City Beat

City Beat

By George Murin
The Weekly Recorder
April 4, 2008

Washington- Last Thursday’s (March 27th) agenda meeting had some interesting moments. A discussion took place of the city annexing the property it owns next to the park, which is in South Strabane Township. The idea is a great move. The access to this property is only available through the city’s park right now and to have South Strabane’s Police patrol this area does not make much sense. The city wants to develop this property to increase its tax base and is in a much better position to do this. The park and the school need a second exit for emergencies and events like the 4th of July and Pony League World Series. The city’s solicitor stated at the meeting that it will take at least six month for this to take place but doesn’t see any real problems for this to happen because the city owns 100% of the property it wants to annex.

The sale of a portion Strawberry Alley to Washington and Jefferson College was also brought up. The first reading of this will take place at the April 3rd’s regular city council meeting. The sale price is going to be around $102,500. Terry Faust wanted to hold a public hearing on the matter before the sale. This reporter found out that this is because reportedly council originally wanted a $100 per student fee for city services to be attached to the sale, which would bring into the city $100,000 plus every year instead of a one time revenue source and a $50 fee for each semester is a very reasonable amount for each student who pays $25,000 a year or more for their education. The college allegedly objected to this and most of council backed down. It seems to me to be a great idea. The college is an asset to the city but it is also a leech, a blood sucking institution, taking huge amounts of property off the tax roles and putting the burden and expense of city government on fewer and fewer city residents. The college needs to do a better job to support the community it resides in and a small fee is not hardship on the school or its students.

The city’s solicitor made a statement during the meeting that his remarks on March 6th warning council members about putting thing that they might not want public in e-mails was just a precautionary warning and that it had nothing or no one specific in mind.

This is probably true but Councilwoman Virginia Ullom face showed an expression of such concern, while he was talking, that I made a note of it during the meeting to ask around if she sent an e-mail that was a concern to her. I got it right. She did send an e-mail that she said, “… got into the hands of a local citizen.” She was very defensive of her e-mail and stated flatly, “I will not send any of you (council) an e-mail again…I’ll do things by memo, I send an e-mail on our executive session discussing private employees, who I said nothing negative about them…it went to three people…I did not send one to Matt (Staniszewski) because he was not there…there are two people sitting on this council (Blackhurst & Faust) who I’m wondering which one gave that resident a copy of that e-mail that was confidential….I will never, never e-mail again…until I find out which person breached that (trust).”

Virginia then turned her ire towards this reporter. She said,” A local tabloid said that when Lane (the city’s solicitor) warned us about this, a council person’s face went white. MY FACE NEVER GOES WHITE, BECAUSE I NEVER DO ANYTHING WRONG. And it also mentioned an employee in here, in our city, that was going to get fired. I can’t fire anybody and I never mentioned firing a person. So I take offense to that.”

The next council meeting was April 3rd and I’ll be reporting on that next week.

Editors note: Mrs. Ullom should have learned by now that anything put in print, can and will be brought into the light. Maybe she should not be discussing employees of the city in emails.

As always it is our pleasure to bring to light the truth, even when it is not what our leaders want to be known.