Blossburg: News: News and Views

News and Views

11/28/07

Blossburg News & Views
By Cheryl Whitney Boinske

The Blossburg Fire Department and Blossburg Firemen's Ambulance Association will be holding a Chicken & Biscuit Dinner on December 2, 2007 at 11:30am - 2:00pm at the Fire Hall. Dinners will be served until sold out, either before or after 2 pm. Enjoy good food, friendly people and support our Fire and Ambulance Departments!! A gun raffle will be conducted by the departments and drawing will take place at the end of dinner. For more information on the gun raffle contact Megan at 638-2056 or 404-1659.

Mark your calendars for our school Holiday Concerts. BES Band & Chorus Concert is on Tuesday, December 11th at 7:00pm and the NPHS Band & Chorus Concert is on Wednesday, December 12th at 7:00pm.

Blossburg V.I.B.E. held an Environmental Fair Saturday, Nov. 17 at the Blossburg Memorial Library. Approximately 50 people attended from as close as Blossburg and as far as Brookfield Township. Most brought items to be recycled by Northern Tier Solid Waste Authority, including computer parts, magazines and textiles. Nearly 3,000 pounds of materials were collected for recycling. Lynne Graham of Middlebury won the door prize, a bag of environmentally safe cleaning products from Shaklee Corporation donated by Shaklee distributor Heidi Hickok.

Get your reusable water bottle now! The 21-ounce bottles are a beautiful sapphire blue with a small white V.I.B.E. logo. They're available for $5 each at the Nickerson Construction office right now. Great stocking stuffers!

Thanks to all who participated with the fruit orders to benefit the band and chorus- early returns show that we did quite well and had our best year ever! Delivery will be in the second week of December (exact delivery date will be determined and announced soon!)

From Heidi Jones: On Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 6, 263 Blossburg residents voted at the fire hall, with an additional 14 submitting absentee ballots. I had the honor of working as the minority inspector with Judge of Elections Mary English and several other civic-minded folks. During the day, we tracked the number of voters per hour. The slowest time was between 1 and 2 in the afternoon with only 10 voters during that hour. The busiest time was between 5 and 6 p.m., with 38 voters. Roughly 34 percent of the approximately 770 registered, active voters in Blossburg voted.

This was my first chance to examine a touch-screen voting machine in detail and to watch how voters interacted with it. I have four major concerns with the touch-screen voting technology: it's not secure; the votes are not verified by a paper trail; the user interface is really bad causing confusion and major delays in voting; and the technology is very expensive in comparison to other methods.

I estimated it took an average of five minutes per voter. With only two machines, we could handle 24 people per hour. During the presidential election Nov. 4, 2008, many more people will vote. If we estimate a 65 percent turnout rate, there could be 72 people waiting to vote during that 5-6 p.m. busy hour!

The one advantage the touch-screen system is that it can quickly be converted to a talking system for those voters who are blind or have low vision. The computer reads the screen to the voter and allows them to make choices in privacy rather than having someone reading and marking the ballot for them. However, other states have figured out ways to allow blind and other voters with disabilities to vote in privacy using cheaper, more user-friendly, more secure, paper-trailed technology.

To learn more about my experiences as a poll worker, visit www.ridgerunnerconsulting.com. To express your concerns about voting in Tioga County, contact Director of Elections George Coxe at gcoxe@tiogacountypa.us or 570-723-8230. To register to vote, visit www.tiogacountypa.us.

REMINDERS:

A food pantry is held the third Monday each month from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. and 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at First United Methodist Church of Blossburg. For more information, contact Betty Johnson at (570) 638-2805.

T.O.P.S. (Take off Pounds Sensibly) meets every Monday at the First United Methodist Church of Blossburg. Weigh-in is at 5 p.m.

Blossburg BINGO! Every Monday bingo is held at St. Mary's Hall, 6:30 p.m.

Loretta Frost-Steffen; a Creative Memories Consultant holds scrapbooking classes every Tuesday night from 6pm to 10 pm. Call for more information: 570-404-4336

If you or your organizations have any birthdays, anniversaries, congratulations, sympathies, events, information or any questions for Blossburg News & Views, please contact Cheryl Whitney Boinske, (570) 638-3107 or news@blossburg.org.