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! 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.
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
To show how much they don't care about the City of Lackawanna and only care about themselves the school board tonight said it will NOT let 4th Ward Councilman Keith Lewis to use its facilities for his "town hall meetings." This confirms that these folks are all about THEMSELVES and that they could careless about the children,citizens and taxpayers of the City of Lackawanna. This year now more than ever we need to vote the incumbents out and hold the district accountable to the city,children and taxpayers that it "supposedly thinks" it represents! Not only are these folks in the vote controlling business they also are in the stifling of public forum business. Isn't it about time to send the School Board President and his sidekick home for good?
I would call their actions REPREHENSIBLE but I am pretty sure this bunch wouldn't know what it meant.
The funny thing is the prez is on his way out and there is nothing his cronies can do about it. Their sorry attempt to disenfranchise the 1st ward voters will come back to haunt him and force him to wait until next year to run again. (by the way, isn't it just a little pathetic the way he keeps coming back to run for school board every few years?)
I hope to see all the caring people of lackawanna at clean up day this weekend, lets see how much talk or can you
walk also?
Saturday April 21st at 10am at memorial field, now you cant say I didnt know were it was and when it was, lets see how we can do together.
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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!
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.
-----
Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly indicated Maureen Gambino was a Councilwoman.
jtokasz@buffnews.com
Clean up was organized by caring citizens,its in lackawanna, does it matter whats being cleaned or advertised by who, its right up the street from you, they are meeting at memorial field a short walking distance. It figures the loud mouths wouldnt be able to make it.It will be going on all day but I bet your too busy all day long. Now thats par for the course in LA.
What does cleaning up this city have to do with this thread?????? I think its called deflecting from the issue at hand. The bottom line is that this board has failed the students again and it is lead by the President of the Board, and he wants to be re-elected to do more damage.
Caring citizens, ok...... whatever, I give them credit for organizing and doing what they are attempting to do. Good job.
But what about the other caring citizens who care about the failing LA school district? People that are sick about the way OUR babies are getting cheated out of fairer education that promised to them; due directly to the high salaries going to fund the school boards family and friends members jobs. CLEAN THAT UP and we will stop complaining about LSD!
Take the politics out of the LA district once and for all! I was one in the 1990's that pushed to enlarge the LSD Board back up to 7 from 5, thinking a larger-diversified Board would help to cross-check the personal agendas. But it didn't and it made it worse....I would love to see the resumes od EVERY Board member, the School Business Manager, etc. Let's see the qualifications of the so-called "caring" people.......
We soley CARE about the quality of the education of OUR children.........do YOU?
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