Welch Quits 6th District Race

Chester County businessman Steven Welch announced this morning that he is ending his quest to represent Pennsylvania’s 6th District in Congress preventing what could have been a costly primary battle with incumbent Jim Gerlach.

Gerlach said last year he was going to seek a move to the Governor’s Mansion rather than re-election to Congress, causing several strong candidates to put their hats in the ring for the GOP primary. Gerlach ended the gubernatorial bid Jan. 7. The next day he announced he was going to try to keep his House seat.

State Rep. Curt Schroder (R-155) left the field, Jan. 11, so with Welch’s announcement the most dangerous primary challengers to Gerlach are out of the game.

The gerrymanded 6th District 
includes Lower Merion in Montgomery County, Coatesville and Yellow Springs in
Chester County, a large part of Berks County and part of Lehigh County.

Kudos to Pa2010.Com for the tip.

Singel Seeks Murtha Seat

Former Lt. Gov. Mark Singel has announced that he will seek the 12th District Pennsylvania congressional seat left vacant by the Feb. 8 death of fellow Democrat John Murtha.

A special election will be held, May 18, the same day as the primary election, to fill the remaining months of Murtha’s term. An election for a fresh term will occur in November.

Singel represented the 35th District in the state senate from 1981-87, before becoming being elected lieutenant governor with Gov. Bob Casey. He wasacting governor for six months in 1993.

Ron Mackell Jr. and 34-year-old Ryan Bucchianeri  had announced primary challenges to Murtha. With the congressman’s death former state Treasurer Barbera Hafer has also expressed interest in the seat. Another possible candidate is Murtha’s widow, Joyce.

The leading contender for the GOP nomination is Bill Russell, who was Murtha’s opposition in 2008.  GOP activist Dave Battaglia  and businessman Tim Burns were also GOP primary candidates.

I’ve met Singel. Somehow, the subject of economist Milton Friedman came up. Singel seemed confused as to who he was then dismissed him saying something akin to “he’s from the 60s”.

Teacher Salaries Listed For Pa. And N.J.

 

The oppressed masses in the Rose Tree Media Education Association — the union the covers teachers, school nurses and guidance counselors in the Rose Tree Media School District — voted to strike Wednesday.

Obviously, the working conditions in the district must be horrible for these caring professionals to take the drastic step of harming a child’s education.

And they are! Consider the plight of Springton Lake Middle School physical education teacher Stephen Adams. His salary was $87,329 in 2009. And that was for 195 days grueling days of teaching gym class. Granted, he also gets benefits but can’t you understand why he might have to vote to hurt a child with working conditions such as that?

Or consider Indian Lane Elementary School teacher David Woods. He  made a mere $95,817  in 2009. I weep for these people.

BTW, this link can give you the salaries of just about every public school teacher in Pennsylvania.

This one can give you the salaries of just about every public school teacher in New Jersey.

Airport Screenings By F-Troop

F-Troop — I mean the Transportation Security Administration — sprang into action, Monday, after a passenger was flagged for having suspicious objects in his carry-on at Newark Liberty International Airport a.k.a Fort Courage.

Agents quickly apprehended a person, unfortunately the person was not the person flagged.

Parts of TerminalA were closed for over an hour as agents looked for the passenger.

He was never found.

After the search, a heavy TSA agent was seen smacking a skinny TSA agent with his hat and heard shouting “Gilligan”.

Lower Merion Spied On Students Via Laptop

Lower Merion Spied On Students Via Laptop
Blake Robbins being watched at home.

Lower Merion Spied On Students Via Laptop — A federal class action lawsuit was filed Feb. 16  alleging that Lower Merion School District used the webcams in the laptops distributed to students to spy on them in their homes.

The case, Robbins v Lower Merion School District,  is being heard in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

The suit was filed by Michael E. and Holly S. Robbins on behalf of their son Blake, a student at Harriton High School, and the 1,800 or so other students at Harriton and  Lower Merion, the district’s other high school.

The suit  seeks damages caused by school district’s alleged invasion of privacy, theft of private information, and unlawful interception of electronic communications, and alleges the district broke numerous  state and federal laws including the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, the Pennsylvania Wiretapping and Electronic Surveillance Act, along with the defendants’ Fourth Amendment Rights.

Lower Merion distributed the laptops to each high school student. Unbeknown to the students and the parents, the school district had the ability to remotely, and at anytime, activate the embedded webcam capturing the images in front of the camera.

The Robbins learned about this ability Nov. 9  when Harriton Assistant Principal Lindy Matsko told them that Blake was engaged in improper behavior in his home and presented as evidence a photograph taken via the webcam from the laptop the school gave Blake.

The suit doesn’t say what exactly Blake was doing but whatever it was it was not as bad as public officials stomping over duly passed laws.

The case is being handled by the law firm of Lamm Rubenstone LLC of Trevose, Pa. They can be reached at 1-215-638-9330. They were contacted and confirmed the filing of the suit.

 

Lower Merion Spied On Students Via Laptop

Cut Pennsylvania Legislature Size?

