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Nazareth, Pa., United States

Friday, April 18, 2008

Like Jesus, HRH DePaul "Forgives" Offensive Blogger

For some reason, HRH DePaul forgives me for reporting her resignation yesterday. Looks like I'm going to heaven after all!

"I will remain above all the disparaging comments that you have attempted to bestow upon me. As a Christian I serve, and I am to forgive. You are a challenge. I have received a great deal of positive which far out shines this blog. I do not recall this comment about “reign,” but it is the furthest from any true meaning of holding my position. My staff is, and will be more of a family then just my employees, and they know I didn’t even care for the word boss. Anyone that speaks up or defends themselves when they feel they are being treated unfairly is doing the right thing. The county never paid a bill, and it was never my intention other then having non-partisan representation. We all know that an appointed attorney, although a very supportive one is beholding to his source of income. Your thought process defies logic. Two things, you are not doing a service but a disservice when you keep or frighten good people from running for office or doing a job. The world in general, and most importantly the world of politics NEED good people desperately. Think before you write or post Bernie. Also, remember you may depend upon others someday also; you put my father down for defending me. You now have a daughter in the service, god bless her and keep her safe, but what if something arose negative with regards to her. I would certainly hope that you would be by her side. One other thing, we do watch our parent’s behaviors, and actions, try to think of that in your travels, and made your daughter proud. I have made a choice to try a new venture in my life. Why don’t you just wish me well Bernie, that would be the decent thing to do."

Deborah DePaul

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

Never walk away angry. Just walk away.

Anonymous said...

Bernie... you must be pure slime if you believe this is a good posting. Thanks Henry Schaadt

Anonymous said...

Bernie ... I must be pure slime because I think it's a pretty good posting, too. You use DePaul's own words to show her for the nasty "Christian" she is - one who really hopes nothing happens to your daughter.

Blah Society said...

And the point of her writing to you was...

Anonymous said...

Retired ASD teacher here.

Oh,boy.

This is exactly the kind of thing that troubles me about this relatively new activity known as blogging. An activity that I have participated in as responder.

I never met this women, have no idea if her performance was good or bad.

It would seem this individual has been hurt by what she sees as a damaging description put out there for the entire world to see.

Perhaps she needs to understand (as I think I do) that perhaps only 100 persons will ever read the remarks found here, even though many millions have the opportunity.

It's Bernie's chalkboard. He can scribble what he wants. We don't have to read it.If we DO choose to read it, we need the skin to deal with whatever is here for us to read.

I am totally OK with however Bernie has chosen to describe the development involving Ms.DePaul.

Remember, this blogging enterprise is designed first to serve Bernie. If it serves anyone else, all the better.

Anonymous said...

When you can't think of anything inteeligent to write, attack someone. That's good therapy. Too bad if you are the target

Anonymous said...

Retired ASD teacher, I think you made excellent points.
I appreciate that Bernie allows anonn. posts and have credited him for that in the past. I agree with you about posting on a blog and knowing all is fair. This is not a fact based medium. It is very heavy on emotion and light on 'facts', but that is the nature of a blog.
I see many people claim things on blogs and use wikapedia as their source of 'factual' Information.It is a new age and sadly facts and truth are not necessarily synonomous.
I think when BO is on someone, come hell or high water he will tear into them. If he likes you, you are as sacred as a sainted mother.
I think based on information at my disposal, DePaul was promoted too fast but not incompetent. I think based on information I received Mr. Stoffa wanted her out and a new person in the position. A year ago he apparently had one in mind, I don't know if that is the case anymore. His Committee was a front to give the move creditibility but she fought back, good for her.
Does this make Stoffa bad, not really but it makes him a mere mortal pol., something BO goes nutz over.
I wish Deb. well and agree she probably should have written her response on paper put it in a drawer and then throw it away a few days later.

Anonymous said...

Ms DePaul has served this county admirably. She took over voter registration at the largest point of transition in the history of the Commonwealth i.e. SURE system implementation HAVA and did it all without the support of the administration. DePaul was one of a very few to have her overtime taken away even though it had been paid to her predecessors, I can only imagine the frustration she must have felt after all the work she personally did to conduct one smooth election after another only to have Stoffa steal her pay. I have had many dealing with the past 3 Chief Registrars and found her to have been most helpful.
Despite all of the changes in laws and regulations Stoffa's unlawful "Blue Ribbon panel of hacks" failed to find any issues with Ms DePaul or the way she conducted the office.
The only problem we have endured was a faulty vendor not something BO or Stoffa can blame her for. DePaul has delivered one successful election after another now on three different voting systems, there is no one else in the County who has been so successful.
After all the only real measure of the DePaul should be our elections…
Unlike BO who can’t help but be sarcastic and attack all who disagree with his Stoffa, I wish Debra DePaul much success and happiness in her new career, as a fellow county employee I hope she considers returning after Stoffa’s tern.

Bernie O'Hare said...

I've been out of Blogistan all day so I missed Retired ASD Teacher's thoughtful comment until just now. It's ironic he would discuss it bc it is the precisely the subject I've been discussing over the past few days among a number of other bloggers whose opinions I respect.

It is a subject I intend to discuss in a separate post very soon. When I first started blogging, and had maybe twenty or less daily readers, it was basically an exercise in writing. I've always loved to write, and this was a forum that gave me the freedom to do so. I had no specific desire to discuss local politics.

But over time, I saw that I really could fill a niche. I could provide a perspective about what is going on in Northampton County that a newspaper simply cannot cover in such detail. I could also provide an important perspective about some issues that are very important to me, but pale in significance to other issues.

