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Nazareth, Pa., United States

Sunday, March 04, 2007

State Elections Official Finally Speaks, But Not to Norco Citizens' Elections Panel

Northampton County voting registrar Deborah DePaul says many things. Just last week, she claimed the Department of State will only speak through her. That's why the state won't return repeated calls from the elections panel or county administrators. I see.

Yet when I looked at the Sunday Morning Call, I learned that the state's election maven, Harry VanSickle, recently spoke to The Morning Call editorial board. "He's got a story to tell, with some details until now untold, it seems, to many in the county." Well, yeah. That's why the panel has formally demanded answers.

One little secret is that, last time we voted, we used a software design the state never approved. Shhh! Another reassuring detail is that, if anyone challenges the voting machine hardware, all bets are off. The editorial incredulously concludes, "Much work lies ahead. But now there is reason to better trust county election results."

Huh? That's like saying that George Bush's disastrous Iraq record is reason to trust him with more troops.

5 comments:

Chris Casey said...

Geez Bernie, just when I go and compliment the MCall for the Macungie coverage, you have to go and put them up as most likely to be a Local print media version of the Fox news Channel!
I love ya man!

Bernie O'Hare said...

The Morning Call is a good paper with great reporters. I just don't know how it reached that conclusion. Maybe it was being sarcastic, in which case it went right over my head.

Anonymous said...

Harry VanSickle is another Morning Call john, just as former New Jersey Governor Jim Florio and law partner of the Garden State law firm of Perrucci, Florio, Steinhardt, and Fader is a client of The Newark Star-Ledger.

When the Star-Ledger reporter who covers land-use issues, Steven wrote an unflattering story about Perrucci and Florio re the Highlands Act, the former governor demanded a meeting with the paper's editorial board to refute Chambers' story - and to demand that the paper cease and desist from publishing any more unflattering articles about the relationship between the Act and his law firm.

The HIghland's Act, which in its current form would preserve more than three-quarters of a million acres in Warren, Hunterdon, and five other northwestern New Jersey counties would destroy whatever open space remains in Monroe, Northampton, and Bucks counties.

The proposed Marshfield-Ashley housing development in Upper Mount Bethel Township is a warning of what will happen if residential housing development in Lower Mount Bethel Township is not curbed through the proposed 90/10 zoning amendment or similar relief.

Anonymous said...

Dear Mr. Givens,

Do yourself a favor or have someone else call the Northampton County Area Agency on Aging. Their phone number is 610-559-3245 or toll free 800-322-9269. I am beginning to think you are in the final stages of dementia. I am serious. You need assistance and help.

Anonymous said...

Anon. 2:54

The Northampton County Agency on Aging is the least likely bureaucracy I would call for help:

This is the agency whose officials colluding with the county's executive branch and court of common pleas, and with court and law-enforcement officials in Phillipsburg, New Jersey, abducted and imprisoned Plainfield Township octogenarian Anna Mae Kessler in the Williams Manor assisted-living facillity at 164 Baron Road in Bushkill Township.

Ironically, the person who led Anna Mae's niece, Phillipsburg resident Serena Nelson, and me to Anna Mae's place of incarceration was a fellow Plainfield Township resident, when Anna Mae still lived at 574 Easton Road.

That person was the one I saw only a few minutes ago on WFMZ-69 TV, Plainfield Township K-9 police officer Christopher Young, who admitted to charges of sex with a minor and falification of documents related to his employment.

He happened to be chatting with fellow officers and an attorney outside the district justice's office in Wind Gap, where I had gone seeking Anna Mae's whereabouts, which that office did not know.

As I was about to enter my car and leave the parking lot, I saw the group of officers and sought their advice.

Officer Young told me to file an official form titled "Welfare Check" and the police would locate her.

Another policeman told me that in all probability I would find Anna Mae committed to an assisted-living facility.

Because of the publicity Anna Mae's plight has received, other distraught persons have contacted me about other aged family members and loved ones committed against their will and sought my help.

The latest of these is Diane Kays, famed Warren County environmentalist Casey Kays' niece, whose grandmother, Alice Kays Kitchen, is committed to a nursing home in Bangor, New Jersey.

Both Anna Mae and Alice are being held under cruel and inhumane circumstances.