ELYRIA — Living paycheck to paycheck is no longer reserved for just ordinary folks.

The city of Elyria will have to do it, too, until the end of the year, as it will have little to no cash on hand after October, said city Auditor Ted Pileski.

While the city’s finances have been bad all year, October reached an all-time low, Pileski said.

Income tax distribution dropped 19 percent from what was received in October 2008. It is the largest single monthly drop of the year.

“Basically, we will be living from income tax distribution to income tax distribution,” he said. “It’s not good when you are at a point where you have no money to make payroll without getting additional money in, but that’s where we are at right now.”

Mayor Bill Grace said it is possible that additional cuts will have to be made before the end of the year because of the city’s dire financial picture.

“The budget calls for us to be right at the edge of (being in the red),” he said. “We have budgeted to spend just about everything we bring in.”

Pileski said Nov. 2 — when the city will receive income tax revenue — can’t come soon enough.

“We are going to be closing October with very little money,” Pileski said. “Of the cash we have remaining in the general fund, we will have enough to cover payroll and bills.”

Payroll is a big expense for the city, but each month the city must also put money into the health insurance fund, pension account, pay the utilities for all city buildings and buy gasoline and office supplies.

With that in mind, Pileski said he will likely lower his revenue estimates yet again for the year and will ask City Council to adjust the general fund budget again to balance the books for the year. Now that the jail is closed and eight more firefighters have been laid off in the Fire Department, their budgets can be adjusted to reflect the need for less money.

“I’ve never seen the city like this before,” Pileski said. “This is not a good situation.”

Grace said the line item adjustments could save the budget for the year, but he doesn’t know.

“We can’t predict what the revenue is going to be,” he said. “We predicted this year would be bad, and it has been worse. Most of our revenue is based on employment in the city. If that continues to drop, so will our revenue.”

Contact Lisa Roberson at 329-7121 or lroberson@chroniclet.com.

PITTSBURGH — The Browns’ 2009 winning streak is over at one game.

Pittsburgh’s dominance of Cleveland is alive and well, and in no apparent danger of ending anytime soon.

The Steelers (4-2) committed four turnovers, which allowed the Browns (1-5) to hang around into the fourth quarter, but they were never in jeopardy of losing the lead or the game. The Steelers’ 12th straight win in the rivalry came 27-14 Sunday at Heinz Field.

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“It’s always hard to swallow this one,” fullback Lawrence Vickers said. “People in Cleveland would love to beat Pittsburgh.”

The latest defeat was different than many of the others in Pittsburgh’s 18-1 run against Cleveland.

The Steelers didn’t pound the ball on the ground for record yardage, like Willie Parker did in 2006. They didn’t shut out the Browns, like they had in 2005 and ’07. They didn’t use a Ben Roethlisberger comeback in the fourth quarter, like they did in 2006 and ’07.

This beatdown was all about breakdowns.

The Browns lost coverage on Pittsburgh’s best receivers on numerous occasions, allowing Roethlisberger to throw for 417 yards — second most in his career. He went 23-for-35 with two touchdowns, an interception and a 113.6 rating, as he improved to 10-0 against Cleveland.

“He’s in total command of the offense,” Pittsburgh coach Mike Tomlin said. “It’s fun to watch at times.”

“He frustrates a lot of defenses,” coach Eric Mangini said. “That’s who this quarterback is.”

When the Browns would blitz, Roethlisberger would quickly find a receiver running wide open. When the Browns would drop eight in coverage, he’d wait awhile for a receiver or tight end to break free. With linebacker Kamerion Wimbley out with the flu, he had even more time than usual.

The Steelers had 10 plays of 20 yards or more — nine passes and a reverse — for 297 yards. They also had two 19-yarders. Receiver Hines Ward had eight catches for 159 yards.

“When I caught it there was nobody around,” he said of his 52-yard touchdown.

That also applied to Santonio Holmes (five catches, 104 yards) and tight end Heath Miller (five catches, 80 yards, touchdown).

“I don’t think our zone integrity was too good today,” cornerback Eric Wright said. “They found the big holes and we gave up big plays.”

And once again, the Cleveland offense didn’t make nearly enough big plays or prevent the devastating ones.

A heavy dose of Joshua Cribbs at quarterback in the Wildcat formation — 13 of 51 plays — provided a spark in each half, but Cribbs threw a first-quarter interception in the red zone that led to the first Steeler touchdown. The offense managed just seven points, and Cribbs scored on a 98-yard kickoff return.

