New Year, Some New & Old

Greetings 2008; can't wait to see what kind of shenanigans we can look forward to this year but no matter what happens I don't think the local political scene can hold a candle to 2007's tight election race for Mayor Plusquellic, the rise of Russ Pry or Marco Summerville's travel travail.

Some new:

• Thorn-in-the-side of City Hall Warner Mendenhall has a new blog about public records; The People's Records provides a nice rundown of FOI issue and also spiffs this blog; thanks for the blogroll, Warner;
• Kevin Coughlin weighs in with some new rules for his New Summit Republicans (link downloads the .pdf file); it's a good rundown on what the "new" GOP has in mind for life after Alex if they're successful in dethroning Arshinkoff from the Summit County chair, led by getting a handle on the $600,000 critics say is spent to keep the party offices going;
• Bruce Kilby is heading to court whether he likes it or not over the property he owns in the Dead Poets neighborhood. This AkronNewsNow story includes our interview with Kilby as he finds himself on a side of the law the law-makers rarely see; it isn't often a sitting councilman is being sued by his own city in an Eminent Domain taking but observers could see it coming when talks started breaking down and Kilby maintains he's getting low-balled because he's a vocal critic of the Administration.

As for the old, I'm still working to prove my existence to the third-party provider of my company's FSA health savings account. As noted earlier under the heading of "Why I Hate Insurance Companies" my simple attempt to access my money being held for my health spending was denied when the company reported I didn't exist -- despite holding their card, which I had used earlier this year, in my hand and complete with account number. No response yet from supervisors who promised to call (I'm not holding my breath) so I went ahead and paid for the stuff anyway. Now starts the battle of documenting my existence; included will be the letter I got from said third-party manager noting my balance on December 5, 2007 for the account that doesn't exist.

My friend Chuck Collins noted I called this experience "Why I Hate Health Insurance Companies" on our AkronNewsNow blog. I apologize to other insurance companies at this time but reserve judgment until I need to get some of my promised money back from them, too.