I couldnt help but notice the last couple "Better in Bradford" ads on the radio. One was by Tom Riel, and another by Kathy Obermeyer, they both sounded like their heart wasnt in it, to say the least. Almost a forced robotic monotone rhetoric.

The ads did seem to be a bit strange to me. Ironic on some levels.

As far as not complaining about blight, "sit down and shut up" is what we would expect from the status quo.

Complaining about stuff that needs to be addressed focuses attention on it, and hopefully will get fixed.

Blight breeds more blight which leads to drugs and crime. They all need to be addressed or nipped in the bud before it grows out of control.

We've got way too much blight in this town that needs to be addressed or cleaned up ........ keep on a bitchin' !

Everytime I hear these commercials I giggle. I can't help it.

In MY humble opinion ...... (here I go!) ........

The time and money spent on the ads, would have been better spent addressing the apathy in this town. To perhaps plead with the residents to be less apathetic and to try to teach PRIDE. Witness: our recent election process had a 16-17% turn out!

Tom and Kathy COULD HAVE addressed some of the more serious issues that Bradford faces that need to be dealt with rather than try to convince the populace that our pig has a great shade of lipstick on it!

IT DOES NOT! The pig that is Bradford has no lipstick, we don't need anybody putting lipstick on our pig and it's the ugliest pig in the county and perhaps this part of the state! Lipstick ain't gonna help this particular pig! Not now, not ever!

During the previous mayors reign, our current mayor had no problems at all identifying and complaining about the shortcomings of the local government!

........ And don't even give me that "other towns have blight too" argument! THAT ain't our problem ..... OUR blight is OUR problem. We need to address ours and let other towns address theirs!

I take great offense at the implication that since some other town might have an out of control blight problem, we should shut up and not complain about ours! What is that? Kindergarten reasoning?

Some of us really want to see Bradford prosper and do better. We desperately want to see more civic pride. Everybody needs to be on the same page ......... To plot a course to head us in the right direction ..... Not stick our collective heads in the sand (or a much darker spot) and pretend that Bradford is a beautiful, near perfect place to live and raise children!

You can do all the commercials you want trying to lipstick the pig, but the pig will always be a pig. We can do better than that!

Where is the neighborhood watch?

It is kind of odd they need to keep telling the citizens how great Bradford is. If it was so great, why the need to tell us with all these ads, wouldn't we already know? It kind of reminds me of North Korea, where they constantly tell the citizens how great North Korea is, and they all believe it, until they actually get away.

May be they are attempting the same goal, to get people to forget what it's really like in Bradford and believe it's awesome.

WELL SAID, Stony!

We already heard from somebody who escaped and learned the truth about Bradford ....... Baker5 did last week! We heard the truth from her in another post!

I believe they can run commercials all day long 24/7 telling us how great life in Bradford is, but those of us who live it every day know what is really going on!

Show us less welfare in the streets. Show us less drug sales in the alleys. Show us less drug violence. Show us less drug related burglaries.
Show us a functioning neighborhood watch that has nothing to report. Show us street after street of smoothly paved streets. Show us streets free of toothless, tattoo covered, chain smoking young mothers calling their kids "stupid little mother f**kers". Show us a dropping teen pregnancy rate. Show us a shrinking drop out rate in our overpriced schools! Show us more city services as our tax rate goes down!

THEN I might believe that Bradford is a great place to live!

As it stands now .... and I do admittedly have a small circle of friends .... but ALL my friends talk about selling their homes in Bradford to move out of town! Every one of them!

Bradford may have once been a great place to live and it may in the future be a great place to live .... but those who say it is right now, needs to take a walk around town with me sometimes!

It's just my very humble opinion, but I think Bradford as a whole has to take stock of it's shortcomings and figger out how to best deal with them rather than stick their collective heads in the sand and pretend that everything in Bradford is great.

And one more thing ......... (as I shake my finger ...) this is not a slam against Pitt, quite the opposite. The University of Pitt at Bradford does a lot for this town to pull it up in status ..... BUT you can't think that Bradford is a great town just because we happen to have a great college located here. A great college doesn't overshadow the rampant blight, and abject ignorance we have in some of our poorer neighborhoods!

Maybe just tone down the bragging about how great Bradford is, and replace it with talk about acknowledging some of our more serious problems and what we can do to correct some of them.

We all need to pitch in to find solutions, not brag how perfect Bradford is, while telling those who disagree to sit down and shut up!

What happened to the neighborhood watch?

I completely agree!

And Our Police Chief PROMISED US Over A YEAR Ago, "We WILL Have A Neighborhood Watch SOON!!!"...WHERE IS THE MAYOR & CITY COUNCIL LEADERSHIP??????

........NOT TO MENTION THE PUBLIC MEETING ABOUT WHY THE HOUSES BLEW UP IN THE TOWNSHIPS!


Good posts everybody!

WE ARE THE GOVERNMENT, and we have the power to fire public servants!

Compared to how long the dinosaurs lived, 100 years is soon.



Not if you keep having less than 20% turn out at elections.

Bradford will turn out to be a lesson in apathy and futility.