Radio Free JoJo

During Tom Atkins weather forecast last night on Jet TV, he had a trivia question about which Christmas had 20” of snow and wind chills of 40-50 below. “Of course,” I told my wife, “it was the Christmas of 1983.”

That year I was two months into a very part time job working as an air personality at WJET 1400 AM in Erie. My assignment for Christmas was to play the tapes of the full-time jocks playing their favorite Christmas songs throughout the early morning. The forecast for Christmas was dire, even for those days. Basically, a blizzard was in store. I was without wheels back then, being a lowly college student, and my father didn’t want me driving the only family car to inevitably get stuck. So we made a plan that my dad would drive me to the station during Christmas Eve before the storm hit, and I would stay there overnight and take a cab home the next day.

So there I was, sleeping on the floor of our Program Director Ken Tyler’s office on Christmas morning. I was awakened about 5:30 AM by Mark Priscaro, who was finishing up the overnight shift, and I was going to be on through the morning to play the tapes.

The airshift went on without a hitch. I remember several of the jocks playing “Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer” as that was the big novelty song that year. Meanwhile, outside the Erie area was getting crushed by an historical snowfall for Christmas. Somehow, the fellow who was to relieve me made it to the station (I think he had a big ‘ol 4-wheeler), and I had arranged for a cab to take me home.

The taxi pulled up on time, and as I enter I find the driver dressed in a Santa suit, with his cab’s interior decorated with ornaments and lights. It is the most memorable taxi ride of my life.  He drove his cab as if it was Santa’s sleigh, bounding through the snow on Erie’s Ash Street, north to 12th. He really didn’t turn left onto 12th but more like whipped the cab’s rear end around with a jerk to be facing west. We plowed snow and he did the same maneuver to turn left onto Sassafras and continued south to my block on 18th.  People that know Erie will recognize that he took the long way to 18th & Sass. but on that day, he went the only way he could considering the snow.  I paid my fare and gave him a big tip. He dropped me at the corner and with a hardy “Merry Christmas,” he went on his way.

I walked the half-block to my house, glad to be home even as the whole city was shut down. I thought to myself that I’d always remember where I was on the Christmas of 1983.

The weather report for Erie PA this fall has read like a good novel. It starts out with an unusually positive sequence of events, and then quickly turns sour. It’s a page-turner, because just when you think you know what happens next…it doesn’t.

We had a glorious early part of the season with warm temperatures that lasted well into late October. Halloween was downright balmy! I remember Halloweens when I was a kid trudging through three inches of snow.  Our first blast of snow however came within days of Oct. 31st. Since then, as hard as they try, the weather patterns have been causing headaches for our forecasters.

For example, this past weekend there were some reports that the city could get a foot of snow. We were battening down the hatches for a real blizzard. Now indeed, it was really windy, but snow fall had to be just a couple inches, barely a blip on the way to our normal 90-120 inches per winter.  Last week, one of local TV weathermen said that there were multiple conflicting models coming his way, and he admitted that it was hard to predict what was going to happen, given the data presented.

I guess to me, that uncertainty is ok.  It’s more forthright to say that you’re unsure than to predict a massive snowfall that gets everybody in a tizzy, cancelling all of their Christmas plays and bingo nights and then it rains or just snows a little.

I feel that to a certain extent that the weather business has gotten sucked into the news business of overkill team coverage and hyperbole.  Sure the weather often is a legitimate news story, especially in a great weather market like Erie. But our media people need to remember that the reason why we live in this region is that many of us like the weather the way it is; we don’t need to be hyped up about it. Just tell it like you see it, and we’ll just weather the storm.

I’m on-the-air on WCTL all day Thursday hosting a fundraiser in support of the translators the Family First Foundation operates in Warren PA and Jamestown NY. If you are a WCTL fan and you can send a pledge, it would be greatly appreciated. Call 1-800-282-9285 or click here to pledge. Mention my blog…I’d love to get on the phone and chat!

The most e-mailed New York Times article this morning is “The 53 Places to Go in 2008.” Sounds interesting, huh! Turns out that Laos, Lisbon, and Tunisia are the top three. No surprise that Erie wasn’t on the list, in fact, only eight destinations were in the U.S., including New York itself (kind of self-serving, wouldn’t you say?). It made me wonder about how well our tourism brand is being communicated in the travel press.

Ok, so maybe sophisticated New York Times readers aren’t interested in a grilled hot dog and orange-vanilla twist soft serve at Sara’s after a bike ride at Presque Isle. Why play the slots at the Downs when Vegas is calling, baby? But what about the flyover crowd, those Post-Gazette, Plain Dealer, Vindicator or Centre County Times readers? They surely are drawn to the amazing sunsets, sandy beaches, and four-season fun available in the Flagship/Gem City!

