Latest news with #MeadvilleCityCouncil
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
City's Crimewatch site doomed by complaints
A Meadville Police Department website that had succeeded in its mission to enhance community engagement and help combat crime will be discontinued, the department announced Tuesday. Participation in Crimewatch comes to an end on Sunday, about 20 months after it was launched, and the end comes largely due to objections to the police blotter-style accounts of the department's arrests. The negative feedback persisted even after a deliberate shift in tone when concerns were aired during a Meadville City Council meeting in March, according to Chief Michael Stefanucci. Where the posts had sometimes taken a tongue-in-cheek approach to arrests and charges being reported, after that point there 'was less humor in them and just factual information,' he said. 'We still continued to get complaints of — 'We don't want our business or our nonprofit's name in there because that makes us look bad,' or 'Hey, I know that guy, he's a good guy, you shouldn't have put his name in there,' 'Hey, that person has mental health (issues), you shouldn't have put them in there,'' Stefanucci added. 'It just seems to be nonstop. Everybody has a reason not to want somebody in there or their business in there.' Like Stefanucci, City Manager Maryann Menanno pointed to 'relatively consistent complaints' in explaining the decision to end the city's subscription to the Crimewatch website. 'The cost of the subscription at this point isn't outweighing the amount of complaints we've had about it,' she said. Launched in October 2023, the Crimewatch site at cost the city $2,500 annually. It currently has 2,209 subscribers and has attracted nearly 51,000 page views this year. The city could continue to maintain the website without posting blotter entry accounts of police activity, but doing so wouldn't be worth the cost, according to Stefanucci, since it was the blotter entries that were responsible for the web traffic. 'If we're not posting the stories and the arrests, nobody's interested,' he said. 'When we started posting arrests that were made, misdemeanor and above only, we were picking up subscribers and page views — it was times ten. The numbers picked up insanely.' Finding the right balance between accounts that are both useful and unobjectionable would require more staff time than is feasible, according to Menanno. In addition to the arrest descriptions, the website offers visitors a chance to submit anonymous tips, register the location of their security cameras, pay parking fees, find other resources and more. Stefanucci said hundreds of tips had been received through the site and many had contributed to arrests. Most recently, Crimewatch tips had helped lead police to the arrest of four youths accused of assaulting another boy in an afterschool incident in Shadybrook Park. Other useful tips ranged from parents reporting where their underage children had been sold vaping products to numerous tips on the locations of people who had arrest warrants outstanding. One recent tip about a person with an outstanding warrant not only included the person's current location but also a picture of the person at that location, Stefanucci said. Another tip recently contributed to locating the whereabouts of a missing juvenile. Residents can still submit tips, the chief noted, but will have to call in to the department's dispatch desk at (814) 724-6100. Menanno acknowledged the appeal of increased anonymity through online tips, but said potential tipsters could still withhold their names or even mask their phone numbers if they called the department. Concerns about the Crimewatch site first became public in March when city resident John Hartnett addressed City Council after seeing a social media post that commented positively on the 'sense of funny' evident in the site's recent posts. While Hartnett commended the city for its effort at transparency, he questioned whether the seemingly cavalier attitude toward crime was fitting for a government site, especially since the people being identified on the site had not yet been convicted of the charges that were being reported. 'The statements seem kind of prejudicial, kind of stigmatizing,' Hartnett told council at the time. 'These narratives aren't becoming, I think, of something published by the city.' One account posted in late February, eight days before Hartnett addressed council, reported on a woman charged with misdemeanor counts of open lewdness and indecent exposure and a summary count of disorderly conduct. 'No happy meal for you,' the post began. 'With the recent nice weather we have had it seems to draw people out of the woodwork.' The post went on to describe how the woman allegedly opened her shirt to expose her sports bra to staff members behind the counter at Wendy's. 'As she left the restaurant,' the post continued, 'she pulled her shirt off and pulled down her pants to expose her buttocks and genitals to paying customers who probably did not have that on their 'things to see list' for the day.' Hartnett was happy to hear Tuesday that the site would be discontinued. Only a few days ago, he said, he had followed up on his address to council by meeting with Stefanucci and introducing him to a person who had been featured on the website. 'The article was not very nice,' Hartnett said. 'There's extenuating circumstances to every one of these stories, and we really need to humanize our neighbors that get involved in the criminal justice system rather than stigmatize them.'
