Although Easton Mayoral candidate Sal Panto loves to brag about his Italian heritage, his name is actually Greek, meaning "all things." An Everyman. It shows in his campaign.Grassroots support. Easton support. That's the story Sal Panto's campaign finance report tells. He raised $24,588 for his campaign between May and October, and $3,293 of that money came in contributions under $50. Another fifty-two people, most of them Easton residents, kicked in slightly larger contributions between $50 and $250. The people are already behind Sal. He's earned their respect and admiration. He's one of them.
A proud product of Easton's Delaware Terrace, Sal knows what tough times are like. Even today, he only lives a few blocks away on Easton's tough south side, where the Lil' Rovers dominated Allentown's East Side Lil' Huskies this year. (Obviously steroids).
Now Easton is going through some tough times of its own. It's in the red. More than half of its housing is rental units. Its tax base suffers as both Northampton County and Lafayette College gobble up property after property. To make matters worse, it has become a hub of late-night gang and drug activity.
Sal's bio glosses over the tough times he faced. But he's faced adversity, although you wouldn't know it from speaking to him. He's made it through, and is currently the chief administrative officer at Stausser Enterprises. And he's retained his love of music, his fondness for history and a passion for public service. He represents everything that is right with Easton.
Unlike county council candidates John Maher, Lamont McClure and Tony Branco, he engaged in no negative campaigning. As he mentioned in his famous Debate at the State, he is running for mayor, and not against his opponent.
He shared some of his ideas over the past ten days at Easton Undressed, where he and city council candidates answered some of the tough questions. Collecting taxes and fees? "Delinquencies will be reduced with collection calls being made in the first 30 days of non-payment when an effort can be made to pay them. We cannot allow a delinquency to go beyond 60 days because they become harder to collect by the city and harder to pay by the customer." The importance of an individual neighborhood? "Our city is a city of neighborhoods; they are the lifeblood of our city. The strength of those individual neighborhoods creates the vitality of our city. Each neighborhood has its unique characteristics and needs. I am a product of our neighborhoods." He even developed a 12 month budget development program.
Easton's best hope lies with one of its own - Sal Panto.
3 comments:
The city of Easton is too small to have been balkanized into four neighborhoods - actually five if Dutchtown-Gallows Hill is counted as a neighborhood; it is, in fact, an integral part of historic downtown Easton, and not West Ward, that has been virtually destroyed by the ever-expanding incursion of the Northampton County government center.
My friend Sal Panto bears much of the responsibility for the incursion of Northampton County and Lafayette College into Easton's neighborhoods and the removal of once taxable properties from the tax rolls.
Tomorrow, after Sal has been elected Easton's next mayor, he must begin the effort of making Arcadia Properties and Riverwalk show the same respect for Easton's flood plain that he required of Larry Holmes the last time Sal was mayor and Larry erected his two buildings on Larry Holmes Drive.
One thing is certain: Preserving Easton's environment - natural and man-made - is one public service that lame-duck Mayor Phil Mitman is not about to perform
The balkanization of Easton by an undue emphasis on its neighborhoods has reduced the city, already small, to an entity even smaller than the sum of its parts.
Fortunately, enough of Easton's citizens have now attained a critical mass strong enough to preserve what remains of the city's rich historical and cultural past.
The time is long overdue to stop dividing Easton through the weakening process of socio-economic-political mitosis, and to reverse the process by re-integrating, and thereby strengthening, this small city at the confluence of the Delaware and Lehigh rivers and Bushkill Creek - and, indeed, at the confluence of history and the future.
To extend the image, we must make Easton's surfaces more permeable, not less so, with storm water percolating back into Mother Earth and not running off the roofs of monoliths like Riverwalk, flooding the city's streets, homes, and businesses, and further polluting the city's streams.
Bernie
Thank you for the kind words. I am grateful for the support and confidence the electorate has placed in me and I pledge to work hard so that I do not let them down.
Our city will have a bright future. It will be bright because we will open the doors of city hall to any individual that wants to help us make our city better. We pledge not only an open door policy but an open mind policy as well.
I also want to remind my friend Billy that the vast amount of additional land and property sold by the city to the county was after my two terms as Mayor and not during.
Thank you again to all of the voters and our more than 300 volunteers for the trust they placed in our campaign.
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