Basically agreed with Paul.  Randol by a slim margin for the following reasons:

• Courtright has a record and is considered as having helped make (at worst)...or...not helped solve (at best) Scranton's problems.
• Joe & his toadies have it right when they talk about Courtright having the stink of municipal unions all over him.
• Courtright doesn't seem to have any stands on any issues; what's more you can't even tell where to look for his non-stands.  Randol at least has a website were you can actual read her vague solutions.  Given a choice between "no-substance" and "no-substance but good packaging" I'd say "no-substance but good packaging" wins.
• Some people (professional women mainly) seem genuinely excited about Randol's campaign.  I don't know of anyone who is excited about Courtright's.  Least of all Bill Courtright.  Except "the Shadow"...and it doesn't count.

On the Republican side...well...forget it...there might as well not even be Republicans running.

Isn't democracy wonderful? The candidate chosen by the majority will win the election, and should my vote not be the one to decide the outcome, I will still wake up on the morning of May 22 feeling no less the person who participated the day before. Life will go on, and it will be what we make it not what some egotistical fool in Green Ridge tells us it will be.

The six posters on the other board carry on like it's a matter of life and death, complete with incorrect and misinformed allusions, hyperbolic rhetoric, empty threats, and baseless insults.

It's really quite pathetic. Pilchesky is not a political activist, he's a troll who paid for a blog. He can go screw.

While I have no idea who will win the Mayoral race  ( the circles I travel in think it's Courtright), I can't understand why anone would vote for Randol.

Kane dumped her because of her bizarre behavior, and the lost gun incident showed not only her lack of candor, but her irresponsibility.

Now she's been seen riding around Scranton with a certain police officer who took a demotion because of an ongoing "relationship" with a prostitute.   I don't know how voters in Scranton could settle for someone with those judgement skills.

Still waiting on anything resembling even a wisp of vision from either of the two mayoral candidates.  The people of Scranton deserve better.

GC

You buying any of the tax office stuff? Seems like nothing more than throwing shiit against the wall to see if it sticks.   Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing, as it were.  A year ago, Courtright was doing absolutely no wrong in anyone of their eyes. Now, suddenly, this?  Incredible and desperate.  So Joe's panties are in a bunch about something Bill did or didn't do.  Who fcking cares?  Who is Joe anyway?  An impotent little troll with a blog.   Oooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Make wild unfounded accusations first, maybe provide rationale and evidence later. They're no better than terrorists.

Glenn Cashuric wrote:

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Still waiting on anything resembling even a wisp of vision from either of the two mayoral candidates.  The people of Scranton deserve better.

GC

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Told you a long time ago Glenn....when you have psycho’s like baldy across the hall....foaming Fay (who is very likely to show up on your doorstep if she hates you and she pretty much hates everyone), Crazy Dave,  the legion of doom....the garbage sifters...ect ect ect....who in their right mind would run? …. Only the ones who don't care about their good names and those are the bottom of the barrel.  Sooooooo as I suggested 5 years ago we have no one of worth willing to deal with the fools and psycho's the recent political climate has fostered. Sorry to say Glenn but you had a part in that by supporting the craziness.

Reminds me of the time when 'ole Fay was reading a statement at a konsil meeting while Pilchesky was standing directly behind her, practically working her like she was some kind of bizzaro-Muppet.

Regarding Young Mr Miller, well I'd be careful what you all say about him, as apparently he has "lawyers".  Maybe they work for the same firm that represented Ray Lyman?

Amazing how somebody needs "his lawyers" for an unpaid traffic ticket.  Dummy.  But worry not.  LapDoug is a public figure.  That gives me pretty wide latitude.

GC

P.S.  Whatever happened to Ray Lyman?  Or the guy in the gold pajamas?  Or the woman who sang and prayed?  We hardly knew ye, folks.

Glenn Cashuric wrote:

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Amazing how somebody needs "his lawyers" for an unpaid traffic ticket.  Dummy.  But worry not.  LapDoug is a public figure.  That gives me pretty wide latitude.

GC

P.S.  Whatever happened to Ray Lyman?  Or the guy in the gold pajamas?  Or the woman who sang and prayed?  We hardly knew ye, folks.

