Luzerne County Prothonotary

I'm surprised that there only 2 Republican candidates seeking to replace poor 'used and abused' Jill Moran who had to resign because of her agreement to cooperate with the US attorney's investigation into her business dealings with the Juvie Brothers Conahan and Ciavarella and her law partner Participant number 1 Robert Powell.

.

The Mayor of the breakaway Republic of Bear Creek Village Walter Michell (above) was animated about the lack remorse and a "toxic sense of perverted entitlement" in the "Democrat party" that has run the Luzerne County government into a ditch. Echoing Howard Beale he said "We can't stand it and we're not going to take it anymore."

.

Former Prothonotary Carolee Medico Olenginski (right) stressed that "experience does count." Unlike Moran she stated that she worked overtime when she held the office and increased revenue from the office during her tenure citing that the copy machine alone produced $21,000 in a year when it previously took in zilch. She paid tribute to former Democratic Controller Steve Flood saying he was our watchdog, "He said they were crooks and he was right."

“It's a great time to be a Republican in Luzerne County”

That was the message of Luzerne County GOP Vice-Chair Paul DeFabo before a big crowd at the Wilkes-Barre HQ last night. He said that because of all the scandals engulfing the county Democrats "if we can't win this time, we never will." It's hard to argue with that but after getting wiped out in the county elections in 2007 they still have a big hill to climb.

.

DeFabo outlined the process the party will use to endorse a slate in the primary. A straw poll of the local committee people will be taken then the executive committee will give their blessing to the lucky few. I suspect that they have already made up their minds. I still think that is a mistake and smacks of the heavy handed way the county Democrats have done things for years. It's been a long time since the Republican nomination has been worth something and trying to stack the deck might backfire. Notable by their absence were some members of the executive committee.

.

A few local bloggers made it including the Yonk who has a write-up of the event at The Lu Lac Political Letter.

Zen, Norton and McGruff were in the audience and will hopefully chime in later. The local media focused on America's Mayor Lou Barletta speech. Bill O'Boyle of the Times-Leader has a recap here.

A day at the races and night with the Republicans

Ever since I started this blogging thing the local Republicans have been more responsive than the local Democrats. I wonder why?

Meet the Candidates event tonight in Wilkes-Barre

Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta will be in town tonight to fire up the troops at the dog and pony show for the Republican Row Office candidates event at 7 p.m. today at Luzerne County Republican Headquarters, 25 Public Square in Wilkes-Barre.

.

We should be hearing from candidates for the hot races for Controller and Prothonotary and maybe the other ones like that critical office of Jury Commissioner. I'll bet that a few cross dressing, er filed, judicial candidates will make an appearance.

.

I'll be there and rumor has that just about the the whole Northeast Blogging Council will be in attendance. In the spirit of bipartisanship I have suggested that we should adjourn to Skrep's bar, Big Ugly's, afterward. Maybe a room temperature Tab can be had there.

Tainted witnesses

Luzerne County Judge Ann Lokuta is still fighting her removal from the bench. She asked the state Supreme Court to stop the state from putting her judge seat on the May primary election ballot because she not exhausted her appeals. If her petition is successful it would put the kibosh on some of our wanna be jurists because there would only be 2 seats up for election instead of 3.

.

I think she has a good case because Juvie Brother Judge Conahan orchestrated the charges against her and some of the key witnesses were his fellow felon Judge Mark Ciavarella, admitted thief (Conahan's cousin) Bill Sharkey and former and Prothonotary Jill "I was used" Moran. Some of the other witnesses were beholden to the Judges for their jobs or were attorneys that are now under scrutiny for their involvement in the possible fixing of civil cases.

.

She claims Conahan went after her because she was cooperating in the federal corruption probe of the Juvie Brothers but couldn't offer evidence to support that claim because it would have jeopardized an ongoing investigation. She also points out that one of the people that sat in judgement of her was Richard Sprague who was a lawyer for Robert Powell who was one of the people paying off the Judges. Powell is a law partner and business partner of Jill Moran. Powell, Moran, Conahan and Ciavarella are also business partners.