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Voter turnout tanks in local-heavy primaries; adjudication begins
Following a historic high in November, the voter turnout plummeted in Crawford County from 78 percent to 26 percent on primary election day Tuesday. Crawford County Commissioner Christopher Seeley, chairman of the county's Board of Elections, attributes the drop to local races and said he expects greater turnout in the fall. Primaries typically see fewer voters, especially in years without a presidential election. Seeley said that compared to the two most recent municipal primaries in 2021 and 2023, this one was a little bit lower but near par. 'We weren't necessarily blown away by the turnout, but we weren't surprised by how low it ended up being,' he said. The low turnout does, however, make it harder to recruit poll workers. As of 3 p.m. Tuesday, Centerville marked its ninth voter, which is less than one voter per hour. Seeley acknowledged that it's a tough sell to ask someone to sit there for the day and run the operation with few voters but it's a necessary job. Out of the 4.230 mail-in and absentee ballots sent out, 3,095 were returned, according to unofficial results. In the fall, with heated competition for Meadville City Council and the mayoral position on the ballot, Seeley expects a higher turnout. Other than that, the day went on without a hitch — only minor, human-error issues, if any. The county switched its voting system to Dominion in 2019, and Seeley said that the process continues to get faster as the poll workers and electors get more comfortable with the equipment. The Board of Elections' tabulators and alternate tabulators of official results were sworn in Wednesday, but official tabulation of the results won't begin until election officials have canvassed ballots and adjudicated write-in and provisional ballots. Seeley said that it will be until at least the end of the week until the board has write-in results. In places like Centerville, where nobody was on the ballot, the board is tasked with going through each ballot and reviewing the write-ins. In the case of Crawford Central School District, the fourth and final Democratic nomination was one vote different with eight unresolved write-ins, so the board must review those ballots to determine the victor. 'We value accuracy over speed in all cases,' Seeley said. Official tabulators for the primary election are Board of Elections members Scott Schell, Eric Henry and Seeley. Alternates are Marlo Urey, Tony DiGiacomo, Jenn McCarl, Joe Galbo and Samantha Travis. The county must report its unofficial election results to the Department of State by next Tuesday. As of Wednesday, the Board of Elections had finished going through adjudication of East Fallowfield Township and will be starting with East Mead Township today as it works through alphabetically. The board has to sign a copy of the election results twice to certify an election. Candidates and other parties can raise any challenges to the process in the five-day period between the first and second signings. If there are no challenges or objections, the final computations will be made official with the final signing by the board.
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Democratic and Republican candidates advance in races for City Council, mayor
The primary elections for mayor and Meadville City Council were uncontested Tuesday, with two candidates vying for two ballot spots and one candidate seeking nomination for mayor in both the Democratic and Republican races. On the Republican ballot, incumbent Jim Roha, seeking his third consecutive and fifth term overall, will advance to the general election along with Bill Lawrence, who finished third among four candidates vying for two council seats in 2023. First-time candidate Don Erdley will be the Republican nominee for mayor on the November ballot. Roha received 513 votes; Lawrence, 499; and Erdley, 542. On the Democratic side, first-time candidate Mary Moody will advance to the general election, as will Andrew Herbstritt, who previously finished third among four candidates vying for two nominations in the 2021 Democratic City Council primary. Jaime Kinder, the incumbent mayor who is seeking her second term, will be the Democratic nominee for mayor. In the primary, Moody received 712 votes; Herbstritt, 702; and Kinder, 726.
