Local News
UPDATE: Visit raises Tea Party-GOP tensions
MERCER COUNTY — A congressional candidate’s meet-and-greet Thursday night highlighted some of the tensions between Tea Party activists and the Republican Party leaders.
About 18 people popped in at Panera Bread, Hermitage, to hear what Clayton W. Grabb had to say. He’s one of the half dozen Republican hopefuls for the 3rd District Congressional seat, held by U.S. Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper, Erie, D-3rd District.
Grabb made a bread-and-butter conservative address calling for cutting government programs, growing jobs through tax cuts, and opposing health care reform efforts by Democrats. A participant in several Tea Party events, Grabb promised to bring conservative values back to the Republican Party.
David O. King, Mercer County’s Republican party chair, took issue with that. He said he’s been active locally for 20 years and wasn’t aware their values had changed. He also asked why more Tea Party activists can’t swing by the Republican headquarters in Mercer.
Grabb initially said that Republicans had swung too far toward the center, which King said he “doesn’t believe.”
Several members of the audience, who said they attended Tea Party rallies, took issue with that. They cited the 2008 presidential run of Sen. John McCain and last year’s House race in New York in which party leaders chose liberal Dede Scozzafova as their nominee. Conservative opposition to that choice sunk Scozzafova’s campaign and highlighted the gulf between party leaders and rank-and-file voters.
Grabb cited those candidates and Arlen Specter as failures of the national leadership to select conservative Republican candidates.
King seemed to get along with that statement more, and he added that anyone interested in coming by would be welcomed at county party headquarters.
King made appearances at Grabb’s meet-and-greet and a campaign announcement earlier Thursday by Mike Kelly, a Butler car dealership owner who kicked off his campaign in Mercer County at Beans on Broad in Grove City.
King said the local Republican leaders plans to let the primary play out among the various candidates. They plan to get behind whoever wins.
The six Republicans who have announced plans to run so far have all sounded off on similar issues. All of them come from private enterprises, and none have much prior political experience, with the exception of Kelly serving on a school board and Butler city council.
Involved in business, sales, health care, and insurance, the candidates come overwhelmingly from the private sector, many still putting the spit and polish on their campaigns.
They’ve come out in stern opposition to high deficits, and most have struck a populist stance of sending fresh, citizen-politicians to Washington. Grabb, for instance, called Thursday for term limits and restrictions on all money and gifts from lobbyists.
He cited rules in his own sales profession that prevent him from leaving a “10-cent pen” behind or taking his clients out to dinners. He said Washington, D.C., has to play by the same rules.
Besides Kelly and Grabb, the declared candidates are: Steven M. Fisher, 52, Cochranton, a health insurance salesman; Ed Franz, 48, Conneautville, an hourly worker at the General Electric plant in Erie; Dr. Tom Trevorrow, an Erie ophthalmologist; and Paul Huber, a Meadville businessman.
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Storm damages trees, wires
Thunderstorms ripped through parts of Mercer and neighboring counties Wednesday night, downing trees and wires and keeping rescue workers on their toes.
A Mercer County 911 dispatcher shortly after 8 p.m. said they were busy with calls across the northern part of the county. He said there had been a few reports of trees falling on homes.
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City leaders open to talks
Sharon officials aren’t opposed to sitting down with their counterparts in Farrell to revisit the idea of combining the two struggling cities.
“It never costs a penny to talk and there’s no (idea) that’s not worth looking at,” Sharon councilman Ed Palanski said. “I think it would be foolish to oppose looking at the idea.”
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Murphy’s Law doesn’t faze regional planners
A complicated, two-day public meeting blitz in 32 counties ran headlong into Murphy’s Law in Mercer County on Tuesday.
The group Power of 32 are looking to re-write the regional map and create a grand, 15-year strategic economic plan for the 32 counties in four states that make up the Ohio River basin and greater Pittsburgh area.
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Forrest Brooke copes with water outage
Residents of Forrest Brooke Mobile Home Community in Jefferson and Lackawannock Townships woke up Tuesday morning to find they didn’t have any water.
Managers of the park could not be reached for comment, but residents said they were told they won’t get water service back for at least another month.
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City facing bleak financial reality
LaVon Saternow has been Farrell’s city manager since 1992. Shortly after she took the job, Sharon Steel, the city’s economic engine, officially closed down.
Since, the city has struggled to remain solvent and Mrs. Saternow said it is facing its worst financial crisis in her tenure.
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Near-complete addition to let man come home
Although the weather delayed the start of Penny and Paul Strechansky’s construction project by about three weeks, the end of the sawing, hammering and stapling is in sight.
“It should be done by the middle of next week,” Strechansky said of the 15-by-20 foot addition being built onto the back of his garage in Hermitage, which will be the new home of his grandson, David Johnson.
Johnson was critically injured in a car crash June 19, 2009, on what is now Interstate 376 in Lawrence County. The crash rendered Johnson, who just turned 21, blind and brain damaged. He is unable to care for himself.
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Man prison-bound for role in drug buy shooting
It may never be known for certain who fired the two fatal shots that killed a Sharon teen on Nov. 6 on Wallis Avenue during a botched drug deal, prosecutors have said.
But Christopher Swogger, 24, Sharon, was fingered by at least one other suspect as the one whose bullets killed John B. Hosey III, 18, of 422 Meek St. Swogger was sentenced Monday.
Swogger was sent to prison for 1 1/2 to 3 years for having a firearm without a license, ending his role in the criminal prosecutions of the drug deal turned shooting.
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Farrell, Sharon to revisit merger
Times are tough.
In Farrell Monday night, city council heard a grim financial report from City Manager LaVon Saternow.
“It’s not a pretty picture,” Mrs. Saternow said. “We could conceivably run out of cash by the end of the year. I don’t know how to put it more bluntly.”
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Storm takes a toll on village green
Cleanup crews were clearing fallen trees throughout Brookfield Township well into Sunday evening in the aftermath of severe thunderstorm that ripped through the community Saturday before making it’s way to Mercer County.
On the Historic Brookfield Green more than a dozen trees were knocked down by the storm. Several people who lived there watched workers clear fallen branches from the road and their yards Sunday afternoon.
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History comes alive at festival
The ground shook Saturday morning at Pymatuning State Park as men dressed as Union soldiers from the Civil War shot off two cannons. Their rumble could be heard reverberating throughout the park.
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Storm damages trees, wires