.

At the very least the Supreme Court should order a new hearing and stay her removal from the bench.

Pet Blogging

By popular demand I loaded some new pictures of Quincy on my Facebook page. Above we see Ptolemy acting like some Republicans going after Rush Limbaugh. Later in the day Ptolemy apologized to Quincy.

For more puppy pix click here.

Please stand by

About 3:30AM I lost my Comcastic internet connection. I called the service number and was told that there is an outage in my area and will be informed by a robocall when service is restored.

Of course I was in the middle of a riveting and insightful post that would have surely been considered for the Bloggers equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize if I could have finished it.

I ask for the patience of my regular readers and the people who find Gort42 by accident. We hope to resume regular programming in the wee hours of tomorrow morning.

Target letters

We have been hearing that various people have been receiving "target letters" regarding the corruption investigation of the Juvie Brothers in Luzerne County.

McGruff tells us that WBRE has confirmed some of our local lawyers are expected to appear before a grand jury to answer questions on the PA Child Care matter and the expanding investigation of fixing civil suits.

And the rest of the nation and world is tuned into this story.

This revolting trade in human lives is an incentive to lock people up

When prisons jail kids for cash

And even the Chinese can condem us:

Full Text of Human Rights Record of United States in 2008

Thousands of innocent children have been put into prison by corrupt judges. According to a report of the Spanish newspaper Rebelion on February 20, 2009, among the 5,000 juvenile prisoners in Pennsylvania, an estimated 2,000 were wrongly put into prison by two bribe-taking judges. According to the report, Judge Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. and Michael T. Conahan in the Luzerne County took more than 2.6 million U.S. dollars in kickbacks to send teenagers to two private youth detention centers run by PA Child Care and a Sister company, Western PA Child Care. Most of the teenagers did not have a lawyer to turn to.


Tap of the Gavel to Luzerne County Courthouse News for the national and international links.

Home Rule meeting tonight

Meeting for GSC Candidates

Luzerne Home Rule will be holding a meeting on Tuesday March 3rd 2009 at 6:30 PM at Colarusso’s Pizza 300 Wilkes-Barre Twp Blvd, across from Wegmans, for the purpose of helping anyone that has circulated petitions to be placed on the May 19th Primary Election Ballot for the Luzerne County Home Rule Government Study Commission.


This meeting is for those candidates to have their nomination papers reviewed, and to assist in any way, to make sure their are nomination Papers are ready to be returned to the Luzerne County Bureau of Elections on March 10 2009.

It is good that they are offering help to all candidates interested in running for the Government Study Commission and abandoned the idea of endorsing a slate.

Luzerne Home Rule is now on Twitter and you can also stay updated by subscribing to the RSS feed or joining the e-mail list and text list.

I've asked PJ Best to let all the candidates know that they are welcome to write a guest post for Gort42 on why Home Rule is a good idea and why they should be on the Commission.

Luzerne County Prothonotary

Republican Walter Michell has announced that he running for Prothonotary and reelection as Mayor of the breakaway Republic of Bear Creek Village at the same time. It's always good to hedge your bets. He is backed by Republican 2008 10th CD candidate and former President of Pride Mobility Dan Meuser.


He wants to improve the prothonotary’s office, especially by making records available online. “Think how much this would reduce daily traffic in and out of the office, save users thousands of dollars in copy fees and time, and allow county employees to focus on catching up on scanning, filing and other vital tasks.” ...He said an advisory committee would also be appointed, made up of those professionals who use the office’s services most – attorneys, title searchers, paralegals and court workers – to offer advice and feedback on how things could be run better.

Former Luzerne County Prothonotary Carolee Medico Olenginski is looking to return to the office. She claims that Juvie brother Judge Michael Conahan had it in for her when she ran for reelection in 2001 and decided to run now that he is out of the picture. That didn't stop her from running in 2005. She was favorite of Fred Williams on WILK and had some disputes with the commissioners over redecorating her office and buying some filing cabinets. I remember that when she showed up for work after she was elected that the courthouse powers that be assigned her parking spot that was giant a pothole.

