Hazleton mayor: Fund should be split evenly

Every municipality in Luzerne County should get some of the economic development grant fund generated from Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs casino revenue, Hazleton Mayor Joe Yannuzzi said.

So Mr. Yannuzzi is writing letters to drum up support for his idea.

"It would be like the (federal Community Development) Block Grant, or like the revenue sharing we used to get from the federal government," Mr. Yannuzzi said. "We should be able to use it to stabilize our budgets."

Mr. Yannuzzi's idea is for each municipality to get money, according to its population. The counties would receive and distribute the funds.

"We would get so much per person," he said. "I am writing a letter to our state representative, Tarah Toohil."

Mr. Yannuzzi said he would make copies of his letter to Ms. Toohil, D-116, Butler Twp., available to local municipalities so they could also write to their respective legislators to gain support for the idea.

In an email, Dan Guydish, the executive director of the Mountain Council of Governments, which represents local governments in southern Luzerne, northern Schuylkill and northern Carbon counties, said distributing gaming funds to all municipalities "would be more fair than the present method of picking and choosing a pet project for a selected municipality."

Mr. Yannuzzi said local municipalities getting gambling funds is more crucial now than ever. With the state budget crisis, there is less or no money coming into some local municipalities.

Contact the writer: jdino@standardspeaker.com

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Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs week in review, June 10-16, 2011

Trotter of the week: Winning Mister

Coming into Friday night’s Open trot, Winning Mister had conquered just about every track that he had surveyed in 2011, with the notable exception of MSPD. He had made four previous forays at Pocono, all against Open company, and had finished in the money every single time. None of these close finishes resulted in a win for the 5-year-old stallion though, even though he had come tantalizingly close several times.

Not only did he break through on Friday night at Pocono, be he did so with authority. George Napolitano Jr., about whom you’ll be hearing a bunch in the column this week, did the driving and sent Winning Mister to the front end early ahead of Coach Fox, who was coming off back-to-back sizzling wins.

In the stretch, Coach Fox tried to get there from the pocket, but Winning Mister just kept accelerating to the line, winning by a length. Not only did the stallion, who is trained by Walter Carroll, set a career-best with his winning time of 1:52, but it was also good enough to break the track mark for aged trotting stallions. It has previously stood at 1:52:1, set last August by Farifant.

Other top trotters this week include: Margarita Mary (George Napolitano Jr., Steve Elliott), who motored to her third straight win overall and her second straight in a distaff Open trot at Pocono, this time in 1:53:3 on Friday; Master Buckin Uhl (George Napolitano Jr., Jodi Bendick), who continues to dominate the higher claiming ranks on the trotting side, winning his third straight claiming handicap on Saturday in 1:55:1, which matched a career-best; and Walden (Joe Pavia Jr., Jennifer Sansone), whose win over the $7,500 claimers on Wednesday night was his third in a row.

Pacer of the week: New Release

There are winning streaks, and then there are serious winning streaks. New Release is on a serious winning streak. It started during a stunning stint at Yonkers, where, after losing his first four races of the year, he suddenly ripped off seven victories in a row racing at 1 1/16 miles.

When he came to Pocono, any concerns about the fact that he was racing at a shorter distance on a bigger track were quickly allayed by an easy win against $30,000 claimers for trainer Lou Pena on May 14. He was then claimed and joined the Carmine Fusco barn for two more wins in a row. That made it an ever ten straight heading into Saturday night’s claiming handicap pace.

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