In six games, the Browns have scored four offensive touchdowns. They had four turnovers Sunday.

“Two things we can’t do, and we talked about it a lot, are turnovers and big plays,” Mangini said.

Cribbs’ interception from the 14 deprived the Browns of the chance to take an early lead and establish some momentum. On his second straight pass attempt — second of the season — he was pressured by LaMarr Woodley and picked off by safety Troy Polamalu, who undercut Chansi Stuckey.

Derek Anderson’s interception from the Pittsburgh 31-yard line with 4:21 left in the fourth quarter eliminated the possibility of an improbable comeback. He scrambled left, but instead of turning upfield he threw across his body for Mohamed Massaquoi. The pass was well underthrown.

“Looking back on it, stupid play,” said Anderson, who lost two fumbles on sacks as running back Jerome Harrison didn’t pick up the blitz. “There’s no excuse for it, it can’t happen.”

Anderson went 9-for-24 for 122 yards, an interception, a touchdown and a 51.0 rating. In the last two games, he’s 11-for-41 for 145 yards, a touchdown and two interceptions. He’s been the victim of 15 drops. His season rating is 41.6, worst in the league.

“I’m not looking to make a move, no,” Mangini said when asked about changing quarterbacks. “I think we had a lot of opportunities today. We’ve got to be able to keep moving forward to where we’re capitalizing, pushing those opportunities.”

The Browns cut the lead to 17-14 after three passes to Massaquoi gained 60 yards and Vickers caught a 1-yard touchdown. The Steelers answered immediately to go up 24-14, then the game got ugly despite perfect conditions.

After a Browns punt, Brodney Pool intercepted a Roethlisberger overthrow. The next four possessions ended with fumbles — two by Anderson and one each by Parker and fellow running back Rashard Mendenhall. The Steelers re-established normalcy with a six-minute drive and 39-yard field goal with 5:42 left.

The Browns’ lone win under Mangini was a hard-to-watch 6-3 triumph last week over Buffalo. Despite being outgained 543 to 197 Sunday, he insists his team is growing.

“I see progress each week,” he said. “It’s a process, it takes time. That being said, if a few things would’ve been done differently, it’s a different outcome.

“What I like is the guys keep playing. There’s never a sense of ‘Here we go again.’ It’s not like that in the locker room, not like that on the sideline, not like that during the week.”

The fans probably have a different reaction. They haven’t watched a win over Pittsburgh since Oct. 5, 2003.
Call it the Dirty Dozen.

“It’s not the same,” left guard Eric Steinbach said. “I don’t care if it was 30 in a row, we’re starting fresh this year.”
With a stale result.

Contact Scott Petrak at 329-7253 or spetrak@chroniclet.com.

FORT COLLINS, Colo. (AP) — A 6-year-old boy was found hiding in a cardboard box in his family’s garage attic Thursday after being feared aboard a homemade helium balloon that hurtled 50 miles through the sky on live television.

The discovery marked a bizarre end to a saga that started when the giant silvery balloon floated away from the family’s yard Thursday morning, sparking a frantic rescue operation that involved military helicopters and briefly shut down Denver International Airport.

But Sheriff Jim Alderden turned to reporters during a news conference and gave a thumbs up and said 6-year-old Falcon Heene is “at the house.” “Apparently he’s been there the whole time,” he said.

The boy’s father, Richard Heeney, said the family was tinkering with the balloon Thursday and that he scolded Falcon for getting inside a compartment on the craft. He said Falcon’s brother had seen him inside the compartment before it took off and that’s why they thought he was in there when it launched.

But the boy fled to the attic at some point after the scolding and was never in the balloon during its two-hour, 50-mile journey through two counties. “I yelled at him. I’m really sorry I yelled at him,” Heene said as he hugged his son during a news conference.

“I was in the attic and he scared me because he yelled at me,” Falcon said. “That’s why I went in the attic.”

Richard Heene adamantly denied the notion that the whole thing was a big publicity stunt. “That’s horrible after the crap we just went through. No.”

The flying saucer-like craft tipped precariously at times before gliding to the ground in a field. With the child nowhere in sight, investigators searched the balloon’s path. Several people reported seeing something fall from the craft while it was in the air, and yellow crime-scene tape was placed around the home.

But in the end, the boy apparently was in the garage the whole time, even as investigators scoured the house and neighborhood for any sign of him.

Neighbor Bob Licko, 65, said he was leaving home when he heard commotion in the backyard of the family. He said he saw two boys on the roof with a camera, commenting about their brother.

