The Susquehanna County Commissioners’ meeting of January 9 is now available on YouTube. In addition, the meeting of the Susquehanna County Planning Commission of January 8 is also available on YouTube.

Since a large audience was expected for the commissioners’ meeting, it was held in the large courtroom rather than the commissioners’ meeting room. The County Planning Commission meeting was held in the County Office Building with a standing room only crowd and local TV station reporters in attendance.

The alleged resignation of county solicitor Thomas Meagher came to light by way of a query from attorney Ray Davis, head of the Susquehanna County Bar Association. Questions as to why Mr. Meagher resigned were not answered by the commissioners. Issues regarding the Planning Commissioners’ meeting and actions taken by them, and why, also were addressed at the county commissioners’ meeting but remained unanswered. Under heated discussion were concerns regarding the building of more compressor stations at Elk Lake.

It is extremely important that all citizens and taxpayers of Susquehanna County are aware of the topics being discussed at county meetings.

Sincerely,

Bruce Paskoff

Montrose, PA

The term “Tyranny of the Majority” was first used by John Adams in 1788. As defined by Wikipedia, it envisions a scenario in which decisions made by a majority place its interests so far above those of an individual or minority group as to constitute active oppression, comparable to that of tyrants and despots. This is what we are witnessing under the administration of Barak Obama. His opening remark, just days before his inauguration in 2008, was more telling than we could have ever imagined. He said “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America”. We are now approaching the start of four more years of this transformation. Is that what we intended? What did he mean when he told Russian president Medvedev that “After my next election, I have more flexibility”? What we have seen already scares the hell out of me. We have seen a greater use of “Executive Orders” than has ever been done before, and not to serve the people but to circumvent the elected representatives of the people. We have seen recess appointments made when Congress was still in session. We have seen him time and time again do end runs around Congress when Congress specifically denied him, such as the Dream Act. Congress is near split down the middle and neither side can possibly give in to the other being that they hold opposite philosophies.

We are now facing a major and devastating attack on our Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. Recall, if you are still with me, that Hitler first disarmed the people. It has been attributed to John Adams that the Second Amendment is meant to protect the people from the government. It is coming to that. Obamacare is a good example of what is happening. The people, in great measure, did not want Obamacare. And, as time passes, we can see the lies and distortions which led to its passage. Don’t forget the “Cornhusker Kickback”, wherein Senator Ben Nelson was promised by Harry Reid that Nebraska would get 100% funding for Medicaid, unlike all other states, if Nelson would support Obamacare. This president and his cronies are really transforming America, making Congress irrelevant in its paralysis and usurping all the protections afforded by our Constitution. Benghazi, don’t overlook that. A grand example of how the power of the presidency is being abused. Nixon got thrown out for much less. If it is not too late, the election of 2014 may change the makeup of Congress sufficiently to impeach this pariah. We could possibly yet recover our balance sufficiently to prevent a couple of devastating Supreme Court appointments that would forever alter the face of America.  Let’s hope so. And if you are not there yet, take a look at your next paycheck, if you are lucky enough have a job, and just see how he is never going to up the taxes of the middle class. You know, Freedom really is more important than free condoms.

Sincerely,

Joe McCann

Elk Lake PA

A group of investors (Leatherstocking Gas Co.) would like to supply you with locally produced natural gas. It must be a risky idea because they want you to pay a premium on top of the cost of the fuel to pipe it to your home. I am not sure when this will happen given the current wholesale price and projections of stable prices over the next decade, but from what I’ve heard they plan to offer to sell us the gas, beneath our feet, for $9 to $10 a thousand cubic feet. Great bargain?

Currently the wholesale price is about $3.50 per 1000 cubic feet and expected to remain under $5 for the rest of the decade.

Don’t let them bully you. We have paid top dollar for fuel oil and propane or dealt with the hassle of solid fuel to heat our homes. Will we now have to change our furnaces and repair our yards only to be taken advantage of again?

I got an idea: compress the gas to a liquid and truck it to my house and pump it into a tank. I will still have to change my furnace and jets in my stove and dryer but i won’t have to repair my yard.

Prices will rise for NG but we should not have to subsidize their companies’ investment to bring this fuel to our homes.

Sincerly,

W. G. Dahlander

Great Bend Township

Piers Morgan on his Tonight interview show gave a lurid account of the Sandy Hook School shooting. He envisioned the shooter, Adam Lanza, armed with an AR-15 assault rifle with a high-capacity magazine spraying the school with bullets like a modern-day machine-gun Kelly.

