I Never Thought I'd See the Day, Part I

I was on the air the morning the Joe Paterno statue was ripped out of the ground at Penn State's Beaver Stadium, so it was a bit of a deja vu.

Blakely Borough council last week voted 7-0 to take Bob Mellow's name off a park along the Lackawanna River in Peckville.  To get you up to speed, Mellow is the former state senator who admitted to stealing taxpayers money.  He's now in trouble, on the state level, for allegedly taking bribes to push turnpike contracts to companies that greased his palm.

I don't know any Blakely council members, so perhaps I shouldn't say I was shocked, but shocked, I was.  It's not like people around here to turn against their own, even if they are thieves.

We have to get out of that horrible, horrible habit of naming things for politicians.  We are saying thank you for spending our money on us.  Take a look at the sign above.  You see, we paid for this.  Not Bob Mellow.

On one hand, I want to say Blakely Council acted courageously in removing the name, but on the other hand, this wasn't a case of courage.  It was just common sense.

Other organizations need to follow suit, and you know who you are.