After her disastrous performances on the ABC and CBS news programs and after being parodied on Saturday Night Live, Republican Sarah Palin went into Thurday night's vice presidential debate with Democrat Joe Biden badly bruised politically. The question on most people's minds was whether she would be able to avoid ... Read more and add a comment
Like Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama, the Republican nominee for vice president, Sarah Palin, has a connection to Kenya, the East African nation that right-wing GOPers had claimed was a Muslim country — until the Palin link became public.
It was a performance that lent itself to speculation about Youngstown Mayor Jay Williams' future. During his introduction of U.S. Sen. Joe Biden, the Democratic vice presidential nominee, at a rally Thursday in downtown Youngstown, the mayor not only said all the right things about Biden and Democratic presidential nominee ... Read more and add a comment
Is there any question that had the Democratic ticket trotted out a pregnant 17-year-old unmarried daughter of the vice presidential nominee, Republicans would have spent their entire convention berating those godless, liberal Democrats for not having family values? Is there any doubt that the GOP gathering would have made the ... Read more and add a comment
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who will be nominated this week at the Republican National Convention as John McCain's vice presidential running mate, revealed Monday that her 17-year-old daughter is pregnant.
Palin, whose presence on the GOP ticket is designed to appease the right wing of the party that has been ... Read more and add a comment
Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland was originally scheduled to address the Democratic National Convention in Denver around 6:15 Tuesday evening, but when he finally stepped on to the podium, it was prime time. Why? Because in just about every political calculation for this year's presidential election, Ohio is a must-win state ... Read more and add a comment
While Younstown Mayor Jay Williams is to be commended for protecting the interests of his residents, he should take a step back and ask himself this question: Why doesn't Wal-Mart want to commit to a 25 percent hiring standard for city residents in its new Liberty Township superstore?
Regardless of what you think of the Youngstown city school system, you have to give the school board credit for trying to find a new way of winning voter approval for an additional tax levy.
The district has failed three times to pass a tax and each time it would have ... Read more and add a comment
Now there's Keno in Ohio — to go along with the state lottery (complete with scratch-off tickets that cost from $1 to $20) horse racing and bingo (with cherry poppers, no doubt). And yet, Ohio (or at least the Bible thumpers, conservative Republicans and the Ohio Roundtable) continues to stick ... Read more and add a comment
You're standing in front of a neighborhood store when a man walks up to the front door carrying a rifle, dons a mask, enters and demands money from the clerk. Customers in the store rush out. The armed robber goes behind the counter, opens the cash registers, grabs cash and ... Read more and add a comment
Former Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann contends that by taking politics and cronyism out of the debt collections process, the office during his 14-month tenure recovered a record $344 million for various state agencies. The two individuals he put in charge of going after unpaid income and sales taxes and ... Read more and add a comment
"Hello, Bertram, this is your chairman. Miss me yet?"
"Hey, chairman, where are you?"
"In Limbo. Story of my life! Reason I'm calling from wherever is to urge you to persuade my sons and daughters to drop their idea of having my body lie in state in the rotunda of the Mahoning ... Read more and add a comment
Two of the most prominent black residents of the Mahoning Valley are embroiled in a very public battle over the Chevrolet Centre in downtown Youngstown and unless Youngstown Mayor Jay Williams and Valley businessman Herb Washington resolve their differences, their fight could spill over into next year's mayoral election.
An entry in the Years Ago column on Page A5 of Thursday's Vindicator is a testament to the incompetence of local government. Here's how the entry reads: "Julian Suso, a development consultant hired by the Youngstown Revitalization Foundation, says the entranceways to the city have to be cleaned up."
