The Almanac: ML resident, blog help to find missing woman

It's not often that city traffic turns out to be a good thing, but that's what happened April 22.

Charlotte Stephenson of Mt. Lebanon was leaving the Priory after a fundraiser for Sojourner House, and rather than sitting in traffic, she decided to check her Blackberry and let things clear out a little before heading to the South Hills.

One of the sites she checked was Elaine Gillen's blog on the Lebo Citizens website, where the top story was about police looking for a missing 77-year-old Mt. Lebanon woman. A photo was posted of the missing woman, and even on the Blackberry's small screen, Stephenson thought she had seen the woman before. Read the full article:

• www.thealmanac.net/alm/story11/04-25-2012-ML-blog- (The Almanac)

Trib: Much ado about.... Mt. Lebanon board chief's blog

The Tribune-Review is now reporting about the alleged plagiarism of school-board president, Josephine Posti:

Mt. Lebanon School Board President Josephine Posti temporarily pulled her blog off the Internet and issued an apology after being accused of plagiarism this week – an accusation about which experts disagree when it involves speech online.

Elaine Gillen, a resident, former candidate for commissioner and frequent critic of the school board, said material on Posti's blog, "Center Court," was copied from other sources without attribution.

Read more:

• Much ado about....Mt. Lebanon board chief's blog (Pittsburgh Tribune-Review)

Lebo Citizens Blog: School-board president Posti plagiarized (updated)

Update 2011-08-22 12:35: Mrs. Posti’s blog is back online and now contains a “Corrections” article that includes an apology for “neglecting to cite original sources.”

The Lebo Citizens Blog is reporting that the president of the Mt. Lebanon School Board, Josephine Posti, has been involved in “numerous instances” of plagiarism in her public writings about school issues:

There have been numerous instances over the last year of Mt. Lebanon School Board President Josephine Posti stealing information from websites and posting it on her blog as her own. In the three instances outlined below, I have copied word for word her blog post and indicated in yellow highlighted text where that information was sourced from and the original text of that source. Again, Mrs. Posti has never indicated that her sources were from anything but her own intelligence.

At the time of this writing, Mrs. Posti’s blog, Center Court, is no longer available to readers. Visitors to the blog are told that “This blog is open to invited readers only.”

Update: Mrs. Posti issues “corrections”

At around noon on Monday, August 22, 2011, Mrs. Posti’s blog was reopened to the public. Its most-recent posting, Corrections, includes an apology:

Recently, a resident accused me of plagiarism as the result of information she received and published from an anonymous source. The anonymous source found three of my 435 blog posts where I had neglected to cite original sources that I had pulled information from. I apologize for that oversight and have made corrections to those posts.

Read more:

• Where is President Posti’s Integrity? (Lebo Citizens Blog)

Trib: New voices seek spots on Mt. Lebanon commission

Turnover on the Mt. Lebanon Board of Commissioners has been high in the past few years, and this year's election could result in relative newcomers leading the board once again.

Three of five seats on the commission are up for re-election, and only one commissioner who has served a full term, Ward 3 representative Joe DeIuliis, is running again. In Ward 5, Dan Miller is not seeking re-election to a second term and in Ward 1, first-term commissioner D. Raja is running for county executive instead.

Read the full article:

• www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/pittsburgh/s_735394.html (Pittsburgh Tribune-Review)

Lebo Citizens blog launched

I just received an email announcing a new blog, Lebo Citizens. From the announcement:

Do we really need another blog in Mt. Lebanon? Yes, we do! This blog features articles that aren’t published on other Mt. Lebanon blogs. The comments reveal information that the School District wants to keep quiet. We’re connecting the dots for you.

On the blog itself, the “About Lebo Citizens” blurb elaborates:

Lebo Citizens is a blog about the high school renovation in Mt. Lebanon, PA. The site is run by Elaine Gillen, who also designed and maintains www.lebocitizens.com, the website of Concerned Citizens Of Mt. Lebanon.