Today, I was treated to the spectacle of Sen. Rick Santorum drawing a crowd outside my place of work. They drug out a nice podium and all for him, and news crews were illegally parked hither and yon, disrupting the day to day business of the state office building here in Pittsburgh. What was the occasion?
He got away with it.
You might remember reading about Sen Santorum bilking money from the Penn Hills school district to pay for his children to attend Cyber School when they didn’t even live in Pennsylvania, let alone in Penn Hills, PA. Today, a preliminary report by the Pennsylvania Department of Education said that the school district waited too long to pursue legal action against Pennsylvania’s junior senator.
Does nothing stick to this guy? There’s more, including something that Might Stick.
Of course, Santorum claims that the attempted recovery of tax dollars from a working-class school district was politically motivated.
Santorum did not answer questions after the statement.
Dog-and-senator show, anyone?
In the meantime, back at the ranch, or should I say back at the homestead….
Santorum ‘s quaint two-bedroom home in Penn Hills carries a
homestead tax exemption.
Now, Santorum has as much as admitted that he does not live in Penn Hills. Why is he getting a tax break he is not entitled to, thereby bilking yet more tax dollars out of the residents of Penn Hills?
This Penn Hills resident would really like to know.
Needless to say I could not post this from work, and I was absolutely champing at the bit to get it out here.
There’s no way he should be getting away with this.
Run your own “whisper” campaign on this guy.
Oh I plan to, believe me. 😀
Good idea, on the whisper campaign. Plus, even if he doesn’t have to pay the money back, an issue can be made of that as well. That he’s bilked them out of the funds, but because of a technicality, he gets to get away with it. If, and only if, the voters let him.
The school thing is one issue, the homestead exemption is a case where he’s black and white violating the law right here and now. No way out of that. And THAT is what is pissing me off more than anything.
Is there much talk about that in the local media? And how does he get away with not even living in the state, anyway? Surely that must be an issue as well?
I lived in Pittsburgh for about six years, from 1998 til early 2004. It wasn’t home to me, and it eventually became clear that it never would be (the reason I left), but I came to respect the commitment of so many of the people I knew there to their communities, especially in light of the considerable economic obstacles they had to face. Santorum’s absolute disregard for the already heavily-burdened Penn Hills school district, and the students it exists to serve, is despicable.
It’s a good place, and I’m sorry you didn’t stay. I’ve lived elsewhere, and always wanted to come back here.
Heavily burdened is right, Penn Hills is a HUGE district, with kids from all ends of the socioeconomic spectrum, but mostly working-class. I don’t know why their parents aren’t marching in the streets demanding a refund.
It is a good place — just not the place for me. It always amazed me, though, how many people there had exactly your experience: they left but came back because it was their home, because they didn’t find anywhere else they valued so much. That says a lot about the place, and about the depth of commitment and good will in the community.