The American Indoor Football Association has granted permission for the Pittsburgh RiverRats to transfer their franchise to Erie, Pennsylvania for the 2008 season. The announcement came at a press conference in Erie this afternoon. The Erie RiverRats will play its home schedule at the Louis J Tullio Arena, which has a capacity of 5,586 for [...]

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Erie County Office of Children and Youth union members will be back on the job today. They agreed to return to work for the next two weeks while contract talks continue. Not getting paid and losing health care benefits helped. The county had filed an injunction to force them back to their desks and Judge [...]

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The Erie Community Foundation will be receiving nearly $7 million at the late Margaret Spaeder. I just received a quick email about the gift so I don’t have the breakdown to which organization will benefit. The Erie Community Foundation is a collection of charitable endowments operating under the administrative umbrella of a single public charity. [...]

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Location, location, location. The real estate prices in one City of Erie neighborhood have skyrocketed. Why? The homes have a view of the water – Presque Isle Bay. In mid March I got a call from a law firm in Indiana that needed to sell a home in Erie on West Front Street. (I’m a [...]

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On Friday, Judge John Bozza ruled that Invest Erie Community Development Corporation can buy the city owned property at 19th and Parade. A plaza anchored by a grocery store were planed for the property. After around 7 years of Invest Erie making no progress in getting anything built, the city tried to get Commonwealth Realty [...]

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Erie Golf Course is attracting a good number of golfers. The City of Erie spent about $2 million in renovations on the course. Only one slight problem. The city closed the course saying they lost too much money operating it. Golfers are playing for free. The idea of a lodge at Erie Bluffs State Park [...]

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A symposium on the John Kanzius cancer treatment was held yesterday at Mercyhurst College. The place was packed yet you could have heard a pin drop. People in attendance soaked in every word. Dr Steven Curley of M D Anderson Cancer Center and Kanzius spoke. Since Kanzius came up with the treatment, every bit of [...]

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  Great news for Erie PA and the Erie-Western Pennsylvania Port Authority. Erie Management Group is now in the Great Lakes shipping business. EMG now is the majority shareholder of Great Lakes Feeder Lines. The mission of Great Lakes Feeder Lines is to provide a competitive, reliable and environmentally responsible alternative to the existing surface [...]

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  GE Transportation in Erie will be the subject of a feature article by Thomas Friedman in this Sunday’s New York Times magazine. The article is called “Green is the new red white and blue.” The Discovery Channel is also running a documentary version on Saturday April 21 at 9 pm. The gist of the [...]

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  Staff Sergeant Ed Chorney of Erie PA, a 16th Airborne Command and Control Squadron flight engineer, is now engaged to his girlfriend of four years, Staff Sergeant Sarah Radel, a air traffic controller with the 506th Operations Support Squadron. The proposal was a little bit unusual to say the least. SSG Chorney was in [...]

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  The first place spot at the 2007 Buckeye Regional Robotics Competition went to an alliance team of students from Erie, Pa. Team 291 is comprised students from The Northwest Collegiate Academy, Erie Villa Maria Academy and Erie Central High School. The competition combined elements of intramural sports, technological wizardry and mechanical repair work. The [...]

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  I talked to someone at Presque Isle Downs and Casino that said 8-9 out of town buses have scheduled trips to Erie but out local bus company, the EMTA (Erie Metropolitan Transit Authority) still hasn’t made a decision on providing service. Has anyone told them the place is open and employs 700 people that [...]

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  Radnor Property Group and Fourth River Development were picked as the development team for the first phase of the downtown Erie redevelopment plan. The area is between Holland and Sassafras Streets, 12th to 14th Streets. Radnor and Fourth River announced (press release) they were looking for a project to do together back in December [...]

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According the Brookings Institution study – From ‘There’ to ‘Here’: Refugee Resettlement in Metropolitan America – an analysis of refugees as a percentage of overall immigrants, the Erie PA area ranked third in a list of Medium-sized USA metropolitan areas. From 1983-2004, 4,545 refugees made Erie their new home including 2,969 from 1990-2000. The International [...]

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  Northwest Pennsylvania Collegiate Academy won the United States Academic Decathlon (USAD) Pennsylvania state competition and will move on to the national competition, which takes place in Hawaii this year. This year’s team comprises Amy Babay, Matt Faytak, and Samantha Ohmer (honors); Amal Abukar, Alexa Johnson, and Alicia Quick (scholastic); and Josh Ohmer, Celeste Trombetta, [...]