The only Democrat to announce so far is Attorney Gerald J. Mullery. In a news release, Mullery said his pledge to Luzerne County voters is straightforward and simple: “I will return the values of honesty, ethics and impartiality to the office of Prothonotary and I will ensure the use of technology to provide greater public access to civil records.”

Some of the other interested candidates are reported to be Republican Gina " the cat lady" Nevenglosky and Nancy Bellas, Andrew D. Check and Mark Kijek.

No word from Ann Lokuta.


What the hell is a Prothonotary?

YouTube weekend

I never thought that violins could be so much fun






André Rieu And the Johann Strauss Orchestra will be appearing at the Wachovia Arena in W-B Twp. Friday, May 15th at 8:00 p.m.

Baseball

A Grapefruit League game between our World Series Champs Phillies and the American League pennant winners Tampa Rays is on the teevee today. Ryan Howard hit a homer and both teams have used about 10 pitchers so far. The score doesn't matter because it is just good to see big league hardball and that means that spring is on the way. Kill the Goundhog

Elephants on the move

County GOP’s new leader has big plans

.

The new executive director of the Luzerne County Republican Party, Renita Fennick, thinks "people around here are mostly conservative, even if they have a D after their name. They just might not know it.” We just have to be educated. To set us straight our local R's will be bringing Karl Rove to town.

.

The fact that the county Republican party can afford a full time executive director, a permanent HQ on Public Square in Wilkes-Barre and pay Karl Rove to appear at a rubber chicken dinner shows that they have some money to spend. It looks like the big money back mountain boys that drop big bucks into national Republican campaigns but in the past have contributed to local Democrats have seen the error of their ways and are financing the local GOP. But I haven't checked the finance reports lately so they could be playing both sides of the fence like Multi-Party Bob Mericle.

.

Now that the Republican nomination is actually worth something because of the scandals in the courthouse the top dogs are planning to endorse candidates in the primary just like the Democrats. The endorsement process is necessary because of the high number of Republicans who have expressed interest in seeking the party’s nomination for county row offices, Chairman Terry Casey said.“Every day I hear of someone else who picked up petitions or who inquired about running,” Casey said. “If we have multiple candidates for the county row offices, which we expect, we will endorse. It’s a very exciting time for us.” I think that is a bad move. The local GOP has been divided into factions for a long time and an open primary with the agreement of all the candidates to unite behind the winners would be a better approach.

.

Congrats to Chairman Terry Casey on his election as the chairman of the Greater Wilkes-Barre Chamber of Business and Industry. He will be working closely with former Democratic Luzerne County Commissioner (Bond Brother) Todd Vonderheid.

.

On Thursday the party will be hosting a dog and pony show at the Republican HQ, 25 Public Square in Wilkes-Barre with Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta as the headliner. Registered Republicans running for county-level office who are seeking the party endorsement will be allotted time to address the group.

.

Maybe we can make this into a blogger meetup and go to Big Ugly's afterward.

YouTube weekend

Youtube weekend request: "Unbelievable" by EMF

It seems fitting after reading all of this.

Michelle

The Fair tax

Tonight Mrs. G came up with a good idea for funding the state government. Tax toilet paper in addition to the sales tax. Instead of picking on smokers, drinkers, etc. enact of a tax that would wipe across the whole population. You can live without many things but TP is not one of them so the revenue stream is guaranteed even in a recession. That's why we own stock in P&G.

Bad puns and bathroom humor are expected in the comments.

Update: Bottom-up environmentalism

Juvie brothers update

There are now 3 class action lawsuits on behalf of the children who were the victims of Judges Michael Conahan and Mark Ciavarella who railroaded them through the juvinile justice system. The suits says the judges and other defendants conspired to perpetrate "what ranks as one of the largest and most serious violations of children's rights in the history of the American legal system.



