It’s a city which has a 2005 budget that called for a 6.12-mill tax hike. City officials have even discussed seeking relief under Act 47, the Municipalities Financial Recovery Act. The candidates want to find ways to bring in additional revenue so such a tax will not have to be levied. There are three candidates seeking the Democratic nod for the city’s mayoral office — incumbent Michael T. Cafasso, Frank B. Hodges and Ed Day. Cathey Means is uncontested on the Republican ticket. There will be two council seats open. The primary has attracted two Democratic candidates — incumbent Mark L. Clark and John L. Kolbosky. John R. Howard is the lone Republican candidate. So all three will move on to the general election in November. Cafasso, 40, was appointed to the mayoral post in January to replace John Kisic, who resigned for health reasons. “The biggest issue we have is to cut internal expenses to try to save taxpayers money,” Cafasso said. In Cafasso’s mind, local businesses are a way to generate some of that cash. “It’s very important to have business in a city like Jeannette that’s lost its tax base,” Cafasso said. “The community needs to support local businesses as much as they can. We need to support and develop our land for any new small industry that would be willing to come to town and set up shop.” Hodges said he sees an anti-business sentiment from elected officials. “I’ve talked to businesses,” Hodges said. “They all tell you the same story; you go to council and you get a run-around, you get a hard time from code enforcement and zoning. Small business is the lifeblood of a community. It’s got to be turned around, or this city’s going to die.” Hodges feels his professional experience — more than 25 years as a facility manager — can serve him well in a post he thinks should be handled full time. “If Jeannette was a thriving community, maybe that would be different,” Hodges said. “They’re operating bare bones. You have to be there full time. Everything is fragmented. Everybody’s got to work together.” Day, 40, also sees the need for more business, citing 37 empty spots along Clay Avenue. “We’ve got to get the community working together,” Day said. “I know a lot of people, I’d like to bring in some businesses and raise the educational standards. Our children are being lost by the wayside.” Day also would like to see some relief for elderly citizens, perhaps in the form of a tax benefit. He wants to pursue scofflaws. “There’s a few people that own businesses that may be in arrears,” Day said. “We have to make sure they’re paying their business tax.” Means, 49, is looking to make history. She is the first woman to seek Jeannette’s mayoral office. “When I first came to this city, it was not very business-friendly,” Means said. “We need to promote businesses coming to the city and giving people the opportunity to have jobs.” She suggests capitalizing on the city’s rich history with perhaps a museum. She also feels purse strings need to be tightened. “The mayor is just one more council member,” Means said. “It takes five people to pass a budget. People are getting tired of taxation. Look around Jeannette and you see so many ‘For Sale’ signs. You don’t give people raises when you can’t keep up with services. There have to be more effective ways to delegate the budget.” Clark, 50, is seeking his second term on council. He hopes to keep things in line with the 2006 budget, especially with contract negotiations on the agenda for the police and fire departments and the Teamsters. “We’re looking to have everyone with us so we can get the budget set up the right way,” Clark said. “I know we’re never going to be back to what it was, but we need to get more businesses in Jeannette, more downtown money coming in. We’re starting to make a comeback, and I want to be a part of it. I want to see Jeannette become Jeannette again.” Kolbosky, 71, agrees. His memories are of the thriving city he served for 20 years as a police officer, and that’s what he wants now for Jeannette. “Jeannette’s still a good town,” Kolbosky said. “If we had some stores, I know people would shop here. If there’s any way I can talk to people and have them stay, I’m going to do it. People at City Hall don’t seem to care. People go there with complaints, and they sort of push it off. I want to sit down and talk to people to try to help them.” Howard, 56, is the founder and president of the Jeannette Area Historical Society. He feels the city should capitalize on its history with the possible addition of a glass museum. He said Jeannette can’t, and shouldn’t, compete with malls or big-box stores. “I think we should encourage other businesses to locate in town and do everything we can to keep them here,” Howard said. “We have become dependent on outside money instead of earning it. It’s almost like the leadership has lost its job and