It seems a crusade is trying to be started to cut the size of the Pennsylvania state legislature to make it more like California, a significantly larger state in terms of geography and population which has 120 legislators compared to Pennsylvania’s 253 and which spends less on legislative salaries than Pa. Cut Pennsylvania Legislature Size?

Of course, as poorly as Pennsylvania is run I’m not so sure we would want to trade places with the not-so-anymore Golden State.

And why would we want to give up representation? It sounds more like a ploy to increase the influence of city machines, such as that of Philadelphia, than to save money.

So why not a crusade to go the other direction — increase the size of the legislature yet cut the salaries and benefits. For instance, New Hampshire, a significantly smaller state than Pa in terms of geography and population has 424 legislators but pays them just $200 for a two year term.

Of course, we don’t have to go that far. We can keep the size of the legislature as is and simply cut salaries.

The base pay for legislators is about $78,000. This doesn’t includes bennies, of course, and committee chairmen and party leaders and such get more.

So how about this:  Change the pay scale to $1,000 per day for the month of February. There would be no benefits, of course, but $28,000 — or $29,000 I don’t oppose the extra grand for leap years — is  still pretty sweet, and ending bennies would have the educational effect of making our servants understand what we must go through when funding retirements and buying health insurance.

The would be no per diem to cover expense, but a hotel near the Capitol would be rented at taxpayer expense to provide free rooms — two per room with the roommates being of opposing parties where possible. Breakfast and dinner buffets akin to those available to dormers at our state colleges would also be provided at taxpayer expense.

Missing votes will result in a loss of the day’s pay.

If the legislative business should be required to go beyond February, our servants will still get the free room and board but the pay scale would drop to $50 per day.

An interesting experiment might be mandating the rooming at the hotel while encouraging the legislators to exercise their Second Amendment rights to personal protection.

Regardless, in no way do we want to be like California.

 Cut Pennsylvania Legislature Size?

Maybe I Was Wrong About St. Joe’s

Maybe the ire of the parishioners of Saint Joseph should be directed at the Philadelphia Archdiocese regarding the closing of their school.

The Delaware County Daily Times’ Gil Spencer has a column today in which members of the parish indicate the pastor to be a real piece of work.

Check the comments after the column.

4 Staffers Leave Sestak

Important cogs of Congressman Joe Sestak’s (D-7) Senate campaign have come off the wheel according to Pa2010.com.

Sestak is challenging incumbent and former Republican Arlen Specter in the May 18 Primary Election.

Political Director Rich Culbert and press operative Garry Ritterstein left soon after the  Democratic State Committee, Feb. 7, endorsed  Specter over Admiral Joe.

Others who left  were Jason Henry, who was effectively the campaign’s political
director for western Pennsylvania who took his leave in mid-January and Andrew Blum of volunteer operations who left in late January.

Parochial School Parents’ Ire Aimed At Wrong Target

The parishioners of Saint Joseph Church in Collingdale, Pa. are outraged over plans by the Archdiocese of Philadelphia to close the venerable parochial school on Woodlawn Avenue. The protesters include the police chief and a retired district justice.

The anger is misdirected. Do they really think the Archdiocese wants to close the school? If the money isn’t coming in from tuition or other sources how do they expect the school to stay open. Do they expect the teachers to work for nothing?

Anger is warranted, however, and there is a villain but it’s not on North 17th Street downtown but 60 miles to west and it sits in the State Capitol.

If less money was wasted on our public schools — hey people of Collingdale how do you like that Southeast Delco School District? — people would have more money to spend on the schools the prefer.

The money can be found in different ways. The boldest and probably best would be for the state to collect the taxes now going to the public schools and give it back to the parents so they can send their children to the schools they think best fit their needs.

Or one can consider a less drastic plan to give school boards the power they had before the 1970s to fire striking teachers which would prevent the hostage-holding that gives the educational union members 4 percent or so annual raises regardless of what the rest of the economy is doing. Combine that with eliminating prevailing wage laws and other gouging by the politically connected classes and an noticeable increase in disposable income will occur.

The ones who should be getting an earful from the people of Collingdale are its servants in Harrisburg namely State Rep. Nick Miccarelli (R-162) whose office is 605 E. Chester Pike, Ridley Park, Pa. and who can be reached at 610-534-1002; and Senator Anthony H.Williams (D-8) who has an office at 419 Church Lane in Yeadon and can be reached at 610-284-7335.
 

Wally Nunn For Governor

Former Delaware County Council Chairman Wally Nunn had this column in yesterday’s (Feb. 11) Philadelphia Inquirer in which he points out that “downsizing” is a word you never hear in Harrisburg and our elected officials ought to start using it.

 
He notes that of the of  the 5.6 million people working in Pennsylvania, 753,000 are government workers and that while more than 10 percent of the private workforce has found itself unemployed with the Obama recession virtually none of the government workers have.

Nunn notes that the state employs the equivalent of 160,000 full-time employees making more than $8 billion a year in salaries, and that there are 195,000 employed in teaching elementary and secondary school, making more than $10 billion. 

This is all sans benefits and pensions, of course.

Wally Nunn for governor.

 

Meanwhile, over in New Jersey, it looks like Gov. Chris Christie gets it.

Wally Nunn For Governor

Wally Nunn For Governor