During his brief campaign visit to the Mahoning Valley Friday, U.S. Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, was asked if he would be willing to debate his Democratic opponent, U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, in Youngstown. After first saying that he is willing to meet Obama any where ... Read more and add a comment
The silly season of politics has come early. A political website, PolitickerOH.com, offered this jewel recently: “Sources say Cafaro is mulling U.S. Senate bid.” In fact, the web story is based on only one source — a “Democratic insider who is close to Cafaro” — and offers little more than ... Read more and add a comment
With the Youngstown SteelHounds no longer playing in the Central Hockey League, the 2008-09 season at the Chevrolet Centre is up in the air. If the SteelHounds can't find another league quickly, there will be 32 dates between October and March that will be open — unless arena manager Eric ... Read more and add a comment
Atty. Don L. Hanni Jr., the hard-living criminal defense lawyer and former Mahoning County Democratic Party chairman, has been sidelined because of stroke. Several weeks ago, he was taken to the Cleveland Clinic after being felled in his home — he began feeling ill in church (no editorial comments, please!). ... Read more and add a comment
Although former Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann is deserving of the Mahoning Valley's resentment for how he conducted himself in the second highest administrative office in the state — that conduct resulted in his resignation last week after a mere 16 months — he did perform a public service.
You're a middle aged, not so good looking, married Mahoning Valley man who's in Columbus trying to impress a single woman half your age, so you tell her:
a) You have a doctorate in ancient languages and can recite the Lord's Prayer in Sanskrit.
The release of more than 2,000 e-mails between Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann and his one-time scheduler, Jessica Utovich, do not show a romantic connection, although they reveal a familiarity between boss and employee that makes the skin crawl.
While Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann was dismissing reporters' questions in Columbus about his possible resignation as "ridiculous," there was this comment tossed out in Youngstown that suggests the possibility of Dann's early departure: "If Marc's wife, Alyssa, wants him to resign to spare the children further pain, he'll do ... Read more and add a comment
In detailing the sexual harassment allegations made by two female employees of the Ohio Attorney General's Office against Anthony Gutierrez of Liberty, a political appointee of Attorney General Marc Dann's earning $87,000 a year, The Columbus Dispatch shed light on a unique way Dann conducts official business.
During a discussion Friday morning about Barack Obama's political problems as a result of incendiary racial comments made by his pastor, MSNBC host Joe Scarborough mentioned Youngstown, Ohio, as he talked about the racial divide that still exists in America.
Those of us in private sector employment can huff and puff all we want about public sector workers making out like bandits when it comes to their salaries and benefits, but nothing will change so long as the pension plan that now exists is calculated on the average of the ... Read more and add a comment
Last May, the New York Times published a story about Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann and contended that he could well succeed Eliot Spitzer of New York as the most aggressive state AG. But the Times also reported that when Dann was asked whether he was trying to emulate Spitzer, ... Read more and add a comment
When Barack Obama appeared on the campus of Youngstown State University, more than 6,000 people roared their approval as he stepped on stage in Beeghly Center. Obama had been introduced by a white woman holding a white child, an indication that his campaign is attracting Americans of all races.
During his barn-burner of a speech Monday to more than 6,000 supporters on the campus of Youngstown State University, Barack Obama, thus far the leading contender for the Democratic nomination for president, dismissed critics who say he could not stand up to Republican John McCain in the general election with ... Read more and add a comment
Two days before the Ohio Supreme Court issued its ruling that ended David Aey's bid for Mahoning County sheriff, the incumbent, Randall Wellington, made a statement about his opponent that held out the promise of a hard-hitting, bloody Democratic primary contest.
Two years ago almost to the day, Youngstown Atty. David "I never met a camera I didn't like" Betras told a gathering at Cedar's Cafe in downtown Youngstown that the Girard traffic camera was illegal and that he intended to take the the fight against it all the way to ... Read more and add a comment
Is it possible that whoever fired shots at the Liberty Township home of Dr. David Sweet, president of Youngstown State University, was actually looking for Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann's residence, which is also in Liberty?
