Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Pine-Richland School Board Elections

While I haven't heard much about who might be running for Pine-Richland School Board this year, I have been outspoken about my frustration with the tax increase that the all REPUBLICAN school board voted for last year. I would like to see some sort of interest in these races, but it has been very quiet.

Here are school board seats that are up for election in 2011.

Region 1 (Pine Twp. 1, 4, 5, 7, & 8 - 2 Seats):

Therese Dawson
Kevin Nigh*

Region 2 (Pine Twp. 2, 3, 6 & Richland Twp. 1, 2, 7, 8 - 1 Seat):

Scott Stedeford*

Region 3 (Richland Twp. 3, 4, 5, &6 - 2 Seats):

Aafke Loney*
A. Robert Necciai*

*Voted for the property tax increase

The Pine-Richland School District Board of School Directors adopted a modified regional plan for the election of school directors. This plan was presented to the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas and approved. The realignment is designed to more accurately reflect the changing populations in the Pine and Richland Townships and to equalize the three regions. Each of the three regions elects three school directors to the Board.

The former arrangement grouped all of the Pine Township into Region #1. Region #2 is the western portion of Richland Township, and Region #3 is the eastern portion of Richland Township. Pine has been growing rapidly since the present arrangement was put into place and the population gap between the two municipalities has narrowed.

Under the new realignment plan, the Board expanded Region #2 and added to it three electoral districts from Pine. The plan encompass portions of both townships and involves electing.

Monday, December 20, 2010

Turzai double dipping taxpayers

One of the hardest thing about using the media to grandstand like Rep. Turzai has since his first failed run for Congress in 1998, is it can often times be hard to not contradict yourself.

CasablancaPA is a blog that doesn't even try to pretend to be objective, but they still usually have some interesting facts that they bring to the table. Their newest post points out how much Turzai has collected in Per Diems while having taxpayers foot the bill for meals. I suggest you check out the BLOG for yourself to see all the hypocrisy that Turzai is involved in.

I also would like to point out some other hypocritical things that Turzai has been involved in:

He has railed against WAM money, then sent a political mailer that said "Thanks a million" as he bragged about all the WAM money he has brought back to the district.

He has labeled any tax plan that Democrats have introduced as tax shifts, yet he proposed a tax shift in 2006 that would have raised sales tax in Allegheny County to at least 8%.

He loves to say that he voted against the payraise because elected officials shouldn't benefit from the taxpayers. However, Rep. Turzai's wife owns a large medical practice in the North Hills. Turzai fights for medical malpractice subsidies that have most likely put more money in his family's pocket than any payraise.

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

2 Political Junkies: Tales Of Tea Party Texas

2 Political Junkies: Tales Of Tea Party Texas: "- The Intolerant, Bigoted 'Christian' Part. From Thinkprogress:Last month, several Tea Party activists formed a right-wing coalition to ous..."

Credit where credit is due

New construction allows Pine to hold line on taxes

New construction in Pine has allowed supervisors to hold the line on taxes for the eighth year.

Supervisors Monday night unanimously approved the $11.8 million budget for 2011. The tax rate will remain at 1.2 mills.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10341/1108846-100.stm#ixzz17UVm1Hz1

Many of you know I was upset that our all Conservative Republican School District in Pine-Richland raised taxes, but the municipal officials in our area have generally done a good job of keeping the tax rate down. We'll see if Richland Township can hold their tax rate this year with their now very conservative Board of Supervisors.