Luzerne County President Judge Chet Muroski confirmed that the probe involves more than the PA Child Care investigation. This thing is expanding into allegations that civil cases were being fixed.



Judges Peter Paul Olszewski and Michael Toole have been interviewed by the FBI and we wonder if their stays at the condo in Florida has any thing to do with the feds interest.

Luzerne County Prothonotary Jill Moran is playing "Lets make a Deal" claiming that some people allegedly attempted, without Moran’s "full knowledge and consent, to use Moran to facilitate frauds.” Mark Guydish in the TL doesn't buy it. Moran has always claimed to be the unintentional political puppet, not the puppeteer; the piece being played, not the player. It’s a role she took on again this week with the deal struck in the federal courthouse investigation. She didn’t commit fraud, she was used by those committing it. She is the head of the W-Cat company that was suppossed to be building houses in Mountaintop. Some of her partners were the the Juvie Brother Judges and her law partner Robert Powell plus some people that I know that are going to be hurt .


Conahan's cousin Bill Sharkey was officially fired after pleading guilty to stealing more than $70,000 of seized gambling money over 10 years. He stopped reporting to his courthouse job on Aug. 20, a day after federal agents served a subpoena on his office for records connected to money seized in illegal gambling cases. During his leave from work, Sharkey maintained possession of a county vehicle and county mobile phone. Ciavarella approved the paid leave of absence for Sharkey. Who the hell is in charge, if anyone, of keeping track of county vehicles?

Conahan's brother in law millionaire psychologist Dr. Frank Vita and forger Sandra M. Brulo are also in trouble.

Paycheck

I picked this up from an old Mike McGlynn column.

One of the reforms adopted recently is requiring county employees to show up at the courthouse on payday to pick up their checks. Many county workers considered this a brazen affront to their integrity, or, lack thereof. As one story goes, a veteran no-show county employee from up Pittston way was furious when his neighbor, of similar employ, told him they now would have to be at the courthouse in person to be paid. The angry man became even angrier when he went to the courthouse the next payday and was told his name did not appear on the county payroll. Muttering dark oaths against his political patrons, he returned home empty-handed. Subsequently, he learned he was to have reported to the courthouse in Wilkes-Barre -- not the courthouse in Scranton.

Luzerne County Controller

PHOTO BY FRED ADAMS/THE TIMES LEADER

Nanda Palissery (left) kicked off his candidacy on Tuesday for Luzerne County controller at Luzerne County Republican Headquarters on Public Square. Palissery said “For too long, there has been a Democrat culture of corruption in the courthouse. Enough is enough.” He is a lawyer that focuses on criminal defense and civil litigation and ran for Judge a few years ago. I understand that Palissery is the favorite to win the endorsement of the county GOP in the primary.

Another Republican also announced her intention to seek the office. Alice B. Coffman has worked as a certified public accountant for the last 16 years. “I am very disheartened by the inappropriate behavior recently uncovered within our local government,” Coffman said in a statement. “The citizens of Luzerne County have the right to expect the highest level of professional conduct from their elected officials.” Wow, a CPA with plan to audit various county programs if elected. She wants to “implement and enforce internal control procedures to deter future misconduct and wasteful spending." So far she is the only candidate for this accountant's job that is a professional accountant. We can't have that, can we?


Our friend Walter Griffith will formally announce his bid for the Controller's job today at the Luzerne County Republican Headquarters, 25 Public Square, Wilkes-Barre at 6PM. He previously let us know that he is running for the post. And in the Department of 'if you live long enough' Wilkes-Barre Online is backing him.

On the Democratic side longtime party insider Bob Morgan is seeking the post as is Pittston landscaper Tony Rostock. Rostock was a former Pittston Area School Board member and Yatesville councilman and got a sweet deal at LCCC. Morgan is an investment advisor and it would be great if he could offer some advise on how to make up my 401k losses over the last 2 years. Educator Russ Bigus is also in the race.

