One of the truest indications of the staying power of a legacy is watching a life full of misdeeds rise to the heights of becoming part of the English language.
So it is with ill-fated developer Herb Fiss, who once dreamed of bringing an apple juice plant to Erie.
He believed it right to his core.
Local development people believed too, so much so that Fiss received the business end of half a million dollars in development grants. But the money left town when Fiss did amid revelations that other communities also dreamed Herb’s juice dream only to see those plans dry up.
Fiss died without ever repaying the money, forever creating a new verb among the local movers and shakers:
We really got Fissed on that one.
Local golf pro Dan Steen watched his Practice Tee driving range get literally yanked out from under him as the community made room for the juice-plant-that-wasn’t. The range was closed right in the middle of Steen’s busy summer season despite the fact that construction would have been months off even if the deal was real.
Which it wasn’t.
Seems he really got Fissed, too.
The legacy even reaches all the way to the media. Local economic developers received a pretty public black eye with the deal now known as the Fiss Fiasco. Those developers prefer to keep projects on the down low until all the I’s and T’s are cared for, and for exactly this very reason.
But political figures get into the mix at some point, and in this case it was Governor Ed Rendell who let the cat out of the juice bag before the deal was in place. That put pressure on local people to make it happen and perhaps not all due diligence was taken as a result.
So now those developers are now even more tight-lipped about any plans for Erie’s future for fear of facing another Fiss job.
Now it’s even harder for the media to tell the community about what plans are brewing, in essence double Fissing us for the developers’ previous Fissing episode.
Or something like that.
HEY! Don't feel Fissed about this, but the comments section is still down. If you feel juiced enough to comment, drop me a line at scott.bremner@35wsee.com. Write "Comments" in the subject line so I don't Fiss it up, and I'll post your thoughts (if they're not too juicy).
Comments
I guess after the fi(SS)asco over the juice plant, the local politicians decided to try a Magic Trick to pull something out of their collective hats. How about that donation of 25,000 to some character to start a magic museum? Don't these people ever learn? It's almost like they expect us to believe that we really will benefit from these ridiculous ventures, like the cruise boat terminal, the TREC, and the convention center, not to mention the Tullio Arena and Jerry Uht Park, which have yet to turn a profit for the investment by Erie County taxpayers. Now they want us to believe in magic!!!!!! No wonder they try to keep things under wraps til it's too late to stop the proceedings.
Dale Hannah
edgecliffe@velocity.net
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Isn't rick fillippi (no capitols letters, please) sueing the city for legal fees in excess of $300,000? And didn't fiss stick us for over $300,000 apple-juice-junk bonds? Poetic justice would be for the city to sign over fiss's IOU to his pal, the former, nearly disgraced mayor. Maybe Governor Rendell will co-sign the note, since he endorsed fiss to begin with. Or did he clear that debt by bringing the Bleach Boy(s) to Celebrate Erie? Oh well, better than a bag of magic beans, I guess.
Joe Butoryak
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Hey, I think a magic museum is a great idea, I just don't want to pay for it--------unless the magician can increase my income to do so.
Maryann Hannah