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By MICHAEL McNARNEY mmcnarney@leader.net
Tuesday, March 11, 2003 Page: 1A
runs as sidebar to main mcg story WILKES-BARRE – Who is Tom McGroarty’s
silent majority?
The mayor says it’s people like Lorraine Morgan.
“She doesn’t own 100 shares in some company,” McGroarty of the retiree
who lives on South Sherman Street in the Mayflower section. “She doesn’t live
in Glenmaura or the Back Mountain. She doesn’t golf.”
People in the silent majority, McGroarty says, quietly raise their
families, keep up their homes and pay their taxes.
Morgan, 68, was secretary at Mackin Elementary School when McGroarty was a
kid. And she loves the mayor.
“The mayor has taken very good care of the people in this city,” Morgan
said. “I just think we have it made in the shade here.”
There’s the low taxes – “he even brought Berkheimer down a little bit.”
There’s the clutter cleanup – “One time I had my garage cleaned out, and
it cost $200!”
There’s the $1.25 garbage bags – “In Swoyersville and Plains, they have to
buy them $30 and $50 at a time. Who has that kind of money?”
There’s the 1996 closure of the Solomon Industries garbage transfer station
in Mayflower – “All we had was rats, rats, rats, as big as cats!”
As for the downtown theater project, Morgan said: “He’ll straighten it out
eventually. I have faith in him. I have faith in everything he does.”
Morgan is voting for McGroarty.
George Kiernan isn’t.
The 69-year-old lives at Provincial Tower downtown and worries he or
someone else will drive out of the apartment building’s underground parking
garage and into the hole for the staled theater project.
“In the past eight years, he has done nothing but trouble,” Kiernan said.
“He can’t even get grant money from the governor. … It seems like he is
always pulling some sort of a trick.”
Kiernan is angry the mayor started the theater project without funding
lined up. He says the hole is growing, and vows to attend Wilkes-Barre City
Council meetings until he gets an answer from McGroarty.
Wilkes University senior Dennis Ferenchick isn’t looking for answers from
the mayor. He’s just looking for him to leave.
“I don’t know why he thinks he can win, unless he thinks he has the elder
population,” said Ferenchick, a Bishop Hoban High School graduate.
Ferenchick said the loss of business downtown and the gain of prostitutes
and other criminals around the Wilkes campus make him think it’s time for a
change.
“I hate to say it, but anybody could do a better job than McGroarty.”
Melana Khalife still hasn’t decided whom to vote for. The 44-year-old lives
and works on Mayer Street in Rolling Mill Hill, where she owns Well of Souls,
a comic book and game store.
“I personally believe that the man’s heart is in the right place,”
Khalife, 44, said, but added, “When he makes a promise, he should follow
through with it and not give people false hopes.”
Khalife lives next door to the old Sanitary Laundry site. The city razed
the eyesore in August 2002, and Khalife and other residents want to buy the
parts of the property adjoining their own lots. But, Khalife said, she hears
new homes will be built there.
She can’t get in touch with McGroarty, she said.
Lu Ann Boris has seen all sides of McGroarty; her husband, Al, was a
councilman for 20 years before his death in June 2000.
“I had hoped the city would come around a little faster than it has,”
Boris, 77, said. Boris’ Bar, where the Borises worked for so long, is closed
now, and Mrs. Boris is thinking about leaving town to be closer to family.
“I like both of the gentlemen,” Boris said of McGroarty and Leighton.
“Al – he would have a problem trying to figure this out, too.
“I’ll pray on it.”
Michael McNarney, a Times Leader staff writer, may be reached at 831-7305.