That scandal in the New York governor's office is nothing compared to this.

We come before you today to blow the lid off the biggest public relations scam since the invention of the media.

Dateline: Hinckley.

The first buzzard of spring? Puh-leeze.

The buzzards in that Medina County burg are nothing but no-good procrastinators. You want real buzzard action? Forget the sacred Hinckley ceremony this weekend. Head to Clinton. Right now.

Yes, you heard me right. Clinton. Down near Canal Fulton. Cozy little town just off state Route 21 in dear old Summit County. The real capital of Hurray-It's-Almost-Spring Day.

Clinton's buzzards have already been back for well over a week. My special Clinton operative, Lynn Westfall, reports that the first ugly avatar came flapping in on March 3.

''They're always in Clinton before they hit Hinckley,'' says Mayor Phyllis Mayberry, who has called Clinton home for 43
years.

''We've had as many as 50 nesting down in our trees.''

Mayberry and her husband live in Warwick Park, right next to a stand of pines that serves as Buzzard Central. So many buzzards hang around there at times that a couple of trees were destroyed by all the droppings.

''I'd go through there honking my horn and they'd all take off, and as soon as I'd leave, they'd all come back,'' says Mayberry.

It should come as no surprise that Clinton — Ohio's 550th most populated place — doesn't have much experience in putting together PR juggernauts. The mayor presides over a population of 1,404 (not including winged scavengers) and is the casual, down-to-earth sort. She'd never dream of trying to drum up a pseudo, Hinckleyesque news event.

So we did it for her.

Exactly one week ago today — March 6, 2008 — at precisely 2:35 p.m., Ranger Bob spotted a big ol' turkey vulture swooping just above a tree line on top of a hill.

Ranger Kenny Love, armed with a 600 mm telephoto lens, documented the moment through the magic of pixels.

And the rest shall be history.

Take that, Hinckley.

On the other hand . . . towns should be careful what they wish for.

''Oh, they're ugly,'' admits the mayor. ''Uglier than ugly. They have that red beak on them and stuff. People think they're turkeys when they see 'em.''

The big raptors also live on the wrong side of the tracks.

Warwick, after which Warwick Park was named, was once a hamlet outside Clinton proper. But Warwick was behaving improperly. The Ohio & Erie Canal, which gave birth to the village, brought an influx of rowdy residents, and that tradition continued long after the canal gave way to the railroad.

In the 1950s, when old Army barracks were dragged in to house the railroaders, Clinton had seen enough, and annexed Warwick to gain some control through zoning.

Hey, maybe Clinton can annex Hinckley.

Although Mayberry appears to be a mellow mayor (we'll skip the obvious joke about her last name), don't get the impression she's a pushover. She recently outlasted the notoriously glacier-paced Federal Emergency Management Agency, duking for 21/2 years to nail down funding to relocate six families who suffered severe flood damage.

Those families rose from the swamps to higher ground. And continued to move up, ever higher, way up to the peaks, where they now gaze out over the luscious landscape, soaring with the majestic — nah. We can only take this so far.