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4 Remain on Election Ballot

3/27/2013

 
Judge gives councilor 2 more days to answer primary challenger  

BY PATRICK CLOONAN

Clairton’s Democratic con­test for mayor remains a four­way race, at least for six more days.

On Wednesday, Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Joseph M. James gave Coun­cilman Richard Ford III two days to resubmit his state­ment of financial interest.
 
Mayor Richard Lattanzi’s attorney Glenn A. Smith will have two days to respond and then Lattanzi’s
challenge of Ford’s candidacy will be aired before James April 3 at 1:50 p.m.

James considered chal­lenges to municipal ballot positions for the May 21 pri­mary. 
 
Smith contends that Ford failed to disclose all sources of income and names and addresses of creditors to
whom he owed $6,500 or more.

“He’s hiding tax debt owed to the city,” Smith said.

“My client reasonably believed payment was made in good faith,” Ford’s attorney Burrell Brown said. 
 
Ford and Lattanzi share the ballot with Councilman Terry Lee Julian and former council candidate Kenneth Barna.

Julian is running for re­election to council in Ward 3. He is challenged by legal sec­retary Levina B. Lasich,
who is seeking to remove Julian from the ballot for mayor and council, claiming that Julian owes more than $34,000 to the city and Clairton City School District.

James tossed that challenge because Lasich did not file it in a timely matter.

Julian said he may take legal action, because docu­ments attached to Lasich’s petition gave incorrect infor­mation
about what he still owes from a venture that went out of business in 1996.

He said the documents should have  come through a right-to-know process, not from tax collectors for the city
and school district.

Liberty’s Democratic coun­cil contest remains a five-way race, but may prompt a rare plaintiff’s appeal to
Common­wealth Court. “My understanding is that we are going to appeal,” attor­ney J. Jason Elash said after James upheld the candidacy of incumbent S. Larry Sikor­ski.

Debbie Helderlein testified.

Elash, a former Liberty solicitor, had borough solici­tor George Gobel as his co­counsel, while attorney Mat­thew D. Racunas and his associate Kristin Mackulin represented Sikorski.

“We have a lot of hot-shot lawyers here,” James joked.

James told Sikorski to sub­mit an amended ethics state­ment to the borough by Friday.
  
“I have to thank Mr. Racu­nas for his excellent work,” Sikorski said.  “He did a tre­mendous job against the whole
borough.”

A Dravosburg challenge was averted when Democrat Debo­rah Poppell withdrew her can­didacy for council.

She and former police chief Kenneth Holland quit the race prior to a Wednesday deadline for withdrawals.

Incumbent William J. Snod­grass Jr. challenged Poppell’s Democratic Party registra­tion.

Snodgrass remains on the May 21 primary ballot with fellow incumbents Barbara J. Stevenson
and Jay McKelvey and former borough postmas­ter John Palcsey.


Patrick Cloonan is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. He can be reached at 412-664-9161, ext. 1967, or cloonan@tribweb.com.

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