Rep. Frank Kratovil (D-1st) has spent nearly $83,000 in taxpayer money to send out newsletter mailings to constituents this year, at per household costs of 24-cents, according to a Cecil Times search of voluminous Clerk of the House documents. It is a perfectly legal, and even routine, expenditure by sitting House members but...
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Cecil County women are better educated than men in the county but they earn significantly less money from their jobs than less-educated men, according to new three-year data issued this week by the U.S. Census Bureau. The discrepancies in income are not easily explained by the cliched notions that women work part-time,...
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The new U.S. Census Bureau “American Community Survey” finds that in 2008, 11.1 percent of Cecil County residents were age 65 or over. But longer term state projections estimate the senior population will more than double and reach about 15.3 percent of the county’s overall population by 2030. Cecil County needs to start planning now for the...
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The just released interim U.S. Census estimated data, under the “American Community Survey” for 2008, provides a snapshot of just how Cecil County fares in comparison with the rest of the state in many areas, from income to education levels to senior citizen population to workers’ commuting distances. This is a treasure...
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As Cecil County copes with cutbacks in state funds, we are faced with choices on planning–and paying for– our future needs. One of the most important decisions for our newly elected school board– and County Commissioners– will be on prioritizing the long-proposed and much delayed “comprehensive high school”– otherwise known as a four-year School of Technology. ...
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Our spies around the county tell us that State Sen. E.J. Pipkin, R-Upper Shore, was in full campaign mode on Route 213 in Cecil County on Wednesday morning, waving from a pick up truck with aides holding signs declaring, “Pipkin for State Senate.” Now that would seem like the declarative statement many have...
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We put our little blog in its crib to take a long winter’s nap after the November elections, thinking we had done our part to inform voters with original reporting on issues and campaign finance that the public should know about — but had not been reported in our local newspaper or the...
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The unofficial returns for Cecil County in the Tuesday election show some interesting patterns in party-line voting from the top to bottom of the ballot, with the exception of the too-close-to-call 1st District race for Congress between Democrat Frank Kratovil and Republican Andy Harris. Countywide, Republican presidential candidate John McCain carried Cecil with 56.41percent...
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The Republican and Democratic opponents in the Fifth District contest for Cecil County Commissioner have raised comparable amounts of campaign contributions, while write-in candidate Tom McWilliams has a secret weapon: his wife’s home cooking, according to campaign finance reports filed Oct. 24. But some supporters of the two major candidates might be surprised...
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We’re BAACK– Sorry to have taken a hiatus, but we were sick and tired, and mostly sick. So since we don’t get paid for this, it has taken us a while to report and write what our local “newspaper” with full time paid employees hasn’t: new campaign finance reports– filed 10/24/08– for local County Commissioner...
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From Woodward and Bernstein and Watergate to the Hollywood film, “Gerry Maguire,” there is something to be said for the phrases “follow the money” and “show me the money.” So in this election year, there are some interesting financial tidbits to be gleaned from looking at databases of donations to federal candidates...
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Labels tell us a lot when we go to the supermarket but picking a political candidate is usually more complicated than picking the soup with the lowest sodium content. That’s why political labels or even party affiliations may be less important than geography for Cecil County voters this year. Consider the...
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The 1st District race for Congress, between Democrat Frank Kratovil and Republican Andy Harris, has been getting more attention, and treated as more of a contest, by national non-partisan analysts. Stuart Rothenberg rates the 1st as a “Republican favored” race as of September 30. But Rothenberg had to eat his words of just a...
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For those of us living South of the C&D Canal, especially in the off-the-highway rural areas, there is good news for our health and our lives: the world-renowned Christiana Care Health System of Delaware has purchased a 108-acre site in Middletown, DE to develop a 24/7 state-of-the-art emergency room and medical facility with advanced...
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We’re BAAACK– Sorry, all, for taking a few days off but we had a crisis of sorts to deal with. But we are back with some observations on good things happening in our southern Cecil County neck of the woods. We stopped in to visit Vic and Mary Priapi, proprietors of Priapi...
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