Angle Suffers Wardrobe Malfunction During Budget Hearing

At last week's Northampton County budget hearing, six council members played hooky, and were tagged by The Express Times. "Missing were Tony Branco, Charles Dertinger, Mike Dowd, Lamont McClure, Ann McHale and Diane Neiper. The people who administer the human services budget -- and those who depend upon these services -- deserve better."

As you may have guessed, everyone was present yesterday, excepting Tony Branco. He doesn't count anyway because Peg Ferraro will be sworn in as his successor at any moment.

It was nice they could all drop by because the agenda included the proposed budget for DA John Morganelli (wants a new ADA), Sheriff Jeff Hawbecker (wants his department accredited just like Easton), Coroner Zach Lysek (gives me funny looks and then smiles), Public Defender Mike Corriere (wants a new assistant, too), Director of Court Services Bill Hillanbrand (he's got a blog so he should get whatever he wants) and President Judge Robert Freedberg (incredibly came in $2 million lower than last year).

The first person in the box, amazingly, was not the President Judge, but Morganelli. In fact, the PJ went last for some reason. Go figure.

That was fine by me. You see, Councilman Ron Angle is a little unhappy with Morganelli right now. He knows Morganelli used his hired gun, Tom Severson, to try and get rid of him. He also knows all about Morganelli's Atiyeh ties. So I brought some marshmallows to roast along with Morganelli.

Angle: "So you'd like a new assistant, eh?"

Morganelli: "Yes."

That's it? 'Fraid so. Something was wrong.

Angle kept giving this goofy look and I thought I heard plumbing noises. He kept leaving the meeting and then coming back, looking more ashen each time. Finally, just as Judge Freedberg got going, so did Angle. He bolted out of the room and down the hall, and it looked like his trousers were exploding.

With Angle gone, the meeting ended in about three seconds. But as I walked down the corridor by the Cappy Crappy, I could hear Angle in there, shouting, "Who's your daddy?"

Reports this evening indicate that the state Environmental Protection Agency has sealed off the Cappy Crappy until further notice.