The election results for Erie County Executive between Republican Dale McBrier and Democratic Mark DiVecchio was the subject of an emergency hearing on Saturday morning. The unofficial count has McBrier up by 6 votes. Two items prompted the action. First, in a TV interview, workers at the elction office said they had already deemed 20 absentee and provisional ballots ineligible. Since the official count won’t be held until Monday and all ballots are supposed to under lock and key, the statement raised eyebrows. Then, the attorney for McBrier requested to look at the provisional ballots. The request was denied by Tony Logue, solicitor for the Erie County Election Board and a former Democratic candidate. Fine, but he said in a letter that the ballots were already being counted and that it was being done in the voter registration office. Both the action of counting the ballots and the area in which they were counted raised flags. I don’t anybody did anything wrong except speak or write without thinking first. The official count will be held Monday with about a thousand eyes watching. The unofficial totals that I saw have DiVecchio up by 4 votes.
A number of plaintiffs challenging the Erie County Hotel room tax have withdrawn from the suit. Part of the tax will be going to fund the construction of the Sheraton Hotel on West Dobbins Landing for the Bayfront Convention Center. The hotel operators that pulled out cited the expense. The trial will be held in December if it isn’t thrown out by them.
The Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission caught four guys with a bag in the trunk of their car containing 42 steelhead. There were a whole bunch of zeros in the fine. In Erie County in the past week, the Fish Commish issued a total of 46 citations. Obey the law or you will be donating money to the state.
The Erie Ottters were beating the Sudbury Wolves 3-1 with 5 minutes to play except they forgot to play the final 5 minutes. They lost 4-3 in overtime. Anthony Peluso and Patrick Lee each scored their first OHL goals in the game for the Otters while Mike Blunden had the other. The next Otters home game is Saturday when they face the evil London Knights.
Erie McDowell (22-2) broke a scoreless tie with three goals in the final 10 minutes to defeat Mt Lebanon in a Class AAA girls soccer quarterfinal. Their semifinal games will be Tuesday at a site and time to be determined.
Plum scored with 54 seconds to play to record a 3-2 win against Erie Cathedral Prep in a PIAA Class AAA boys soccer quarterfinal.
Freshman Kyle Rogers (Erie Cathedral Prep) recorded an assist for his first point at the collegiate level as the Niagara University men’s hockey team beat Alabama-Huntsville 8-4.
Freshman Justin Slick (Erie McDowell) was eighth in the 100 yard breaststroke in 1:03.46 as the Dartmouth Men’s Swimming lost a dual meet to both Harvard and Cornell.
Mike Machuga of Erie has made the TV finals of the 2005 Greater Omaha Classic. ESPN will air the final round live today at 1 pm. Machuga bowled in college at the University of Nebraska.
Kyle Fluke, a senior at State College, has signed a letter of intent to wrestle collegiately at Edinboro University.
“The sale will be halted every 15 minutes or when you see something interesting so that WQLN staff can beg for donations from viewers like you.”
It’s funny b/c it’s true! We’ve donated to WQLN twice and both times we have immediately gotten follow-up calls asking for more money (within days) and then they call every day (and don’t leave messages) to ask for more money during pledge drives (used to be only TV drives, now it’s TV and radio).
I’ve blogged about this *sigh* but maybe if they weren’t such you-know-whats, begging for money constantly (three fundraisers by St Patrick’s Day this calendar year), people would be more inclined to give.
I smell voter tampering already by the democrats.