Yahoo
20-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Frustrations evident at Housing Authority meeting
The introduction of the newest Meadville Housing Authority member at the board's meeting last week coincided with an explosion of frustration from authority officials as well as board moves that raised potential Sunshine Law questions for one member. With the appointment of Jane Osborne last month, three of the board's five members have been appointed since January 2024 by the current makeup of Meadville City Council. The other two members, Richard Zinn and Marcia Yohe, were appointed by previous councils. Frustration grew over the course of the 90-minute meeting during back-and-forth discussions on several topics largely featuring Joe Tompkins, who joined the board in November, and Executive Director Vanessa Rockovich. While Tompkins pushed to follow through on several minor changes discussed at a special meeting late last month, Rockovich told board members that Christopher Ferry, the authority's attorney, had requested that the decisions be postponed until next month since Ferry could not be present for the meeting last week. 'As a board, my understanding is, we don't have to do what Chris says — we're essentially doing him a favor by not discussing these items today,' Tompkins said. 'It's up to us as a board to set the agenda. It's not Chris's agenda, it's not the executive director's agenda.' Part of Tompkins' frustration stemmed from the seemingly simple question of how board members could have topics placed on the agenda for discussion or vote. Tompkins also aired concerns that the understaffed authority could be growing numb to longstanding problems. 'I've seen the bedbug problem persist for years at this point. I'm worried that we're getting comfortable with this status quo where we've consistently got anywhere from eight to 15 units with infestations pretty much every month,' he said. 'I would like to see us do a better job.' Thirteen units at Holland Towers on Market Street and nine at William Gill Commons on Walker Drive were actively being treated last month for infestations of either bedbugs, cockroaches or both, according to Assistant Maintenance Inspector Kyle Lynch. For Holland Towers, the number was up from 10 the previous month while William Gill was down from 14. Like the bedbugs themselves, frustration over the seemingly intransigent problem is nothing new to Housing Authority meetings, and Rockovich responded to Tompkins with a position similar to one she has stated before. 'The only way to do that, Joe, is to start evicting the tenants because the tenants are the problem,' she said. 'The problem is the hoarding and the keeping of items.' Rockovich has also in the past stated her unwillingness to evict the seniors and disabled people who reside in Holland Towers over repeat bedbug issues. As recently as November, in Tompkins' first meeting as a board member, she decried the catch-22 situation facing tenants most in need of social services: Such tenants, Rockovich said, need the help of social service agencies to overcome the issues leading to bedbug problems, but local agencies decline to send caseworkers to apartments with ongoing infestations. Last week, Rockovich said that when the authority did evict one person responsible for repeated recurrences of bedbug problems, the 'services kicked in initially but then they don't stay on top of it.' As the meeting progressed to new business, board members voted on two seemingly minor items Tompkins proposed bringing to the table: including reports from the authority's three resident councils as a recurring feature of the monthly meeting agenda and posting either an audio or video recording of the monthly meeting to the authority's website. Board members voted unanimously in favor of the former and 3-2 in favor of the latter, with Yohe and Zin in opposition. Both said they supported the concept but cited procedural concerns as the reason for their opposition. Zinn specifically cited a lack of clarity on the details of how the recording would be made and posted. Yohe's concern grew out of the appearance of a lack of transparency. 'It makes me nervous without Chris (Ferry) being here because we didn't tell folks that we were taking this (vote) when we started this week,' Yohe said. Pennsylvania's Sunshine Law prohibits public agencies from adding action items to meeting agendas during meetings or less than 24 hours prior except under very limited circumstances. Contacted via email Wednesday, Ferry said that he was unaware of the board's actions at the meeting. He added that both issues had been discussed before the public at the board's special meeting late last month and that neither actually required formal votes for implementation 'We take great care to avoid any Sunshine Law impropriety,' he said. 'Part of the reason for the special meeting in January was for the public to learn the views of board members on those topics. They had a robust discussion at the special meeting about that.' Melissa Melewsky, media law counsel for Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association, noted that while not emergencies, the items in question might qualify as exceptions to the agenda requirements due to their minor nature and the fact that they did not involve the expenditure of funds. 'They seem to be de minimis and made to increase transparency, so that's encouraging,' Melewsky wrote in an email. 'If the agency would have added a contract or controversial issue to the agenda under 'new business' my answer would be very different.' As the focus of the meeting turned to two staff positions that have remained vacant since — Holland Towers manager and Section 8 housing program manager — Tompkins again returned to frustration over the seeming intractability of the challenges facing the authority. 'Every time I'm proposing to do something new, I'm told you don't have the capacity to do this, give me another month, give another month, give me a couple of months,' he said. 'I can't get firm timelines on anything.' 'You're not going to get firm timelines on anything, Joe,' Rockovich responded immediately, her insistent tone and rising volume revealing frustration of her own. 'You don't understand Housing Authority business, and I am to the point that I'm tired of you badgering, tired of you calling me a liar and tired of you saying that I'm making excuses. I am doing the best that I can. 'If you had a better understanding of what goes on,' she continued, 'you would take a step back and say let the staff do their jobs.' As Rockovich concluded, Zinn announced, 'That's it,' indicating that he was ready to adjourn the meeting. Tompkins, however, was not, and told Zinn, 'I'm not finished.' 'You are finished,' Zinn replied. 'I've heard enough.' 'No, I'm not finished, Dick,' Tompkins continued, momentarily shouting. 'She does not get to interrupt me and then you interrupt me and then I'm cut off. … You're going to cut another board member off after she just patronized us?' 'I'm tired of this discussion,' Zinn replied. Despite the fatigue, the meeting continued another 10 minutes or so, much of it back and forth discussion between Zinn, Tompkins, Yohe and Rockovich.