The question is not without some merit, given that law enforcement officials have not provided ... Read more and add a comment
The Youngstown Police Department’s vice squad recently found out that it lacks the one ingredient to launch a successful crackdown on prostitution in the city: credible undercover hookers. Read more and add a comment
If Youngstown city government is so flush with money that it can afford huge pay raises for public employees who are mediocre at best, with average qualifications and education, it's time the private-sector taxpayers got a break. If Mayor Jay Williams and city council aren't willing to decrease the income tax rate by a half-percent, then a citizens' initiative is demanded. Read more and add a comment
In response to the blog about Boardman Township Administrator Jason Loree's lack of pertinent qualifications when he was hired by trustees Elaine Mancini, Kathy Miller and Robyn Gallitto, Miller submitted a letter showing that she has had second thoughts. Read more and add a comment
The front page story Sunday by Vindicator Reporter Denise Dick on the effort by Boardman Township officials to sell a 4.1-mill levy to the voters was compelling because of what it revealed about government spending. With 180 employees gobbling up $9.6 million a year, the list of their annual salaries (add another 45 percent for the value of the benefit package) was red meat for private sector workers who have long wondered if those in the public sector know what it's like to live in the real world. Read more and add a comment
The timing of last Sunday's appearance on NBC's Meet the Press show of comedian and activist Bill Cosby and Havard University Professor Alvin F. Poussaint to talk about their new book, "Come on, People: On the Path from Victims to Victors," could not have been better for the Mahoning Valley. Host Tim Russert, a veteran television journalist, asked questions of Cosby and Poussaint that went to the heart of the crisis in the black community, especially with regard to young people. Read more and add a comment
The first "Great Political Chili Challenge" Wednesday evening at the Avion On The Water was a rousing success, due in large part to the hard work of veteran radio personality Pete Gabriel, who is president of the Boardman Optimist Club and mastermind of the event.
Read more and add a comment
Attorney General Marc Dann's use of the "F" word in attacking a reporter with the Warren Tribune Chronicle grabbed headlines statewide, but it isn't his potty mouth that's cause for concern. Rather, it's Dann's failure to recognize that having a member of his family on the state payroll is a legitimate news story. Read more and add a comment
Following is the letter ex-Youngstown Municipal Court Judge Patrick V. Kerrigan submitted in withdrawing his name from consideration for the position of executive director of Lien Forward Ohio Read more and add a comment
There'll be a lot of hot air Wednesday evening when area politicians gather at Avion On The Water, 2177 West Western Reserve Road, but it won't be because of their pontificating about all things irrelevant. Rather, officeholders will be trying to win public support for their ... chili.
Read more and add a comment
The editorial page in last Sunday's Vindicator featured letters from readers who were upset with this writer's Sept. 9 column. Unfortunately, it was not possible to publish all the letters that were received. The links below give the writers the opportunity to have their say. Read more and add a comment
When he was campaigning for Ohio attorney general last year, Marc Dann of Liberty Township assured the residents of the Mahon Read more and add a comment
Once again Attorney General Marc Dann is in the news, and once again it has nothing to do with his duties as the state\'s top Read more and add a comment
On Aug, 11, The Vindicator published a letter from former Mahoning County Treasurer John Reardon (now a state official) defen Read more and add a comment
More than 200 telephone calls were placed between the Cafaro Co. headquarters on Belmont Avenue in Youngstown and several Mah Read more and add a comment
On July 18, 1982, The Youngstown Vindicator published a special report on the federal government\'s crackdown</p><p>on organi Read more and add a comment
What if U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Kay Woods orders Mahoning County government to pay the $75,000 the county owes for Oakhill Rena Read more and add a comment
Now that state Rep. Robert Hagan has said he was being sarcastic when he sent a letter to President Bush seeking a commutatio Read more and add a comment
To hear members of Youngstown City Council tell it, attending conferences in such tourist destinations as Washington, D.C., a Read more and add a comment
If the five thugs who attacked a couple from Hubbard early Monday morning in Youngstown are arrested and convicted, time in j Read more and add a comment
On Monday afternoon, Dr. Bill Binning, chairman of the political science department at Youngstown State University and former Read more and add a comment
The word "will" in the title of this blog reflects the political reality of Mahoning County. If you ask the question "Who sho Read more and add a comment
State Rep. Robert "Bobby" Hagan, D-Youngstown, showed up Wednesday in the Ohio House with his "girls" and for a little while Read more and add a comment
In Chicago, a billboard proclaiming Life\'s short. Get a divorce caused such an uproar that city workers stripped it from its Read more and add a comment
The overwhelming vote Tuesday in support of a permanent renewal of the 0.5 percent sales tax in Mahoning County was a repudia Read more and add a comment
Search Options
Posted by bertram on October 2, 2008
After her disastrous performances on the ABC and CBS news programs and after being parodied on Saturday Night Live, Republican Sarah Palin went into Thurday night's vice presidential debate with Democrat Joe Biden badly bruised politically. The question on most people's minds was whether she would be able to avoid ...
