City Council TABLED Bocce Court as the ONLY 1st Ward School Voting Poll tonight!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
andreahaxton
What are we going to do about the 1 polling place in each Ward thing they concocted to keep the votes slanted toward the family and friends club?!?
It worked good for them on the Truman Bond VOTE when less than 1000 folks total came out. They even had appr. 100 yes votes in affidavit's to round out the suppression of voter turnout. Very cute, club.:rolleyes:
The First Ward Bocce Club is very isolated and the walkers will have a real hard time getting over here along the Turnpike. Especially the senior citizens.
So folks, we can assume will stay home, and the family and friends will drive their slanted/controlled voters over to plunk them.
WAKE-UP! WAKE-UP! WAKE-UP!
April 17, 2012 Board Mtg. to "Adopt Lackawanna School Budget 2012/13' by the Board.
Work Session on April 23, 2012 at 6pm Mckinley School.
*** Lackawanna School Budget COPY can be picked up on April 25, 2012.
School Board public meeting April 25, 2012 at 7pm at Martin Road.
Na Na Na Na- Na!
Good job City Council....even the school employee one questioned it at length!
Told you it was to suppress the First Ward Voters from casting their votes! City Council TABLED the sole use of the ISOLATED Beth Park Bocce Court and asked why St. Anthony's Or Yemen Hall is not included due to demographics(my word).
I guess there is a LSD Board mtg tomorrow to discuss the risen situation......
Anyone know where and what time? Is it on their WEB as the LAW states it should be?!?
Voter suppression.....did someone say Al Sharpton?!? This is really a BIGGIE folks!
Who else is running for Trustee? Maybe this is where my forte' is.......at least I will be fair, and NO shenanigan's! I started out in 1995 and had my first taste of poli-tricks......BTW.......it was the same year you-know-who ran against me and has been in control of his Fiefdom ever since!:rolleyes: If elected again he will have 20 years in as.........one of the famous "Lackawanna-ins who led OUR LA School Systems to.......fill in the blank.
5 PM Tonight......McKinley School on South Shore, 2nd fl Board Room of Superintendent
Communities » Lackawanna
Lackawanna
Use of city building for School Board election tabled
By Jay Tokasz
News Staff Reporter
Published:April 17, 2012, 12:00 AM
A legal notice in a local weekly newspaper already indicated that the Bocce Court, a city-owned building in Lackawanna’s Bethlehem Park section, would be the sole polling place for residents of the 1st Ward in the May 15 School Board elections.
It now appears that the April 4 notice was premature.
The city routinely provides the Lackawanna School District access to its buildings for elections.
But it was only Monday that the district officially approached the City Council with its request to use the Bocce Court facility at 175 Madison Ave.
And this time, the Council took the unusual step of tabling the district’s request, potentially putting the district in an awkward bind.
Council members and residents expressed concern that having just one polling site would prevent many residents in the 1st Ward from voting.
The School Board will have to address the issue at its meeting tonight, when it also expects to adopt a 2012-13 proposed school budget.
With just five weeks until the election, the district might not have enough time to properly advertise polling places in the legal notices of its official newspapers, the Front Page and the Am-Pol Eagle.
State law requires that districts notify voters of polling sites at least six times before the election. Both the Front Page and the Am-Pol Eagle are weekly newspapers.
A single polling site in Bethlehem Park for 1st Ward residents would shut out voters who don’t live in that area, which is separated from the rest of the 1st Ward by Smoke’s Creek and accessible only from Route 5, said residents and Council members.
The 1st Ward is the most impoverished area of the city, and many residents do not have cars.
“It’s unreasonable to think that people could walk down Route 5 to go to a polling place in Bethlehem Park,” said Henry Pirowski, Council president.
The Council voted, 4-0, to table the district’s request to use the Bocce Court facility.
In an interview after the meeting, Pirowski said the lone polling site in the 1st Ward “seems like disenfranchisement to me.”
“I’m not going to concur with something I think is wrong,” he said. “I don’t agree with it.”
Pirowski planned to express his concern to the School Board at its meeting tonight.
“This is not fair to the residents of the 1st Ward,” added 1st Ward Councilman Abdul Noman, who suggested that the district add either St. Anthony Church on Ingham Avenue or the Yemenite Benevolent Association on Ridge Road as polling places.
First Ward resident John Ingram said he and others will ask the state Education Department to intervene if the district doesn’t change its plans.
“They want to control the vote,” said Ingram. “It’s purposely being done to control the vote, in particular the minority vote.”
The 1st Ward has a large population of Arab-Americans and African- Americans.