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Or Jimmy Stucker (sp?), the guy who always knew the happenings on Parrott Avenue.  Alas, the good ole days, you know, when the loonies were speaking to konsil, as opposed to speaking from konsil.  And so I digress.

As for young Mr Miller, well he is an after-thought.  He is to politics as the coccyx is to human anatomy.  He is leg number 83 on a millipede.  He is a comb in Joe Pilchesky's medicine cabinet.  He simply doesn't matter.  In fact, as "mean" as this sounds, this is probably more publicity than he actually deserves to get.

The separating of the account should have started the moment that Kenny McD left office and the issue was raised.  The fact that it hasn't been done means that Courtright simply didn't want to do it or didn't know he had to do it.  Either rationale is troubling, at best.  The loss of staff excuse is really not much of an excuse:  He had the staff when he took office, before some of the work was outsourced to Berkheimer; what's more, he could have approached the governing bodies with an estimate of the costs to separate the accounts and asked for their input/support.  Again, he didn't.  The issue is surfacing now because Courtright didn't surface it before...a bad political and policy mistake on his part.  Courtright gave this issue to the Scranton Times and the the Randol campaign.

As for the solictor, let's all be intellectually honest here:  it's just another excuse to give another prominent local lawyer some vacation (or Scranton Prep tuition) money. I can't fault Courtright for simply continuing a tradition of government paychecks to those who probably don't really need it.

The above is in no way to disrespect the late Attorny Mark Walsh.  I met Mark on several occasions and he was exactly as everyone describes:  a genuinely stand-up guy who never let others drag him down to their level.

Am I touting Liz Randol here?  No.  She has her own set of issues, but that's for another time.

Lastly, newsflash:  The Scranton Times is biased!  And so is every other journalistic entity on the planet.  Are theey influential?  Sure, but so are the municipal unions, so are countless local party officials and the list goes on.

The separating of the account should have started the moment that Kenny McD left office and the issue was raised. 

And that could be done how exactly?  There hasn't been an actual "forensic audit" done in years at the single tax office.  The reason it hasn't been done it is extremely costly, several million dollars by most standards.  Without a true, in depth forensic line by line audit, there is no way to seperate monies into seperate accounts.   The current scenario isn't the best, but with 8 fewer employees, and budget cuts from Chris Doherty, Courtright was hamstrung from the moment he took over.

Chris Doherty had an axe to grind with Courtright, because Courtright wouldn't vacate his council seat until after the new council majority took over, thereby creating the "supermajority" in place now in Scranton.

As far as the solicitor position, "let's all be intellectually honest here."  Would anyone really want Paul Kelly as the solicitor for the tax office?  He was a complete screwup at the Parking Authority, and to hear him speak as the solictor for Scranton, he sounds like he rode the short bus to school. 

Finally, of course I recognize that every newspaper is biased, just as every news channel, and internet media site, etc.  However the bold print headline story "Tax office Flouts law" was a clear slam at Courtright, because the REAL woman running for Mayor has close ties with the Lynetts.  It should have been a page three story at best.  I'd cancel my subscrition, but then my source of local news is the fluff pieces on channel 16, or internet based snippets.     

I agree with everything you said.  Courtright should have complained openly and loudly.  For a karate practitioner, he lacks assertiveness.  That makes him "the devil we know."   Liz Randol has bounced from job to job and has a questionable background.  Since she is fairly new to the political scene, she's the "devil we don't know."  Which is better for Scranton?

From my own standpoint, neither has the strength to do what needs to be done in Scranton, or if they do, they lack the guts to say so.  Lots of tip toeing and very little substance from either. 

A real leader would ask Public Safety unions to renegotiate their contracts, privitize garbage collection, meet with the U of S, Marywood, Johnson and Lackawanna College, and the Commonwealth Medical College and negotiate realistic contributions, sell several SPA garages to pay down debt, dismantle all the authorities (Sewer, Parking, Redevelopment; am I missing any?) to curtail the bureaucracy and lower overall costs, lower the wage tax, effectively draft a .05% commuter tax and create a realistic capitol improvement plan for roads and streets.

But hey, that will piss off unions, commuters, and dozens with political hack jobs, so no one will suggest it, and moreover, no one will implement it. 

I guess for my money I'm stuck with the devil I know....