All good things must come to an end. So it is that my time with you, gentle readers, has finished, at least for the foreseeable future. I wish it were not so, but like so many situations in our lives, fate’s hand plucks us from a place we love and moves us to face challenges we would avoid or evade were it our choice. A serious medical condition compels me to leave my love, this post, as your reporter for Susquehanna Depot, Lanesboro, Oakland Boro, SCSD, Great Bend Township, and County Commissioners.

I have nothing but praise and kind words for Chuck, Rita, Lauren, and Shannon, with whom I worked, and with whom I always found joy and pleasure. Thank you also to you, my readers, for your words of encouragement, praise, and inspiration as you read my articles and provided me with feedback. You spurred me on to search out the truth and to present my stories in the “color-commentary/play-by-play” fashion to which you are by now accustomed.

My parting words are to encourage the good people of these parts to attend your local and county governmental meetings. Your local municipality needs you more than you know. Voting every November is not the be-all and end-all of civic responsibility. For freedom to endure and thrive participatory democracy and informed citizenry form the bedrock. I hope all who read my stories will continue to read “The Transcript,” but I hope as many of those of you who are able will also attend your local school board, boro, township, or county commissioner meetings.

Thank you, again! Should Divine Providence and opportunity ordain, I will return to write another day.

Sincerely,

Kerri Ellen Wilder

Susquehanna

We need to pray much more to god- our god that created the universe and everything in it- except sin. Our god that had His beloved Son Jesus, die for us and our sins. We know that Satan is in our presence because of this Democratic White House and Mr. Obama. Planned Parenthood and naral are very happy now that Obamacare has become the law of our Country. Our Country already gives 9 billion dollars to Planned Parenthood every year so that they can murder over 350,000 unborn babies each year. Now with Obamacare, everyone will have to donate money for abortion and to train doctors how to perform abortions in medical schools. We do not believe in the terrible 2800 page book of Obamacare and all of the attachments in it. The Democrats, in 2010, deceived pro-life Democrats into passing this bill and some Republicans. Go to your House of Worship, pray and also at your home. Please encourage and take your family, young and old and friends to worship God. We need our great Tea Party that is active and is now with us, to throw this new tax away, like our founding Country people did with the "Tea and Sugar and Stamp Act" taxes in the late 1700's.

Sincerely,

Bruce Moorhead

Susquehanna, Pa.

How often do we hear that our politicians or Department of some sorts do not listen to us. Once again, a positive response by Honorable Sandra Major and Department of Transportation (DOT) prove good politicians make a difference.

In a letter of March 1, 2012 Department of Transportation informs us in order to install deer crossings signs on Route 81 Northbound, between the off ramps of New Milford and Great Bend the PA Game Commission must be in agreement with DOT. Hence, you may wonder why you are noticing them; there are at least three signs.

Please be careful, there were eight dead deer, Northbound, in that stretch which prompted my call to Sandra Major and DOT; southbound also has some dead deer occasionally.

Sincerely,

Larry Gary

Gibson, Pa.

There's a special irony to the Republican Party's current obsession with the failed Fast and Furious program (whose gun-tracking strategy was used by the Bush Administration). They seem to be looking to scapegoat Attorney General Holder, trying to blame him for the death of a Border Patrol agent and everyone else killed by Mexican drug gangs who bought the weapons. Now they're crying crocodile tears for them, when 11 thousand Americans die from guns every year, and to them it's an acceptable price to pay for laissez-faire guns.

But their current mock outrage runs afoul of the trite saying of their allies in the Gun Lobby: "Guns don't kill people-- people kill people." Do they really think that vicious drug gangs wouldn't be able to get weapons any other way? Nonsense! Efforts in the past to hold gun dealers responsible for crimes committed by illegitimate purchasers have been beaten back by the Gun Lobby and their GOP lapdogs. But now the rejected angle is the very heart of their approach here. In their eagerness to get Holder, they've permanently undermined their "Guns Don't Kill" argument and can never use it again, and they've permanently lost any claim of immunity for gun dealers. I hope it's worth it to them.

Sincerely,

Stephen Van Eck

Rushville, PA

Hear Ye! Hear Ye! To every citizen who voted for Commissioners Hall, Warren and Giangrieco-They will not hear ye, they will not even take note of thee!

Their most recent example of contempt (in my opinion) for the right of Susquehanna County citizens to be part of the process of representative government occurred at the June 27 commissioners’ meeting.

During the Public Comment portion of the meeting, a county resident armed with facts, figures, graphs, charts and eye-witness testimony, spoke for over 20 minutes on many of the deleterious and pernicious effects on Susquehanna County citizens due to irresponsible actions of some natural gas companies.

The commissioners, one of whom manifested obvious disdain at having to actually listen, all agreed that there was virtually nothing they would do to advocate for residents whose land and water became contaminated. After this citizen’s lengthy, informative, factual and respectful dissertation, the following dialogue took place:

Attendee: “..Do you consider what Mr. Stevens said to be official testimony and will it be printed in the minutes?”