Read more and add a comment
Posted by bertram on September 28, 2008
Like Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama, the Republican nominee for vice president, Sarah Palin, has a connection to Kenya, the East African nation that right-wing GOPers had claimed was a Muslim country — until the Palin link became public.
Obama's father was from Kenya — but was a student in the ...
Read more and add a comment
Posted by bertram on September 20, 2008
It was a performance that lent itself to speculation about Youngstown Mayor Jay Williams' future. During his introduction of U.S. Sen. Joe Biden, the Democratic vice presidential nominee, at a rally Thursday in downtown Youngstown, the mayor not only said all the right things about Biden and Democratic presidential nominee ...
Read more and add a comment
Posted by bertram on September 9, 2008
Is there any question that had the Democratic ticket trotted out a pregnant 17-year-old unmarried daughter of the vice presidential nominee, Republicans would have spent their entire convention berating those godless, liberal Democrats for not having family values? Is there any doubt that the GOP gathering would have made the ...
Read more and add a comment
Posted by bertram on September 2, 2008
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who will be nominated this week at the Republican National Convention as John McCain's vice presidential running mate, revealed Monday that her 17-year-old daughter is pregnant.
Palin, whose presence on the GOP ticket is designed to appease the right wing of the party that has been ...
Read more and add a comment
Posted by bertram on August 27, 2008
Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland was originally scheduled to address the Democratic National Convention in Denver around 6:15 Tuesday evening, but when he finally stepped on to the podium, it was prime time. Why? Because in just about every political calculation for this year's presidential election, Ohio is a must-win state ...
Read more and add a comment
Posted by bertram on August 24, 2008
While Younstown Mayor Jay Williams is to be commended for protecting the interests of his residents, he should take a step back and ask himself this question: Why doesn't Wal-Mart want to commit to a 25 percent hiring standard for city residents in its new Liberty Township superstore?
Given that the ...
Read more and add a comment
Posted by bertram on August 15, 2008
Audio clip Trustee Meeting 8-13-2003
Read more and add a comment
Posted by bertram on August 13, 2008
Regardless of what you think of the Youngstown city school system, you have to give the school board credit for trying to find a new way of winning voter approval for an additional tax levy.
The district has failed three times to pass a tax and each time it would have ...
Read more and add a comment
Posted by bertram on August 4, 2008
Now there's Keno in Ohio — to go along with the state lottery (complete with scratch-off tickets that cost from $1 to $20) horse racing and bingo (with cherry poppers, no doubt). And yet, Ohio (or at least the Bible thumpers, conservative Republicans and the Ohio Roundtable) continues to stick ...
Read more and add a comment
Posted by bertram on July 29, 2008
You're standing in front of a neighborhood store when a man walks up to the front door carrying a rifle, dons a mask, enters and demands money from the clerk. Customers in the store rush out. The armed robber goes behind the counter, opens the cash registers, grabs cash and ...
Read more and add a comment
Posted by bertram on July 21, 2008
Former Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann contends that by taking politics and cronyism out of the debt collections process, the office during his 14-month tenure recovered a record $344 million for various state agencies. The two individuals he put in charge of going after unpaid income and sales taxes and ...
Read more and add a comment
Posted by bertram on July 17, 2008
"Hello, Bertram, this is your chairman. Miss me yet?"
"Hey, chairman, where are you?"
