First, we know Santorum is still in hot water about the Penn Hills address (Richard first blogged about this topic back in November). As of February 9, 2005 this was still an issue, with Penn Hills and many of the residents there wanting to collect the tuition, in the tens of thousands of dollars, Santorum scammed for his kids online schooling. As many of you know, Santorum does not live at the address he owns in Penn Hills, nor is the house big enough to accommodate his family of eight, as it only has two bedrooms. He's a carpetbagger, goes the claim.
Well, the plot thickens. Seems Mr. Santorum has claimed a homestead exemption on the property he doesn't live in there in Penn Hills, perhaps forgetting that one of the chief requirements for a Homestead exemption is that he ACTUALLY LIVE THERE! There's an article about the issue at Pittsburgh City Paper, and there's a web site devoted to Santorum's financial shenangians at santorumcybergate.blogspot.com. (Is that when you know you've arrived as a politician, when blogs are named after you? Or is that a sign you're GOING DOWN?) The folks at santorumcybergate also have a petition going on that homestead exemption, which they say robs the people of Allegheny County of tax revenue. Yeah, they're calling him a thief. Remember, if you go HERE to sign the petition, you need to be an Allegheny County resident. The petition is brounght to you by Democracy for Pittsburgh. Which brings up that Push Poll I mentioned, hardly a democratic act for a Senator to put the strong arm on School Board members, is it? Some curious residents and school officials in Penn Hills want to know who was conducting a telephone survey last week targeting the Penn Hills School District, some board members and even a U.S. senator.
The surveys were conducted by an individual and not by computer.
Questions included whether the people called believed they were getting a fair return for their school tax dollars, how they rated the four school board members whose terms are up this year and if they thought U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum's residency dispute with the Penn Hills School District was politically motivated.
Does it make sense for a mystery poll to be done to merely check out the performance of the School Board? No. Does it make sense to ask the loaded question about Mr. Santorum's residency dispute with the Penn Hills School District, using the words "politically motivated?" Yeah, we all know the words "politically motivated" are favorites of Republicans, whether they're screwing with campaign finances down in Texas, like in Mr. DeLay's case, or screwing around as a gay male prositute, like we see with Mr. GannonGuckert. It's their standard deflection phrase. Only in one world does the phrase "politically motivated" in that poll make sense, a world in which Santorum is running a push poll designed to silence the good elected officials in Penn Hills, PA. Or perhaps it's "friends" of Mr. Santorum who ran the poll.
Take some time, folks, and email your support to the members of the Penn Hills School Board. They need your support. Their phone numbers and email addresses can be found here.
(As an aside, there's so much ruckus over this issue that a google search for "Penn Hills School Board" registers many hits before it gets to the one you want, the actual School Board web site. Yup, that's a subtle googly indication that these issues concerning Mr. Santorum and his dirty bag of tricks are NOT going away.)