What we are famous for

Yesterday I was interviewed by Tom-Jan Meeus who is the Washington correspondent for the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsplad about the Ciavarella/Conahan scheme to lock up kids for cash. The Juvie Brothers. I'm not sure why people in Holland would be interested in this sordid affair but I'll talk with anyone about politics. He said this case fascinates him and he stumbled across this humble blog while researching the story.

He asked if I thought if any reforms would be made to our system of selecting Judges or if a debate was going on about the outsourcing of government functions that made this possible. I'm sorry to say I that don't see any structural reforms on the horizon. He wanted to know if I considered myself a cynic and I replied it's hard not to be but a better term would be that I'm a realist.

In a discussion with some friends we recounted what this area has been famous for over the years and the list is not good. The collapse of the coal industry, Hurricane Agnes, mass murderer George Banks, the Hugo Selenski escape and the kid that was living in someone's attic for a week were some of the things that came to mind.

CNN: Pennsylvania rocked by 'jailing kids for cash' scandal

The President speaks to Congress

After 8 long years it's great to able to utter the phrase "The President" instead of the present occupant of the White House. I took off early from work to hear him tell us things are tough but we will emerge better than ever ala saint Ronny. In the response Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal sounded down right stupid when he cited the response to Hurricane Katrina as a highlight.

Some of my favorite lines:

"Dropping out of high school is no longer an option. It’s not just quitting on yourself, it’s quitting on your country."

"There is no program or policy that can substitute for a mother or father."

"For seven years, we have been a nation at war. No longer will we hide its price."

"Living our values doesn’t make us weaker, it makes us safer and it makes us stronger. And that is why I can stand here tonight and say without exception or equivocation that the United States of America does not torture."

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Some reaction.

From Congressman Chris Carney

“Tonight the President laid out his comprehensive approach to addressing the economic crisis facing our country. I appreciated his optimism and his candor—the President was honest about the challenges we face as a nation—but it is critical at this juncture that we remain disciplined and responsible when spending the taxpayers’ hard earned money.

“I met with the President at the White House two weeks ago to talk about the importance of fiscal responsibility and a budget that adheres to those principles.

Tonight, the President outlined his bold vision for a Financial Stability Plan with oversight and accountability. This plan is designed not to help banks, but to help people. It creates a guarantee that taxpayer money is safe, that our banks start lending and that if they do receive taxpayer funds, they will not be allowed to use them for their own perks. The oversight is a strong step in the right direction, but our spending must be curtailed so we do not continue passing debt onto our grandchildren.

“I remain concerned with the President’s housing plan. I represent a district where over 98% of people pay their mortgages on time. Northeast and central Pennsylvania is made up of hardworking, responsible people who did not fall prey to the greed and corruption we have seen dismantling our financial institutions on Wall Street.

Congressman Paul Kanjorski

“I applaud President Obama for speaking candidly to the American public about the difficult economic situation we now face. He has set significant goals for himself, the Congress, and the American people as he addressed new policies in dealing with the economy, the national budget, and our actions abroad. These are not light topics and the President has stated that he intends to deal with all of them simultaneously. But, it is this type of thoughtful and assertive thinking that will help move this country forward and take us out of the troubled situation in which we find ourselves.

“As the President stressed, we must come together for the sake of every American. Partisanship is not an option. While we may disagree, we must try to move past these obstacles. Our primary responsibility is helping every American recover from the economic crisis, and as a result boosting our nation’s economy.

Just since President Obama was sworn into office, we have already taken momentous steps towards such progress. While there is certainly room for improvement, President Obama has shown a distinct willingness to turn this country around.

“As we work to turn the tide on our economic problems, we must also work to ensure that a financial crisis of this magnitude does not happen again. The President stressed the need to pursue regulatory reforms of the financial services industry, and I strongly support this idea. I have long stressed the need for comprehensive regulatory reform, and I have already held two hearings this year to highlight why the Congress must expeditiously address this issue in the 111th Congress. I applaud President Obama for also recognizing the importance of this issue.

“As I have continued to stress, fixing our economy will not happen overnight, but I have faith that we will emerge from these tough times stronger than ever.”