Over a period of months, this blog evolved into a quirky spotlight on different local governments or different issues. When Nazareth decided to build a new government center in a children's park, this and another Nazareth blog was a focal point for the many different views about it. Its secrecy was exposed, and it eventually reversed itself. Over time, I've had a similar focus on many issues in many different LV municipalities.

In some instances, this blog has actually been able to break hard news about something going on. DePaul's resignation is a small example, although the MSM was only 20 minutes behind me on that one and most of the time they are way ahead.

I've never attempted to pretend that I'm either impartial or objective. But one thing I've always tried to do is get my facts right. If they are wrong, and they sometimes are, my readers let me know very quickly, and I will gladly correct any factual error. But I won't pretend for you that I'm "objective" about anything. I think it is more important to be fair than to be objective.

Debbie DePaul has been the focus of many post on this blog. Her father, whom she mentions defensively, actually physically threatened a member of Norco County Council. She herself has been moody, erratic, unhinged, incapable of handling the pressures demanded by her job. She has been openly defiant to county exec Stoffa. No department head in Northampton County gets OT. Period. But she moaned about that, too. I covered every meeting of the elections advisory panel, and even had links to meeting minutes. They clearly demonstrate that she was a bad voting registrar. In addition to her flighty behavior, she was biased. She was too close to Dem party boss Joe Long, so much so that she selected her private attorney from a list provided by him.

Her own comments following my report about her resignation, demonstrate more of that bizarre behavior. I felt it important to let everyone see them and judge for themselves.

What I have learned over time is that a blog can be very influential so long as the blogger is fair and ethical. That has always been my goal. I may not have always succeeded, but I've always tried.

Retired ASD is right -- people would really not read this blog if it was overtly unfair or unethical. But he's also wrong if he thinks only 100 people read what is written here. On weekdays, the audience is now averaging around 700 visitors per day. This is still minuscule compared to the MSM, but it is a growing trend.

As far as DePaul is concerned, I am very comfortable with what I wrote. When I claim, for example, that she refers to her tenure as her "reign," that is completely accurate. I noted that when she said it and it was also mentioned in the findings of the citizens' advisory panel.

Whether a reader finds this blog to be credible is something that does not take very long. I will link to sources. If I break a news story, you will usually see it in print media soon after you see it here. I would rely more heavily on what appears in the print media bc they are professional observers. I have seen reporters learn things in days that will take me weeks. But this blog exists to cast light on issues that may not be covered in the MSM, or to put them in a light you may not see there.

I believe this blog has succeeded in bringing government closer to the people. Dean Browning, John Stoffa, Lamont McClure, Bill Leiner and may other local leaders have placed comments with their views, and you've been able to interact with them in ways you could never do in a public meeting. It has succeeded in making our democracy more democratic. It has promoted open and accountable government.

That, I suppose, is my primary agenda. I'm a small "d" democrat who will support members from either party who believe government belongs to the people. I will not support someone blindly just bc he belongs to one or the other of the major parties.

So I give you facts and I do also give opinions. I do like people like Stoffa, Angle, Dent, Grucela, Brennan, Dally, Freeman, Rendell, Specter, Morganelli or even Wayne Grube. I am suspicious of many others and have outright disdain for some others. Now my opinions are just that, and sometimes they are over the top. For example, a Stoffa hater is posting here, and that's fine with me. Let the better opinion prevail.

I am going to be writing a post about this in the next few days. I think ethics in blogging is very important. Without it, we have no credibility.

Anonymous said...

In that case you have no credibility.

Bernie O'Hare said...

Yet you're reading a blog that has no credibility at 1:13 AM.

Anonymous said...

BO,
YOUR BLOGGING IS A LOT LIKE PUBLIC MASTERBATION AND YOU SEEM TO LIKE IT A LOT. PERHAPS YOU ARE VERY SEXUALLY FRUSTRATED AND SINCE DEPAUL WOULD NEVER HAVE SEX WITH YOU YOU ARE VERY NASTY TO HER.
GET A REAL LIFE THAT TRANSCENDS YOUR HATE FOR YOURSELF.

Blah Society said...

YOU YOU ARE VERY NASTY TO HER."

All he did was post the message that SHE wrote!

What's your problem?

Bernie O'Hare said...

SINCE DEPAUL WOULD NEVER HAVE SEX WITH YOU YOU ARE VERY NASTY TO HER.

It's inappropriate to bring someone's sex into this. And as Ron Angle and several parakeets will readily attest, I have a very fulfilling sex life.

Anonymous said...

"YOUR BLOGGING IS A LOT LIKE PUBLIC MASTERBATION AND YOU SEEM TO LIKE IT A LOT. PERHAPS YOU ARE VERY SEXUALLY FRUSTRATED AND SINCE DEPAUL WOULD NEVER HAVE SEX WITH YOU YOU ARE VERY NASTY TO HER.
GET A REAL LIFE THAT TRANSCENDS YOUR HATE FOR YOURSELF."


Ah, excuse me, Mr./Ms. Anon writing angry an post in ALL CAPS at 2:04 a.m. on a Saturday morning, but who appears frustrated here, and who should get a real life?

Thanks for posting blatantly vulgar comments on this threat. It really adds a lot to your argument. I'm sure Ms. DePaul appreciates your dragging her name into such a foul statement like that.

Anonymous said...

To-Oh For Pete's Sake,

We are sorry Mr. Stoffa.

Bernie O'Hare said...

DePaul's anonymous defenders make Bernie's points more clearly than he himself. Obviously, they love a partisan registrar, and are sad to see her go.