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Pittsburgh has always had a residency requirement for city employees. With Erie negotiating union contracts this year, it’s something the city should consider reinstating. Make it a condition for all new hires that the individual must make their residence within the city, within 12 months or lose their job. If you don’t live in the [...]

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  Presque Isle Downs slots casino will open on February 28. The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board announced Friday that it will hold a board meeting at 3 pm on Tuesday, February 27, 2007. The meeting, which is open to the public, will be held in the State Museum Auditorium located at the corner of Third [...]

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Erie County Judge John Bozza heard arguments Friday from attorneys representing two Erie County taverns asking for a preliminary injunction delaying the smoking ban from going into effect February 17 throughout Erie County. The main agrument is that Pennsylvania law supersedes the county ordinance. Bozza will announce his decision next week. NanoLogix (Pinksheets: NNLX) announced [...]

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  The law allowing Internet-based competitive bidding by Pennsylvania municipalities went into effect on September 5. The law also authorized reverse auctions. In reverse auctions, vendors see a ranking of bids without knowing the actual bids and can lower their offers to win the auction. eDynaQuote is a reverse auction company based in Erie. The [...]

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The Erie SeaWolves alumni team, the Detroit Tigers, completed a remarkable upset of the New York Yahkees with Saturday’s 8-3 win. The Yankees will be playing golf while the Tigers will face the Oakland A’s in the ALCS. Nearly half of the Tigers roster are former Erie SeaWolves players. Gannon University honored four individuals at [...]

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The Erie Freeze and 13 other teams are leaving the AIFL and joining the AIFA – the newly created American Indoor Football Association. This seems like just a name change for the league and the booting out of league founder Andrew Haines. According to a press release issued by the new league, AIFL teams in [...]

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Erie City Council member Lonny Gatlin resigned effective immediately. He also has has taken a leave of absence from his job as a dentist at Community Health Net:. The reason stated was a medical condition. That is an extremely polite way of putting it, at least if the word around the water coolers are true. [...]

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Erie native Eric Michael Hopper, now living in Buford GA, will make his TV debut this morning on CBS’s “The Early Show.” Hopper won “The Early Show’s Living Room Live” talent competition. He will perform “I Want to Be.” His songs recently hit the 1 millionth play on MySpace. US Rep Phil English of Erie [...]

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Celebrate Erie 2006 kicks off this evening with a Taste of Erie beginning at 5 pm. Bertrand’s Bistro, Colony Pub and Grille, Latino’s, Papermoon, Pufferbelly, Theodore’s Restaurant and the Walnut Creek Grill will all have meals available. They’ll be set up on the West side of Perry Square. The Taste of Erie hours are: Thursday [...]

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Erie County Councilwoman Carol Loll and Unclue John’s Campground owner John Puline are proposing building a safe harbor and marina at the mouth of the Elk Creek Access. There is no dock or marina between Erie and Conneaut, Ohio. Loll will ask the governor to return taxpayer money for the project. The state set aside [...]

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There aren’t a lot of employeers that would let you keep your job after you were convicted of a crime and sentenced to 30 days in jail. Being a City of Erie Police officer isn’t among them. Erie Police Detective Ed Dickens was sentenced to 30 days, followed by 90 days probation and ordered to [...]

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Jason Dudjak will be returning to family in Erie on Wednesday after a 15 month tour of duty in Iraq. The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review has a good story about him being reunited with his college class ring. He lost his clas ring from Virginia Military Institute that his father had given him. Shortly after that he [...]

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A 38 foot boat, a Donzi, slammed into 2 Jet Skis on Presque Isle Bay killing both riders. Killed were Andrew Miller and his girlfriend Amber Miller (no relation) both of Washington, PA. The boat was believed to have the right of way. I’m guessing the operator of the Sea Doo was inexperienced and veered [...]

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There was a high speed chase through the city on Wednesday involving a man who exposed himself. A shooting, yeah, chase the suspect. But for a lewd act? It was just luck that not kids riding bikes or playing in the street were seriously hurt. Here is the Erie newspaper story on the incident. And [...]

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The Erie newspaper did a story the other day on the pay phones in front of Bradley’s Shur-Fine Food Mart on West 8th Street. Nobody knows who owns them so they could tell them they are in such disrepair – broken glass, graffiti. I went past them yesterday and there are now stickers on them [...]

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