"In Limbo. Story of my life! Reason I'm calling from wherever is to urge you to persuade my sons and daughters to drop their idea of having my body lie in state in the rotunda of the Mahoning ...
Read more and add a comment
Posted by bertram on July 14, 2008
Two of the most prominent black residents of the Mahoning Valley are embroiled in a very public battle over the Chevrolet Centre in downtown Youngstown and unless Youngstown Mayor Jay Williams and Valley businessman Herb Washington resolve their differences, their fight could spill over into next year's mayoral election.
Williams' first ...
Read more and add a comment
Posted by bertram on July 4, 2008
An entry in the Years Ago column on Page A5 of Thursday's Vindicator is a testament to the incompetence of local government. Here's how the entry reads: "Julian Suso, a development consultant hired by the Youngstown Revitalization Foundation, says the entranceways to the city have to be cleaned up."
It is ...
Read more and add a comment
Posted by bertram on July 3, 2008
McCain Visit
Read more and add a comment
Posted by bertram on June 28, 2008
During his brief campaign visit to the Mahoning Valley Friday, U.S. Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, was asked if he would be willing to debate his Democratic opponent, U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, in Youngstown. After first saying that he is willing to meet Obama any where ...
Read more and add a comment
Posted by bertram on June 17, 2008
The silly season of politics has come early. A political website, PolitickerOH.com, offered this jewel recently: “Sources say Cafaro is mulling U.S. Senate bid.”
In fact, the web story is based on only one source — a “Democratic insider who is close to Cafaro” — and offers little more than ...
Read more and add a comment
Posted by bertram on June 7, 2008
With the Youngstown SteelHounds no longer playing in the Central Hockey League, the 2008-09 season at the Chevrolet Centre is up in the air. If the SteelHounds can't find another league quickly, there will be 32 dates between October and March that will be open — unless arena manager Eric ...
Read more and add a comment
Posted by bertram on May 26, 2008
Atty. Don L. Hanni Jr., the hard-living criminal defense lawyer and former Mahoning County Democratic Party chairman, has been sidelined because of stroke. Several weeks ago, he was taken to the Cleveland Clinic after being felled in his home — he began feeling ill in church (no editorial comments, please!). ...
Read more and add a comment
Posted by bertram on May 17, 2008
Although former Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann is deserving of the Mahoning Valley's resentment for how he conducted himself in the second highest administrative office in the state — that conduct resulted in his resignation last week after a mere 16 months — he did perform a public service.
Because of ...
Read more and add a comment
Posted by bertram on May 3, 2008
You're a middle aged, not so good looking, married Mahoning Valley man who's in Columbus trying to impress a single woman half your age, so you tell her:
a) You have a doctorate in ancient languages and can recite the Lord's Prayer in Sanskrit.
b) You actually started Microsoft, but Bill Gates ...
Read more and add a comment
Posted by bertram on April 22, 2008
The release of more than 2,000 e-mails between Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann and his one-time scheduler, Jessica Utovich, do not show a romantic connection, although they reveal a familiarity between boss and employee that makes the skin crawl.
But cooing (mostly on Utovich's part) does not rise to the level ...
Read more and add a comment
Posted by bertram on April 17, 2008
While Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann was dismissing reporters' questions in Columbus about his possible resignation as "ridiculous," there was this comment tossed out in Youngstown that suggests the possibility of Dann's early departure: "If Marc's wife, Alyssa, wants him to resign to spare the children further pain, he'll do ...
Read more and add a comment
Posted by bertram on April 8, 2008
In detailing the sexual harassment allegations made by two female employees of the Ohio Attorney General's Office against Anthony Gutierrez of Liberty, a political appointee of Attorney General Marc Dann's earning $87,000 a year, The Columbus Dispatch shed light on a unique way Dann conducts official business.
Based on the written ...
Read more and add a comment
Posted by bertram on March 21, 2008
During a discussion Friday morning about Barack Obama's political problems as a result of incendiary racial comments made by his pastor, MSNBC host Joe Scarborough mentioned Youngstown, Ohio, as he talked about the racial divide that still exists in America.
