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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Erie County Judge John Bozza granted a permanent injunction preventing the county wide smoking ban from taking effect. The judge concluded that the county ordinance violated the Pennsylvania Clean Indoor Air Act. Congrats to Eric Purchase on the win. This is exactly what the county solicitor told Erie County Council would happen. The arrogant members [...]

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  The numbers for the opening day of Presque Isle Downs and Casino were staggering. I think company officials were even a bit stunned at how well they did. Here are the unofficial, unaudited figures from the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board. The amount wagered was $8,881,234. The amount paid out as winnings was $8,068,267 for [...]

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  Presque Isle Downs and Casino opened yesterday to huge crowds. They estimated that 10,000 visited on opening day. I think that number is being very conservative. I think it was closer to 15,000. It seemed that about 60 percent of the cars in the lot had Pennsylvania tags. There were a ton of people [...]

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  The Erie PA casino will open today at 9 am. Presque Isle Downs and Casino will be opening, including 2,000 slot machines, following receipt of the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board’s final approval to open the facility. Situated on a 272-acre site, approximately 58.4 acres of which are dedicated to the public as open space, [...]

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  Saint Vincent’s finally released a press release, 4 days after their announced “affiliation” – Saint Vincent Health System announced plans to affiliate with Catholic Healthcare Partners (CHP), a national health system based in Cincinnati, Ohio. Saint Vincent Health System President and CEO Angela Bontempo made this historic announcement for Saint Vincent, the Erie community [...]

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Erie Traffic Court manager Deborah Steff was sentenced to 11½ to 23 months for stealing more than $272,000. She was also ordered to pay full restitution for the money she embezzled. If you paid a traffic fine or a parking ticket in cash between 2002 and 2005, there is a very good possibility it went [...]

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Great story in today’s Erie newspaper about Erie photo blogger Ron Richardson and his pics of his rubber duck. Erie blogger Michael Mahler was mentioned in a Slate.com article about his comments concerning former Rep Mark Foley. Some drunk hit a telephone pole on Pine Avenue at 2:15 am breaking the pole in two. Power [...]

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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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An of campus party in Meadville of mostly Allegheny College students got a little loud and a number of police agencies arrived and broke up the party. Over 100 people wee cited for underage drinking. Hint – if you keep down the noise and have a couple of dozen people, the police won’t come. I [...]

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