Commissioner Giangrieco: “No.” (The other two commissioners were in total agreement)

Attendee: “The Open Records Act says written minutes shall kept of all open meetings of agencies. The minutes shall include (4) The names of all citizens who appeared officially and the subject of their testimony.”

A citizen well known to those who read the county newspapers asked, “Why aren’t Mr. Stevens’ comments recorded?”

Commissioner Hall: “It’s under public comment...we’re not accepting testimony. It’s all under public comment...”

(Really? Public comment, public testimony, official testimony or ANYTHING spoken by the public or the commissioners has not been printed anywhere in the minutes since December, 2007).

Attendee: “Pardon me, I’m still confused..what is your understanding that this does not have to be done?”

Commissioner Hall: “Because it’s public comment. Public comment does not have to be recorded.”

Attendee: “...what particular part of the Sunshine Law or the Open Meetings Law says that?”

Commissioner Hall: “It comes from our solicitor..Thomas Meagher.”

There it is. The solicitor will not define public testimony. That was left to the commissioners. They have no definition for it, so they throw it back to the solicitor. Who’s on first? Nobody. No one. No how. No way the public’s comments will be included in the minutes.

Once again, the commissioners have exerted their seemingly divine right to be on the wrong side of the Sunshine Act of the Commonwealth. You, dear resident, voter, taxpayer-are welcome to attend the meetings on the second and fourth Wednesday of every month. You will probably be stupefied, anesthetized and mollified. But, if you believe in the rule of law and the public’s right to be part of representative government, I hope you will not be pacified.

Sincerely,

Bruce S. Paskoff

Montrose, PA 18801

Obama made a fool of Mitt, and no two ways about it. A couple months ago, President Barack Hussein Obama Jr. opined he absolutely and positively needed some help from congressional Republicans to begin tackling the immigration issue.

And what’s he do? Barely a week before a crucial convention of Hispanic kingpins, the President teases them with a bone. So, children of illegal immigrants are handed a break with regard to deportation. To that, the cynic in me murmurs, “woot woot”. Waving that bone like a Harry Potter wand, the man delivers a stem winder speech to those kingpins, mesmerizes them, nailing down the Hispanic vote.

Feckless Willard “Mitt” Romney got reduced to promising those kingpins a long-term solution, whose details are conspicuously absent. No two ways about it, President Obama incriminated himself ever so artfully as a dodger, lulling his political opposition into believing he was going to let Mitt “pivot”.

As for uppity, that self-incriminated dodger does have a problem in that regard with a certain segment of the American voting public. And what’s he do?

The President foments fear of the “outsourcer-in-chief” that Mitt just might be, were Mitt to become President with the votes of that certain segment. Well, it’s one thing to vote purely and simply against “uppity”.

It’s quite another, if doing so may well mean increasing the chances for losing one’s job, one’s house, one’s car, one’s life savings, all that foregoing leading to the loss of one’s status as American middle class.

As was said of that jazz titan Duke Ellington, “put a little grease on him, and he’ll slip through a key hole”.

Sincerely,

A Alexander Stella

Susquehanna, Pa

Under the clever guise of asking for Freedom of Religion, the Catholic Bishops in America have launched a campaign to tightly restrict the freedom of women to have proper, necessary health care, and any choice about it. The Catholic Bishops’ “Fortnight for Freedom” is a bid for THEIR freedom to choose, for all of US American women, what health care we will and will not be provided. This is, in effect, an attempt to enslave all of us American women to the wishes of the Catholic church. They would force their dogma (religious stance) on all Americans, whether we are of their “faith” or not, or of no “faith” at all.

They need to be stopped from stepping into our government and authoring laws for our representatives in Washington to sign onto; laws that restrict the freedoms we Americans have fought for, both in the beginnings, in the late 1700’s, and all through our history, those amendments that show that America progressed and grew with the times, that freed more people to take part in government and for each person to be treated as an individual with inalienable rights. This “Fortnight for Freedom” that the Catholic Bishops are putting on is a definite danger to the hard-won results of many of our “fore-mothers" - their fight for women’s rights. These Catholic Bishops would have us women back in the position similar to a cow – our main purpose in life being to be bred and bear children! This is wanton and cruel nonsense. We deserve better!

I was raised as a Christian, but this is one instance where I must stand with the Freedom From Religion Foundation. Keep State and Church separate! Tell your Senators and Congressmen to preserve women’s health care and choice, by resisting the pressures and voting against these proposals by the Catholic Bishops! Otherwise, all the work and sacrifice of many of our female (and some male) ancestors, to gain our freedom to vote, and our freedom to choose whether we will use contraception or not, will have been in vain, and we women will not be free!

Sincerely,

Gail Rendle

Nicholson PA