that job is business. Instead of going out and finding a new job, we’re relying on government money. We need to bring business in, and that’s the only way we’re going to recover. We’ve got to get out of the mentality that government will bail us out.” There were a few things — actually more than a few — that didn’t ring true, she says. “I didn’t blurb it, because I didn’t like the book,” she says. “And I didn’t like the book because I was suspicious of it.” The book was James Frey’s “A Million Little Pieces,” the literary sensation that turned scandalous when it was revealed the author had fabricated or exaggerated many of his life experiences. The Frey controversy was the impetus for “Can You Handle the Truth• Ethics in Writing,” the theme of this year’s 412: Creative Nonfiction Literary Festival. The event takes place Monday through Nov. 12 at various sites in Pittsburgh. Lee Gutkind, a professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh and the event’s organizer, says there was a need to respond to the media frenzy that erupted after revelations Frey had distorted facts. “We thought it was our responsibility to kind of take a stand,” he says, “… and make this conference all about the ethics, the things that writers need to think about before they begin to write and before they think about being published.” Thus, the conference’s keynote speakers: Harrison, the author of the memoirs “The Kiss” and “The Mother Knot,” and Buzz Bissinger, whose books include “Friday Night Lights” and “A Prayer for the City.” Both agree writers are under increased scrutiny after the Frey affair and other less-than-honorable literary misadventures, including Kaavya Viswanathan, the Harvard student who admitted lifting sections of her debut teen novel from another book, and the works of J.T. Leroy, which turned out to be a hoax created by a writer, Laura Albert. The temptation to distort reality, to abandon or ignore ethical considerations, has become irresistible to some who are swayed by cultural forces. “We as a culture are drowning in a certain type of mindlessness,” Bissinger says. “I don’t know how else to say it. We want to be entertained, we want to read things that are sensational and ridiculous and hyped up, and we as writers feel that.” Because sensationalism sells, Bissinger says, writers are more prone to manipulate quotes or situations. And he’s not sure that the publishing industry cares, as long as no one is caught in the act of manipulating a quote, an incident or even a life. “Frankly, it doesn’t make any difference to publishers,” he says. “They don’t fact-check; why should they fact-check• But as the bar gets raised higher and higher, there’s going to be more and more of a temptation and more and more of a reality that what is the greatness of nonfiction, which it is the truth or at least a version of the truth, is not the truth at all, but something that’s been invented and very craftily created by the writer.” That’s what happened with “A Million Little Pieces.” A publicist at Nan A. Talese, Frey’s publisher, said publishers do not keep track of who is sent advanced reading copies, and Harrison says that after reading the book, she pitched it into the trash without responding to the publisher. But someone should have noticed, as Harrison says she recognized almost immediately that there were elements of Frey’s story that didn’t ring true. An instance that Harrison particularly sites as raising doubts was Frey’s contention that he endured a root canal without anesthesia. “Not only because I’ve had a root canal and know it would probably be impossible to sit still through one without any painkillers, but also because it seemed clearly to be an act of self-mythologizing,” Harrison says. “And, having written memoir, I know the intention of memoir is quite the opposite. It’s really to cut through all that you might want to present about yourself to the truth of yourself, which is not necessarily the thing you want to see.” Harrison’s memoir “The Kiss,” which recounted the sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of her father, itself was the object of some derision. One reviewer, Jonathan Yardley of the Washington Post, wrote that it “wasn’t a confession from the heart, it was from the pocketbook.” Harrison says she was only trying to tell a story, and that she “told the truth of my family history to the best of my ability, and if I made mistakes, they were honest ones. Not only did I not lie, but I left out a great many damaging details because it wasn’t my intent to expose anyone but myself: The book was my owning what I’d disguised as fiction previously, and I was scrupulous for my own sake, because I needed to face what I’d turned my back on before.” Harrison adds that no one expects a writer to remember each and every detail or conversation verbatim. It makes little