It’s strangely nearly impossible to find much travel news about Erie on the web. By searching “erie travel” on postgazette.com, I got no hits. On vindy.com (Youngstown), a couple of forum mentions, but again no articles. Same with the Plain Dealer. Same with the Centre Daily Times (State College). Even a Google News Archive search found mostly only travel articles from our own Erie Times News. Understand that I, and most other people, do not have LEXUS/NEXUS accounts.

What gives? I thought tourism was the Erie area’s ticket to a revitalized economy. Either I was stymied by searching incorrectly for travel articles about Erie despite my dozen years of daily internet use, or there just isn’t much out there.

Since it is apparently the latter, then a call to arms to Erie freelance writers and want-to-be’s: start submitting your travel article ideas to the big (and small) city regional newspapers. It might make you a few bucks about a topic you’d hardly have to do much research about, while it just might greatly raise the profile of our tourism assets.

Anyone from VisitErie wish to set me straight on all of this?

When Mayor Joe Sinnott released the 2008 Erie City budget proclaiming no tax or fee increase, my initial reaction was that I was pleased. Perhaps the Mayor has gotten the city back on the road to financial stability and recovery. Being a less government fiscal conservative, my second thought was: I wonder what’s in there that could be cut.

Since that budget release we have heard the Mayoral Advisory Group weigh in with their frustration at the speed of change indicated by the Early Intervention Program. Today, thanks to Dennis Weed of ErieBlogs.com, I got a look at the actual budget. My conclusion: it’s time for a tax cut.

Remember, in order to balance the 2007 budget, City Council raised taxes 12% and let go multiple public safety employees. That tax increase was forecasted to bring in an additional $3 million in real estate taxes. Upon examination of the current year budget and the YTD expenditures it’s apparent that last year’s tax increase was way too large. The positive of having what looks like will be a significant surplus is that there is evidence of movement on the part of city departments to decrease expenses. Elimination of a quarter of your work force will do that. The biggest negative of a government surplus is that politicians will always find a way to spend that extra money.

That’s why I beseech City Council to continue to strive to cut the city budget and pass a tax decrease. By my estimation, Council could give back upwards of $500,000 back to the taxpayers. That’s actually less than 1% of the entire $57,129,263 budget. But it turns the volume up to “11” in the way of perceptions that the city might be finally getting its act together.

You see, it’s not enough just to balance the budget, but the overall future of community highly depends on the competitiveness of the city’s tax structure. A tax reduction, even just a few dollars per taxpayer would signify that our brighter future will start now.

John Edwards on the Today show this morning entered the center ring, performing the rhetorical gymnastics Democrats need to execute in order to prove that any good news on the surge in Iraq is really bad news. The intellectual dishonesty is astounding! He just can’t handle the truth.

Edwards discusses Iran, ’08 race

Senator, are you really so sold out to MoveOn.org and left-wing bloggers that you can’t support the troops’ successes?

In marketing, a dominant axiom is “perception is reality.” It looks like Erie Mayor Joe Sinnott has barreled into the reality of negative perceptions of City Hall.

Last week the Mayoral Advisory Group, a committee formed at the mayor’s request by the Erie Regional Chamber and Growth Partnership, published their Interim Report on Activity, Findings and Recommendations. This committee of forty “go get ‘em” CEO’s and business leaders was formed to assist the mayor in the Early Intervention Program in order for the city to avoid the Act 47 distressed municipality status. The EIP was released 15 months ago, and this report is to quantify how the city is keeping up with the program.

These are guys and gals that are used to presenting an initiative to their subordinates and find that it gets done, and quickly. In the EIP, there are recommendations for the development of plans within three months. Committee chair Norman Stark, Sr. writes in the report his frustration that very little has been accomplished in 15 months! Can you imagine a department head at Atty. Stark’s former firm getting an extra 12 months to complete a task that was supposed to be completed in 3? Stark calls out the “culture” of City Hall, it having a pervasive “don’t rock the boat” attitude.

In ETN press reports last week, the Mayor shot back at his own committee, saying that all his administration has been doing is “rocking the boat.” Sinnott is quoted as saying “I think that’s a prejudice out there that people have who haven’t delved far enough” basically in understanding city government. Mayor…dude…that’s your problem.

It’s obvious that a prevailing public perception of City Hall is that even as the government is at the brink of insolvency, not enough effort is being taken quickly enough to warrant glowing reviews. I get the sense that the mayor is exasperated at not getting the credit due for what he sees has been a yeoman’s task to try to right a ship that has been nearly sinking for decades. However, it is the opinion from his own appointed committee is that the culture continues to be deficient.

The mayor and the committee are probably both right, which by default means that the mayor loses the PR battle. It is his responsibility to communicate with clarity and persuasiveness the accomplishments of his administration.  If he isn’t up for the job of PR flak, then he needs to hire someone who can communicate effectively.  Meanwhile, if there isn’t enough to show for his actions, he must be a much greater force for real change so that the perceptions really change.