. My friend Kevin Blaum documented that a few years ago. Such nonsense, we are supposed to make money off the place not subsidise it. Jim will oppose that and question why it happened in the first place.

We need a watchdog in Plains Township instead of 5 yes votes for everything.