“One of the boys yelled to me that his brother was way up in the air,” Licko said.

Licko said the boy’s mother seemed distraught and that the boy’s father was running around the house. The Poudre School District in Fort Collins, where the boys attend, did not have classes for elementary schools Thursday because of a teacher work day.

The boys parents are storm chasers who appeared twice in the ABC reality show “Wife Swap,” most recently in March.

“When the Heene family aren’t chasing storms, they devote their time to scientific experiments that include looking for extraterrestrials and building a research-gathering flying saucer to send into the eye of the storm,” according to the show.

In a 2007 interview with The Denver Post, Richard Heene described becoming a storm chaser after a tornado ripped off a roof where he was working as a contractor and said he once flew a plane around Hurricane Wilma’s perimeter in 2005.

Pursuing bad weather was a family activity with the children coming along as the father sought evidence to prove his theory that rotating storms create their own magnetic fields.

Although Richard said he has no specialized training, they had a computer tracking system in their car and a special motorcycle.

While the balloon was airborne, Colorado Army National Guard sent a UH-58 Kiowa helicopter and was preparing to send a Black Hawk UH-60 to try to rescue the boy, possibly by lowering someone to the balloon. They also were working with pilots of ultralight aircraft on the possibility of putting weights on the homemade craft to weigh it down.

It wasn’t immediately clear how much the search operation cost. Capt. Troy Brown said the Black Hawk helicopter was in the air for nearly three hours, and the Kiowa helicopter was airborne for about one hour. The Black Hawk costs about $4,600 an hour to fly, and the Kiowa is $700 an hour, Brown said.

Col. Chris Petty, one of the pilots aboard the Black Hawk, said he was thrilled the boy was OK.

Asked what he would say to the 6-year-old if he saw him, Petty said: “I’m really glad you’re alive, I’m very thankful, but I’d sure like to know the rest of the story.”

The episode led to a brief shutdown of northbound departures from one of the nation’s busiest airports, said a controller at the Federal Aviation Administration’s radar center in Longmont, Colo. FAA canceled all northbound takeoffs between 1 p.m. and 1:15 p.m. MDT, said Lyle Burrington, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association representative at the center. The balloon was about 15 miles northwest of the airport at that time.

Before the departure shutdown, controllers had been vectoring planes taking off in that direction away from the balloon, Burrington said.

Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Laura Brown said the agency tracked the balloon through reports from pilots.

Neighbor Lisa Eklund described seeing the balloon pass.

“We were sitting eating, out looking where they normally shoot off hot air balloons. My husband said he saw something. It went over our rooftop. Then we saw the big round balloonish thing, it was spinning,” she said.

“By the time I saw it, it traveled pretty fast,” she said.

The balloon landed on its own in a dirt field. Sheriff’s deputies secured it to keep it in place, even tossing shovelfuls of dirt on one edge.

Jason Humbert saw the balloon land. He said he had gotten a call from his mother in Texas who told him about the balloon. He said he was in a field checking on an oil well when he found himself surrounded by police who had been chasing the balloon, which came to a rest 12 miles northeast of Denver International Airport.

“It looked like an alien spaceship you see in those old, old movies. You know, those black-and-white ones. It came down softly. I asked a police officer if the boy was OK and he said there was no one in it,” Humbert said.

LORAIN — A fire early this morning at 1758 Broadway claimed the life of a Lorain man, according to Assistant Fire Chief Gary Burls.

The Lorain County coroner’s office identified the victim as 56-year-old Eugene Mahon.

The fire, called in at 4:30 a.m., burned a four-unit cottage owned by the Lorain Metropolitan Housing Authority just south of Kennedy Plaza, Burls said.

Lorain firefighters arrived at the scene in two minutes and found the fire fully involved but were able to rouse the occupants of the cottage’s other units, Burls said. He said he believed there was one person in each unit.

The fire was out by 4:52, and firefighters searching the building found Mahon slumped up against a bathroom door and overcome by smoke, Burls said.

Mahon’s apartment, which was where the fire started, was totally destroyed, and the other three apartments had some smoke damage, Burls said. He estimated the fire caused $40,000 in damage.

A cause has not been determined, but Burls said the Lorain Fire Department’s fire marshal as well as the state fire marshal are investigating.

Check back at Chroniclet.com for more information as it becomes available.

Contact Rona Proudfoot at 329-7124 or rproudfoot@chroniclet.com.

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