by Peter Panepento
While you were out grilling hot dogs, watching fireworks, and enjoying the sunny holiday weekend, the world did not stop.
It might have slowed down a bit. But it certainly didn’t stop.
Here’s what you might have missed:
1. A comprehensive list of the board members of Erie authorities, business groups, and nonprofit organizations. We hope this page becomes a community resource (and is one that the GlobalErie community helps to keep updated).
2. A new blog. Say hello to Rob McGahen and The Spirit of Erie.
3. Some great new pictures of Erie courtesy of Ian Enterline, who brought his camera along for a long trip to his hometown. Ashley Weber also made visit home and offered her own account of the trip.
4. Rebecca Styn’s update on what Erie radio personality Capt. Dan Geary is doing these days.
5. An interesting question by Dale Hannah about plea bargains and public officials.
6. A heated debate about Erie Renewable Energy’s plan to build a tire burning plant on Erie’s east side and a link to the company’s emissions report.
Happy reading.
After more than six years working as a journalist in Erie, I'm now the web editor for the Chronicle of Philanthropy in Washington, D.C., and the publisher of GlobalErie.com. I still maintain close ties to Erie - a community that I care about deeply. I hope this Web site can help inspire a better future for Erie.
Jim
July 7th, 2008 at 11:51 am
This is a valuable resource. An additional resource would be to post current Erie County property tax rates by municipality, showing the county, municipal, school district and total obligation by municipality. Erie Blogs posted a chart a year ago, and I know of several people who printed it off, and referred to it regularly, including myself. I have not seen a list with this years rates yet.
Peter Panepento
July 7th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
Great suggestion, Jim. I’ll look into it and see what’s possible.
Erie BlogWatch
July 7th, 2008 at 3:03 pm
This may be a good model for what Jim suggests (and lots of other info for that area to be found there as well) …..
http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=DATA
It’s from the website of the Asbury Park NJ Press (a Gannett newspaper).
Clearly a very ambitious undertaking for any individual to prepare & maintain something on this scale but a potentially useful source of ideas and examples nonetheless.
Publius
July 7th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
Speaking of the Tires-To_Energy Plant — I just read all the comments on that post, and went back to read again the news release published by the Housing Authority at http://www.hace.org.
I made the comment below on your original post, Peter, but I’m repeating it here because your readers seem to have moved on.
——-
There’s one point everyone is missing — including Erie’s news media, which ignored the issue completely — and that is the fact that this tire plant is going to be situated in the midst of low-income people and people of color when it would not be allowed to be placed anywhere else.
If you read the Authority’s news release it says:
—
“The Authority will also file formal complaints with the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regarding what it sees as a clear case of environmental justice because the plant’s location will disproportionately impact low-income Erie residents and people of color.
“If you read the application to DEP prepared by the developers (http://www.stopburningtires.com/resources.html) the plant will be a Title V major polluter that will emit a staggering amount of pollutants, including heavy metals and carcinogens, which will fall on low-income neighborhoods,” said Horan. “This is a pure and simple question of environmental justice,” he said.
“In their own application, they identify the plant as a major polluter. That’s all we have to know, folks,” he added.
Bishop Dwane Brock, Authority Treasurer, called the plans for the Tires-to energy plant “a travesty.”
“I don’t understand how this plant even became a consideration,” Brock said, referring to the planned placement of the plant on Erie’s East Side. “Just because people are low income does not mean they are low in value.”‘
—
Why is everyone ignoring the issue of social justice? That is why the Authority is getting involved in this thing, as you’ll see if you read the news release.
I’d bet, Heavy D, that if Authority residents were somehow forced to eat foods that gave them salmonella, the Authority would indeed take a stand on that.
Again, you’d never see this tire plant proposed for a white middle-class neighborhood in Erie County.
All here who live in the area where the tire plant is being built, list your names or aliases. No? None of you do? What? You’re all white middle/upper class folks? Gee, that’s a surprise. And that’s the point.