The segment of the Scarborough show can be viewed by clicking ...
Read more and add a comment
Posted by bertram on March 18, 2008
Those of us in private sector employment can huff and puff all we want about public sector workers making out like bandits when it comes to their salaries and benefits, but nothing will change so long as the pension plan that now exists is calculated on the average of the ...
Read more and add a comment
Posted by bertram on March 11, 2008
Last May, the New York Times published a story about Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann and contended that he could well succeed Eliot Spitzer of New York as the most aggressive state AG. But the Times also reported that when Dann was asked whether he was trying to emulate Spitzer, ...
Read more and add a comment
Posted by bertram on February 26, 2008
When Barack Obama appeared on the campus of Youngstown State University, more than 6,000 people roared their approval as he stepped on stage in Beeghly Center. Obama had been introduced by a white woman holding a white child, an indication that his campaign is attracting Americans of all races.
But when ...
Read more and add a comment
Posted by bertram on February 18, 2008
During his barn-burner of a speech Monday to more than 6,000 supporters on the campus of Youngstown State University, Barack Obama, thus far the leading contender for the Democratic nomination for president, dismissed critics who say he could not stand up to Republican John McCain in the general election with ...
Read more and add a comment
Posted by bertram on February 14, 2008
Two days before the Ohio Supreme Court issued its ruling that ended David Aey's bid for Mahoning County sheriff, the incumbent, Randall Wellington, made a statement about his opponent that held out the promise of a hard-hitting, bloody Democratic primary contest.
Wellington told Vindicator writers that Aey as sheriff would be ...
Read more and add a comment
Posted by bertram on February 3, 2008
Two years ago almost to the day, Youngstown Atty. David "I never met a camera I didn't like" Betras told a gathering at Cedar's Cafe in downtown Youngstown that the Girard traffic camera was illegal and that he intended to take the the fight against it all the way to ...
Read more and add a comment
Posted by bertram on January 22, 2008
Is it possible that whoever fired shots at the Liberty Township home of Dr. David Sweet, president of Youngstown State University, was actually looking for Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann's residence, which is also in Liberty?
The question is not without some merit, given that law enforcement officials have not provided ...
Read more and add a comment
Posted by bertram on January 8, 2008
Youngstown Mayor Jay Williams and city council retreat
Read more and add a comment
Posted by bertram on December 18, 2007
The Youngstown Police Department’s vice squad recently found out that it lacks the one ingredient to launch a successful crackdown on prostitution in the city: credible undercover hookers.
Read more and add a comment
Posted by bertram on December 2, 2007
If Youngstown city government is so flush with money that it can afford huge pay raises for public employees who are mediocre at best, with average qualifications and education, it's time the private-sector taxpayers got a break. If Mayor Jay Williams and city council aren't willing to decrease the income tax rate by a half-percent, then a citizens' initiative is demanded.
Read more and add a comment
Posted by bertram on November 6, 2007
In response to the blog about Boardman Township Administrator Jason Loree's lack of pertinent qualifications when he was hired by trustees Elaine Mancini, Kathy Miller and Robyn Gallitto, Miller submitted a letter showing that she has had second thoughts.
Read more and add a comment
Posted by bertram on October 29, 2007
The front page story Sunday by Vindicator Reporter Denise Dick on the effort by Boardman Township officials to sell a 4.1-mill levy to the voters was compelling because of what it revealed about government spending. With 180 employees gobbling up $9.6 million a year, the list of their annual salaries (add another 45 percent for the value of the benefit package) was red meat for private sector workers who have long wondered if those in the public sector know what it's like to live in the real world.
Read more and add a comment
Posted by bertram on October 18, 2007
The timing of last Sunday's appearance on NBC's Meet the Press show of comedian and activist Bill Cosby and Havard University Professor Alvin F. Poussaint to talk about their new book, "Come on, People: On the Path from Victims to Victors," could not have been better for the Mahoning Valley. Host Tim Russert, a veteran television journalist, asked questions of Cosby and Poussaint that went to the heart of the crisis in the black community, especially with regard to young people.