Yahoo
13-02-2025
- General
- Yahoo
MLK sign finds a home at Second District
Four years after it was first proposed, a large sign honoring Martin Luther King Jr. finally has a permanent home inside the main entrance to Second District Elementary School. 'We chose to put in our vestibule,' Principal Kelli Trenga said this week, 'so that it would be in a high-traffic area where everyone could see it and appreciate the beauty of the plaque and our commitment to carrying out his dream of equality and fairness and hope for a better future for us all.' The idea for the sign was conceived in 2021 by the Rev. Gary Manning, who proposed placing it outside the school along South Main Street, much like a historical marker already placed near the school. That marker, near the intersection of South Main Street and Autumn Drive, honors the role that Meadville resident Elias Allen played in the desegregation of Pennsylvania schools. After months of bouncing back and forth between meetings of Crawford Central School Board and Meadville City Council in an effort to work out concerns over the location of the sign, potential copyright infringement concerns and worries about maintenance and the sign's durability, Manning's efforts appeared to go nowhere and the sign remained unposted. In fact, before being contacted by The Meadville Tribune on Wednesday, Manning was unaware that the sign was recently installed inside a custom case in the school. 'That's just excellent,' he said upon hearing the news. 'I wasn't really sure about them putting it outside because I didn't know how the weather would affect it, but I'm glad they had use for it.' Manning credited Deputy Mayor Larry McKnight for continuing the effort to have the sign placed in a prominent location, while McKnight gave much of the credit for the sign finally finding a home to Crawford Central Superintendent Jenn Galdon. The 68-year-old McKnight attended Second District himself — he still recalls when the cafeteria was added to the building — and said the school made for a good location for the sign given the history of desegregation in Meadville. As the historical marker outside the school explains, an 1854 law mandated segregation in Pennsylvania schools. In fall 1880, Allen, who was Black, attempted to enroll his two children in what were then known as the South Ward schools, which allowed whites only at the time. When his attempt was unsuccessful, he appealed to Crawford County Court of Common Pleas and Judge Pearson Church ruled the 1854 law unconstitutional. On July 4, 1881, the state Legislature amended the law to prohibit segregation. Such efforts, McKnight said, provided a foundation for the advances achieved by the Civil Rights Movement that King helped lead decades later. 'For students, I hope it makes them realize that segregation is not something people just started fighting about when Martin Luther King came on the scene,' he added. 'I want kids to realize even way back then there was a fight for desegregation. It was not a one-sided thing. You had Blacks as well as whites that did not agree with it and fought, actually made laws to have it changed.' Placing the sign near the school's entrance, where it is protected from the weather and in a high-traffic area, is a 'win-win for the community and the school,' according to Galdon. 'It looks great and it's right there when you walk in,' she said. 'It felt like it was important for the community to put it in a nice spot.' McKnight was optimistic that the sign will serve as a reminder of the importance of inclusiveness in Meadville's history. 'I hope that our kids and people who come and visit will realize this area played a very significant part in changing history,' he said, 'and that we can continue to do that, regardless of what color you are.'
