A well-known name in Tyrone, Dan Meckes, will appear for Democratic voters casting ballots for candidates seeking a spot on Tyrone Borough Council in the May primary.
\nEarlier today, Meckes said he was headed to the Blair Couny elections office this morning to file the necessary petitions by Tuesday\u2019s deadline to enter the primary.
\nIn a release this morning, Meckes outlined the reasons he decided to take another stab a council seat after losing the opportunity to other candidates in the 2003 general election.
\nMeckes, who served on council in 1984 and 1985, noted the September 2004 flood \u201cforced his decision.\u201d
\nHe said, \u201cHad the present council done its job to protect the town rather than use all that money for phony adornments and put it into completion of the flood project…there would not have been that flood which cost the community hundreds of thousands of personal, individual dollars.\u201d
\nMeckes said the project was engineered and has been waiting to be completed for more than 20 years.
\nMeckes noted one council person had written a letter to the editor giving details of the flood protection plan. However, Meckes said, \u201cI have yet to hear or read of his, or any councilperson\u2019s insistence in a council meeting that the project must be completed.\u201d
\nMeckes asked, \u201cMust Tyrone wait another 20 years?\u201d
\nHe said his first priority \u201cwill be to hammer and keep hammering until the entire project is completed.\u201d
\nIn his press release, Meckes offered seven other specific reasons or goals regarding why he decided to run for one of four council seats which are being contested in the May primary.
\nThose reasons included his belief that \u201ccouncil has been operating illegally for eight years.\u201d He said council members ignored their responsibility to the voters and gave their powers to the mayor. Meckes said it resulted \u201cin a virtual dictatorship.\u201d
\nHe said the borough\u2019s home rule charter prohibits such a situation. He said if he served on council he would \u201cwork diligently to decrease the power of the mayor and return that power to the citizens of Tyrone.\u201d
\nMeckes told The Daily Herald this morning, if he is elected to council, \u201cThere will be no more secrets and nothing but what is allowed by home rule charter will be allowed in executive sessions.\u201d
\nHe also voiced concerns about who might serve as mayor with the departure of Tyrone\u2019s two-term leader, Patricia Stoner. He said one of the candidates had used Stoner as a mentor before he announced he was running for office. Meckes did not name the candidate in his release, but he said he did not want a \u201cpuppet mayor.\u201d He said, \u201cThe mayor has had her day. A clean break with the past is due.\u201d
\nHe said he feared there was an issue of the constitutional \u201cseparation of church and state in the candidacy\u201d of one of the two announced office seekers for mayor.
\nMeckes mentioned improving housing for elderly, low and fixed income residents, determining the financial status of the borough through a complete audit, \u201cdepartment by department\u201d as other goals if he were to serve on council.
\nMeckes added that he wants a \u201cfully-qualified, experienced borough manager\u201d to guide the borough through what he termed were \u201ctroubling financial times.\u201d
\nHe also said he wanted to \u201chalt the destruction of tax-generating areas for private gain.\u201d
\nMeckes\u2019 background in addition to his former council service includes the newspaper industry, public relations and teaching. Meckes is a former editor of The Daily Herald.
\nThis morning, Meckes told the newspaper he will be seeking a four-year term. There are three four-year terms available for Tyrone Borough Council in this year\u2019s elections.
\nA two-year term is also up for grabs due to the resignation of former councilman J. R. Watson in December of 2004. Council appointed Don Boytim to fill the vacancy but he can only hold the position through the end of this year as an appointee. The remaining two years will be filled by whoever garners the most votes for the term in the November general election. Boytim has said he planned to seek an elected term.
\nIn Tyrone\u2019s mayoral race, there are two declared candidates, councilman Bill Fink and Joshua House leader Jim Kilmartin. Earlier this year both men announced they were entering the May 17 Republican primary to seek a spot on the November general election ballot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A well-known name in Tyrone, Dan Meckes, will appear for Democratic voters casting ballots for candidates seeking a spot on Tyrone Borough Council in the May primary. Earlier today, Meckes said he was headed to the Blair Couny elections office this morning to file the necessary petitions by Tuesday\u2019s deadline to enter the primary. In […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news-in-the-tyrone-pennsylvania-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43328\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}