Read more and add a comment
Posted by bertram on October 6, 2007
The first "Great Political Chili Challenge" Wednesday evening at the Avion On The Water was a rousing success, due in large part to the hard work of veteran radio personality Pete Gabriel, who is president of the Boardman Optimist Club and mastermind of the event.
Read more and add a comment
Posted by bertram on October 5, 2007
Attorney General Marc Dann's use of the "F" word in attacking a reporter with the Warren Tribune Chronicle grabbed headlines statewide, but it isn't his potty mouth that's cause for concern. Rather, it's Dann's failure to recognize that having a member of his family on the state payroll is a legitimate news story.
Read more and add a comment
Posted by bertram on October 5, 2007
Following is the letter ex-Youngstown Municipal Court Judge Patrick V. Kerrigan submitted in withdrawing his name from consideration for the position of executive director of Lien Forward Ohio
Read more and add a comment
Posted by bertram on October 2, 2007
There'll be a lot of hot air Wednesday evening when area politicians gather at Avion On The Water, 2177 West Western Reserve Road, but it won't be because of their pontificating about all things irrelevant. Rather, officeholders will be trying to win public support for their ... chili.
Read more and add a comment
Posted by bertram on September 22, 2007
The editorial page in last Sunday's Vindicator featured letters from readers who were upset with this writer's Sept. 9 column. Unfortunately, it was not possible to publish all the letters that were received. The links below give the writers the opportunity to have their say.
Read more and add a comment
Posted by bertram on September 17, 2007
When he was campaigning for Ohio attorney general last year, Marc Dann of Liberty Township assured the residents of the Mahon
Read more and add a comment
Posted by bertram on September 9, 2007
Once again Attorney General Marc Dann is in the news, and once again it has nothing to do with his duties as the state\'s top
Read more and add a comment
Posted by bertram on August 27, 2007
On Aug, 11, The Vindicator published a letter from former Mahoning County Treasurer John Reardon (now a state official) defen
Read more and add a comment
Posted by bertram on August 4, 2007
More than 200 telephone calls were placed between the Cafaro Co. headquarters on Belmont Avenue in Youngstown and several Mah
Read more and add a comment
Posted by bertram on July 21, 2007
On July 18, 1982, The Youngstown Vindicator published a special report on the federal government\'s crackdown</p><p>on organi
Read more and add a comment
Posted by bertram on July 15, 2007
What if U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Kay Woods orders Mahoning County government to pay the $75,000 the county owes for Oakhill Rena
Read more and add a comment
Posted by bertram on July 7, 2007
Now that state Rep. Robert Hagan has said he was being sarcastic when he sent a letter to President Bush seeking a commutatio
Read more and add a comment
Posted by bertram on July 2, 2007
To hear members of Youngstown City Council tell it, attending conferences in such tourist destinations as Washington, D.C., a
Read more and add a comment
Posted by bertram on June 19, 2007
If the five thugs who attacked a couple from Hubbard early Monday morning in Youngstown are arrested and convicted, time in j
Read more and add a comment
Posted by bertram on June 4, 2007
On Monday afternoon, Dr. Bill Binning, chairman of the political science department at Youngstown State University and former
Read more and add a comment
Posted by bertram on May 23, 2007
The word "will" in the title of this blog reflects the political reality of Mahoning County. If you ask the question "Who sho
Read more and add a comment
Posted by bertram on May 18, 2007
State Rep. Robert "Bobby" Hagan, D-Youngstown, showed up Wednesday in the Ohio House with his "girls" and for a little while
Read more and add a comment
Posted by bertram on May 13, 2007
In Chicago, a billboard proclaiming Life\'s short. Get a divorce caused such an uproar that city workers stripped it from its
Read more and add a comment
Posted by bertram on May 9, 2007
The overwhelming vote Tuesday in support of a permanent renewal of the 0.5 percent sales tax in Mahoning County was a repudia
Read more and add a comment