Though Morgan’s account is widely accepted it is wholly fabricated, a fanciful version full of inaccuracies. It is, however, a pretty good picture of what didn’t transpire that tragic afternoon in a Connecticut school.

Let’s take a look at Lanza’s principal weapon, the AR-15 assault rifle. By definition an assault rifle has the capability of firing one round or several rounds like a machine gun with each trigger pull. The AR-15 does not have machine-gun capabilities. Fully automatic firearms have been illegal for the past 50 years.

However, President Bill Clinton did sign into law a ban on assault-style rifles in 1994. This law was sunsetted in 2004. Since that time it has been perfectly legal to buy rifles with the cosmetic appearance of a real assault rifle.

To be clear, the AR-15 is not an assault rifle, it just looks like one. It operates exactly the same as the millions of other semi-automatic rifles and handguns in the U.S., one trigger pull, one shot.

Morgan was also unsettled with the availability of high-capacity magazines. According to Connecticut law, a “large capacity magazine means any feeding device [clip] with the capacity to accept more than ten rounds.”

The National Shooting Sports Foundation in Connecticut estimates that there are literally tens of millions of high-capacity magazines in Connecticut and about three million firearms. That’s more than one firearm for every adult man and woman in the state.

Morgan and company would have us think that Connecticut, with so many firearms and the easy availability of large-capacity clips, would be like a combat free-fire zone.

But in fact, there is no record of anyone being harmed in that state by an assault-style weapon or with a firearm fitted with a high-capacity magazine prior to Lanza’s murderous outburst.

But inconvenient facts aside, President Obama is “actively supportive” for a renewal of the prohibition on rifles with that intimidating assault look. “And he could support [legislation restricting] high- capacity ammunition clips,” according to White House spokesman Jay Carney.

And Obama has plenty of anti-gun supporters in Congress. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) co-wrote the original assault weapons ban in 1994. She plans to reintroduce her bill outlawing the sale of assault-style weapons next month.

But even if the ban on assault-style rifles is renewed, it won’t make a smidgen of difference. There are 372,000 rifles in Connecticut each with the capability of holding a high-capacity magazine. These rifles perform exactly like the media bugbear, the AR-15, only one round can be fired at a time. Debarring assault look-alikes does absolutely nothing. It is feel good legislation.

Lost in the heat of the moment is Adam Lanza, himself. Lanza was a paranoid schizophrenic pushed over the edge by prescribed anti-psychotic drugs.

Attempting to ban the AR-15 because of one mentally deranged individual is much like banning automobiles because of one drunk driver. But, nevertheless, try they will proving once again that politics and common sense keep poor company.

Sincerely,

Bob Scroggins

New Milford, PA

I am amazed that I still hear people ask what is a “water buffalo” in our county. It’s been over four years of gas drilling and water contamination and the controversy around it.

We have people in our county who are dealing with “bad water”; contaminated with high levels of methane, arsenic, barium, aluminum, lithium, radiums, strontium, glycols, etc.. near gas drilling sites.

Some have been able to get water paid for and delivered by gas companies. They get “water buffaloes”, large, plastic cattle tanks, any where from 300 to 1100 gallons in size.

These white, plastic tanks hold water and are usually encased in plywood or insulation or sheds and a tanker from the Parrish Company in South Montrose arrives daily to deliver Montrose Treated Water from the treatment plant on Route 29. This is highly clorinated water from Montrose Lake, something most people don’t like using.

Learn about what is happening in your own county since the gas drillers came in. Go on Route 29 in Franklin Forks and see the plywood-encased water tanks alongside homes with blue tarps on them and you might catch the stainless-steel, water tanker delivering water to them daily.

And don’t forget to see the white plastic stacks near the sheds where their water wells are. These white stacks are vent stacks on top of the water wells to vent out the high levels of methane that is building up in their water wells since gas drilling nearby. Their methane levels went as high as 83 mg/L, where anything above 7 mg/L is of concern.

The gas companies have to pay for the water and the equipment and heaters and the homeowners have to pay for the electric to keep the water from freezing, which raises their electric bills up to a couple of hundred dollars extra in cold months.

Contact me if you want to see any of this in our county and meet the people, or go yourselves and check them out in Lenox, Dimock, Franklin Forks, Auburn and meet the people and hear their stories.

These are your neighbors and they could be you some day. Come out to the county meetings and hear what is happening and speak out. Share your stories. Let the truth come out.

Sincerely,

Vera Scroggins

Brackney, Pa.