You may have heard that Easton Mayor Phil Mitman has thankfully decided against another mayoral term. No surprise there.But here's the shocker. The Lehigh Valley's original blogger, Billy Givens, today announced his mayoral aspirations. And he did so in a series of comments posted on my blog!
Billy, a Bill White Hall of Famer, has spent years taking "chunks out of those who hold themselves up as models of probity." His caustic essays have singed pols over the years, but he's better known for taking bolt cutters to free city streets and things like that. He was seriously ill last year, and I'm so happy he's back in the fray. Here's his announcement.
I consider it appropriate, and a privilege, to announce on your blog, and under the posting, "Lehigh Valley Rail Summit: Grassroots or Astroturf," my candidacy as the Republican Party nominee in this year's mayoral contest to succeed Easton Mayor Philip A. Mitman.
Indeed, I credit the publication of my comment on your rail transit blog, criticizing his arrogation of powers exercised legitimately only by Pennsylvania's Department of Transportation and the Commonwealth's Governor and legislature as one of the major issues leading to Mayor Mitman's not to seek re-election.
That and issues such as his catering to Easton's elitist young professionals, or yuppies and developers of luxury condominiums that are glutting Easton's real-estate market, at the expense of the city's older tax- and fee-strapped citizens who increasingly are being forced from their homes.
Easton, Pennsylvania, Mayor Philip A. Mitman has repeated his wise decision of 1983 when he decided not to seek re-election to his one term as the city's chief executive.
As his second term draws to a close, the finances of Easton, a "fiscally distressed city," are as bleak now, and are still into an indeterminate future, as when he first left office after one term as mayor.
As proof that I am not rabidly partisan, I credit myself with the wise decision by Easton City Council Chairwoman Sandy "Ms. Cabbage Patch Doll" Vulcano not to seek the Democratic Party nomination to succeed Phil Mitman as mayor.
Sandy is also co-chair of the Easton Democratic Party Committee, whose chairman is James Edinger.
Edinger is also chair of the Easton Zoning Hearing Board that "grants" waivers and special exceptions from the city's zoning ordinances as a political favor to developers like Abraham Atiyeh, Lou Pektor, Theordore Kheel, Peter Koehler, Richard Thulin, Lafayette College, and the college's alumni like Jonathan Davis, the developer and real estate partner of Greg Schuyler.
3 comments:
amusing, but billy is also nuts. and i mean that in the literal sense.
Anon 3:43, Are you Mrs. Givens?
The lead editorial in today's The Excess-Times (kisses officialdom's ass to excess at all times) distorts the facts"
The only publicaly announded candidates to challenge Easton's deceitful and dissembling - and disgraced - Phil Mitman are not Sal Panto Jr. and Michael Fleck.
As your post reports, I am a candidate for the position, too - not on the Democratic but the Republican Party ticket.
As a member of the Easton Boys Club board of directors, Sal discredited, and disqualified himself as a candidate, through his conduct in the sale of the club's soccer field at Washington and 5th streets to Northampton County for a parking lot; as part of the campaign to discredit Palmer Township resident and Golden Age Club public relations director John Todaro, Sal made intimidating telephone calls to the home of John and wife Rosina in an unsuccessful effort to discourage a public rally at St. Anthony's Youth Center at Washington and 9th streets to protest the dismissal of the center's executive director Sandra Riley - subjecting her to an audit by the Lehigh Valley United Way.
As for Fleck, he, in his unsuccessful bid for Easton Mayor - losing in the Democratic primary to Dan Corpora, who in the general lost to Mitman - accepted a campaign contribution from Allentown-Whitehall real-estate developer/speculator Abraham Atiyeh.
This contribution, and the contributions made to Fleck's primary rival, Dan Corpora, and to Northampton County Court of Common Pleas Judge Candidate Paula A. Roscioli and County DA John Morganelli, was meant to secure zoning approval and Keystone Opportunity Zone (KOZ) tax exemptions for Atiyeh's Cinema Paradiso theater building, located at 175 S. 3rd St. in the Lehigh River flood plain.
Atiyeh, a member of the Easton Ventures consortium of Lehigh Valley business interests, was the subject of one of your "Our Common Bond" articles - the one in which you exposed the three little "piggies," the name you gave the county's Palmer Towne Center, Bangor Junction, and East Arcadia developments.
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