DAVID SKOLNICK \ Politics Plenty of funny business in government

Because I'm the politics writer, strangers sometimes approach me and comment about an article or column I penned.
Usually people are complimentary, although I've had a few complain about something I wrote; and on occasion, they complain about something I didn't write.
A man stopped me last week at the grocery store, and asked, "Are you Skolnick?" After telling him that I was, he said, "You should be a comedy writer. But stop picking on Traficant."
I didn't know if I should take the "comedy writer" comment as a compliment or an insult. I chose the former because much of what I've written over the past few months in these columns pokes fun at politics and politicians and is meant to make readers laugh.
My reputation for this has grown so much that I get calls from people who give me tips about funny political items. I can't claim credit for discovering any of the following on my own, but I can put my own spin on each.
Item 1: Gary Kubic may be gone as Mahoning County administrator, but his name still lives on here. Kubic resigned in December to take an administrator's job in Beaufort County, S.C.
If you call the county's main telephone number, follow the instructions to speak to the county administrator, you'll hear a message saying, "For county Administrator Gary Kubic, press 3." If you press 3, you then learn that "Gary Kubic is no longer with Mahoning County," and to call someone else.
Apparently the county can change one part of its voice mail system, but not the other. In the interest of full disclosure, if you call this newspaper's Niles bureau, that's my voice on the answering machine, even though I haven't worked there in nearly four years.
Item 2: Mistakes are made on the state level too, which should come as no revelation. Take the Ohio Department of Health, for example.
On its Web page "for working media only" -- http://www.odhpressroom.org -- there's a link for "public affairs contact information." The problem is there's a key letter missing in the word public, although it still is technically health-related with the typo.
On the Web site, the health department press people brag that the "site was prepared by former journalists to help members of the working media."
It took a member of the working media to alert the health department to this embarrassing error. You would think they would pounce on it right away. It may be corrected by the time you read this, but it was still wrong two days after the department learned of it.
Item 3: Trash talk-show host Jerry Springer is in the Mahoning Valley again. He's been here so many times in the past year or so that honestly I've lost count, but it's got to be about a dozen.
Springer will speak at the United Auto Workers Local 1112 Women's Committee luncheon at 2 p.m. Sunday at McMenamy's in Niles, and then at the Upstairs Lounge in Austintown at 4 p.m. at a fund-raiser, coordinated by Michael Sciortino, Mahoning County Board of Elections director, for the county Young Democrats.
Why is this funny? Springer is under some sort of illusion that he is a viable candidate for governor or the U.S. Senate in 2006 and that speaking to Democrats about his liberal agenda will convince them that he's a great political philosopher. He's an excellent speaker, but he's still the guy whose TV program showcases trailer-park incestuous transvestites. In his speeches, Springer makes fun of his own program -- often using the line, "May you never appear on my show" to his audience -- and then talks about government-funded health care and higher education.
Local groups invite Springer to speak because he's a celebrity and raises a lot of money for Democrats and not because people see him as a serious political candidate.
Item 4: Trumbull County Commissioner James Tsagaris said he didn't hear many of the questions asked of him in front of a grand jury probing the county's purchasing scandal because his hearing aid was off. Commissioner Joseph Angelo Jr. left the grand jury after just a couple of minutes, presumably because he wouldn't speak to them. Former Commissioner Michael O'Brien, now Warren mayor, has said he had no idea there was a problem with the county's purchasing system. As someone told me, "Put the three together and you've got hear no evil, speak no evil and see no evil."