difference if a sweater is red or blue, or what variety of soup was served at a meal. But writers are charged with being truthful. What Bissinger fears most is a diminution of the public’s appetite for solid, honest reporting in favor of sensationalism. Accurate reporting, he thinks, is becoming obsolete, in books and newspapers. And don’t discount the influence of the Internet in making patience an annoyance, not a virtue. Blogs especially, Bissinger says, “disgrace the written word. No one sweats over a sentence anymore, no one really cares if a sentence has good grammar or bad grammar. No one really cares if it has the right or wrong word. Blogs are all about opinion, all about getting in your face, and the fact that people love them says they’re really not interested in facts, not interested in beautiful writing; they’re just interested in having our own opinions certified. “With the Internet, there’s too much information out there, and we’ve become a very mindless country. I don’t know how else to say it: We really revel in ignorance and disinformation.” While Bissinger is dismayed about certain elements of contemporary writing, he remains hopeful that young writers will adhere to the guidelines and principles set by his heroes: David Halberstam, Neil Sheehan, Robert Caro and J. Anthony Lukas. “That’s why this conference that Lee puts on every year, and the kind of work Lee has done for years, is so phenomenally important,” Bissinger says. “He won’t give up, and I’m glad he won’t, because if, during this conference, you inspire one really smart kid … to write the next ‘Common Ground’ (Lukas’ book on 10 years of race relations in Boston), then something wonderful has happened.” Schedule of events All events require ticketed admission, except where noted. Readings Literary marathon, readings, open-mic sessions, noon-midnight Monday, Gypsy Cafe, 1330 Bingham St., South Side. Free. Faith Adiele, noon Tuesday, Barnes & Noble, Smithfield St., Downtown. Geoffrey Kurland, 7 p.m. Tuesday, Barnes & Noble, Waterfront, Homestead. Free. Madwomen in the Attic, 1 p.m. Wednesday, Kresge Auditorium, Carlow University, Oakland. Free. Dr. Ellie Wymard, 2:30 p.m. Wednesday, Kresge Auditorium. Free. Katherine Ayres, 4 p.m. Wednesday, Carnegie Library, Oakland. Free. Paper Street Press poetry reading, 7 p.m. Wednesday, Barnes & Noble, South Hills Village. Free. Cathy Day, Hilary Masters, 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Barnes & Noble, Monroeville. Free. Sheryl St. Germain, 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Barnes & Noble, Squirrel Hill. Free. Kathryn Harrison, 6:30 p.m. Saturday, Frick Fine Arts Building, University of Pittsburgh campus. Free. Films/screenings “Shattered Glass,” Charlotte Glynn, 1 p.m. Friday, Pittsburgh Filmmakers, 477 Melwood Ave., Oakland. “Friday Night Lights,” Buzz Bissinger, screening of the film based on his book. 7 p.m. Friday, Alumni Hall Auditorium, University of Pittsburgh campus. Free. Panel discussions/seminars Literary showcase, local and national publications, 9 a.m-6:30 p.m. Saturday, Frick Fine Arts Building, Pitt campus. Free. Writing Fiction from Real Life, Cathy Day, Robert Hughes, David Prete, Jane Bernstein, 9 a.m. Saturday, Frick Fine Arts Building. Selling What You Write, freelancing, Daniel Nester, Michael Rosenwald, 9 a.m. Saturday, Frick Fine Arts Building. How Not to be Sued, Scott Hoffman, David Gurwin, 10:25 a.m. Saturday, Frick Fine Arts Building. Publishing Poetry in Literary Magazines, Rob Casper, Arlan Hess, Daniel Nester, Marc Nieson, 10:25 a.m, Saturday, Frick Fine Arts Building. Frame and Focus: Tips for Teachers, Dinty Moore, 10:25 a.m. Saturday, Frick Fine Arts Building. Buzz Bissinger, 11:50 a.m. Saturday, Frick Fine Arts Building. Critics Corner: Literary Scandals Past and Present, Bob Hoover, Robert Hughes, Rebecca Skloot, Rebecca Miller, 1:50 p.m. Saturday, Frick Fine Arts Building. Financing Your Writing: Colonies and Fellowships, Faith Adiele, Lori Frush Schmelz, Amy Stolls, 3:15 p.m. Saturday, Frick Fine Arts Building. Top Ten Ways Not to Get a Literary Agent, Scott Hoffman, 3:15 p.m. Saturday, Frick Fine Arts Building. How Should I Write This• Should I Write This• Ethics in Teaching Creative Nonfiction, David Griffith, 3:15 p.m. Saturday, Frick Fine Arts Building. Crossing the Line: Ethics in Nonfiction, Buzz Bissinger, 4:40 p.m. Saturday, Frick Fine Arts Building The Truth or Lies Party, 8 p.m.-midnight, Kiva Han, Oakland. Admission: $50, $60 at the door; $25 for students, $30 at the door. Additional Information: 412: Creative Nonfiction Festival When: Monday-Saturday Admission: $30; $15 for students Where: Various venues Details: 412-394-3353 or www.creativenonfiction.org Email Newsletters TribLIVE's Daily and Weekly email newsletters deliver the news you want and information you need, right to your inbox.