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By MICHAEL McNARNEY mmcnarney@leader.net
Thursday, March 06, 2003 Page: 3A
WILKES-BARRE – The Childhood Fantasies Lowriding Club doesn’t have a lot of
money to throw around, so spending $300 but on a promotional banner to hang
from a downtown light pole was a large expenditure.
The banner has never shown up. And the club – as well as others who have
paid hundreds of dollars for banners that were never put up – is looking for
answers.
At least 39 banners hang from downtown light poles, a program introduced by
Mayor Tom McGroarty in January 1998. But Jeff King, the car club’s president,
said the banner manufacturer tells him McGroarty won’t return the company’s
calls.
The manufacturer, CGI Communications Inc. of Rochester, N.Y., did not
return several telephone calls seeking comment. But King said CGI Vice
President Bob Forys tells him McGroarty won’t answer the company’s concern
about falling light poles.
King – whose group paid for the banner in March 2002 – said he confronted
McGroarty about the banners Monday.
“I had a run-in with the mayor, and he’s giving me a line of BS,” King
said. “He said pretty much it was not his responsibility – if I could find
them, I could put them up.”
McGroarty replies that King was supposed to get him the name of the company
and his contact but never did – even though the mayor was the one who was sold
on the idea by CGI salespeople in December 1997, according to newspaper files.
“I’m doing a million things,” McGroarty said. “If he King] really wanted
to put them up, in all candor, he’d come over and give me the names.” The
mayor also said there are enough remaining poles for the banners.
McGroarty pointed out a number of times that King works for the
Wilkes-Barre Parking Authority and is the son-in-law of James Conahan, the
authority’s chairman. King said that has nothing to do with his efforts to get
the banner posted.
McGroarty announced the banner program with a press conference and sample
banner in January 1998. Local businesses bought the banners from CGI for $400
a year. CGI got the money, local businesses got exposure, and the city got
banners welcoming people to the city and promoting events such as the Cherry
Blossom Festival.
All kinds of businesses, from Boscov’s to the Greater Wilkes-Barre Chamber
of Business and Industry, signed up. The Downtown Business Association helped
design the banners.
But the program seems to have slipped off the radar at City Hall. King said
he’s been transferred all around City Hall and no one knows who’s in charge of
the program. The company, King said, is willing to refund his money.
City Councilman Tony Thomas Jr. isn’t in the car club – he drives a minivan
– but he, too, is missing his banner. He said he paid $270 in May 2001 for a
banner promoting his deli that was put up in August 2001. The banner lasted
only a few weeks, until it came down with the light pole in front of the deli.
“I asked at council meetings what happened to the banners,” Thomas said.
“I would have liked to have the banner – just to hang it in my store.”
Michael McNarney, a Times Leader staff writer, may be reached at 831-7305.