The district used to have two polling sites for each of the city’s four wards.
jtokasz@buffnews.com
Too Funny! TYPICAL Lackawanna mindset. I can't stop laughing!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
andreahaxton
Na Na Na Na- Na!
Good job City Council....even the school employee one questioned it at length!
Told you it was to suppress the First Ward Voters from casting their votes! City Council TABLED the sole use of the ISOLATED Beth Park Bocce Court and asked why St. Anthony's Or Yemen Hall is not included due to demographics(my word).
I guess there is a LSD Board mtg tomorrow to discuss the risen situation......
Anyone know where and what time? Is it on their WEB as the LAW states it should be?!?
Voter suppression.....did someone say Al Sharpton?!? This is really a BIGGIE folks!
Who else is running for Trustee? Maybe this is where my forte' is.......at least I will be fair, and NO shenanigan's! I started out in 1995 and had my first taste of poli-tricks......BTW.......it was the same year you-know-who ran against me and has been in control of his Fiefdom ever since!:rolleyes: If elected again he will have 20 years in as.........one of the famous "Lackawanna-ins who led OUR LA School Systems to.......fill in the blank.
Lawmakers, education officials at odds
School Board faces off against Council in Lackawanna
By Jay Tokasz
News Staff Reporter
Published:April 19, 2012, 12:00 AM
A tug of war between the Lackawanna Board of Education and the City Council took a strange turn this week, when School Board members rescinded their approval of a councilman’s request to hold meetings with city residents in a school.
Fourth Ward Councilman Keith Lewis can no longer use the Martin Road Elementary School for town hall meetings May 9 and June 13. Board members had approved Lewis’ use of the school back in February.
“Fun and games in Lackawanna,” Lewis said in reaction to the board’s vote Tuesday. “I thought it was petty, and I thought it was uncalled for.”
The about-face came a day after the City Council tabled a school district request to use the city-owned Bocce Court as a polling site for the May 15 School Board election and budget vote. Lewis joined in the unanimous vote.
Council members and some residents expressed concern that having just one polling site in the 1st Ward would prevent many residents from being able to vote.
Board members took sharp exception to the Council’s unusual vote during a special meeting Tuesday.
“It’s never happened. It’s unheard of,” said School Board member Maureen Gambino. “If the city is going to dictate what the school district is going to do, it’s going to go both ways then.”
Another board member, Kenneth S. Motyka, said he was appalled by the action of the Council, which he termed unprecedented.
“They’ve disenfranchised the people of the 2nd Ward by not appointing a 2nd Ward Council member. And they’re going to get involved in our business?” said Motyka, referring to Council seat that has remained vacant since former member Geoffrey Szymanski was sworn in as mayor in January.
Motyka accused Council President Henry Pirowski of ulterior political motives. Pirowski could not be reached Wednesday to comment.
Lewis said the Council tabled the district’s request intending to have a conversation with School Board members Tuesday. The conversation didn’t happen, even though Lewis and Pirowski showed up at the board meeting.
A public comment period is not included in special meetings of the School Board, and the Bocce Court polling site was not on the agenda, said various board members. A measure rescinding Lewis’ ability to use the school also was not part of the agenda, but board members agreed to waive the rules during the meeting to add it.
“They waived the rules . . . to play petty politics, but they wouldn’t waive the rules to have a conversation with two sitting councilmen,” said Lewis.
Some residents maintain that a single polling site in the Bethlehem Park neighborhood would shut out voters who don’t live in that area, which is separated from the rest of the 1st Ward by Smoke’s Creek and accessible only from Route 5.
But School Board members maintained that they have no intention of excluding voters.
“It’s just basically a cost-saving measure for everybody. We’re just doing what’s right for the taxpayers,” said School Board President John W. Makeyenko.
No one complained about the use of the Bocce Court facility as the lone polling site in the 1st Ward during the March 27 vote on renovations for Truman Elementary School, Makeyenko added. And if Council members had issues with the Bocce Court site, they could have approached the School Board earlier.
Some might BIG words being thrown around LA......
Why don't they just swallow their whatevers, and change their Voter Suppression tactics to include another poll in the First Ward?!?
Simple solution to a mean-spirited attempt to pull one over on the First Ward. Their tactic worked on March 27 because we were boxed in to vote for the $6.65 Truman.......
But not now for the real-deal!
:witless:
The board is proceeding with plans to use the Bocce Court site, which already has been advertised as the 1st Ward polling place, Makeyenko said.
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Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly indicated Maureen Gambino was a Councilwoman.
jtokasz@buffnews.com