Let the Games Begin!

At last night's meeting of Northampton County Council, there was only one item on the agenda - the introduction of a budget amendment ordinance. Nobody talked about that. But before the night was over, three attempts were made to embarrass County Executive Stoffa, whose primary opponent just happens to be Council Prez Ann (64% tax increase) McHale.

Election Jab No. 1: Stoffa Picks on Deputy Sheriffs

The first blow of the night came from a group of about six or seven deputies, wearing snazzy blue T-shirts with little badges on the front and baseball numbers on the back. Deputies are still outraged that Stoffa stopped the costly practice of allowing them to drive their cruisers home every night. Never mind that this saves money. They were even more steamed when Stoffa stopped buying them gas-guzzling cruisers. Taxpayers be damned. They were really hot about a February memo from Stoffa complaining about lax courthouse security. After I published that memo, they were mad at me, too. When I go to the courthouse today, I'll be getting the third degree again. Oh well.

Last night, this little baseball team cried to council, hoping one of the newspapers might pick it up. According to the union spokesperson Crivellaro, deputy sheriffs have had to file "numerous grievances." Horrors! There have been an astronomical 12 arbitrations. These are a "waste of money and time." "Clearly, there is some kind of anti-union animus. It's the taxpayers' money being wasted."

"What would you like us to do?" asked Angle.

"We just thought you should know," answered Crivellaro. What he should have said is that he thought the newspapers should know and maybe write a piece about how Big Bad John Stoffa is picking on the poor deputies.

If Crivellaro is so concerned about wasting taxpayers' money, I have a suggestion. Drop the grievances. Drop the arbitrations. Problem solved.

Election Jab No. 2: Stoffa's Haphazard Response to Chemical Spill

After deputies had finished their complaining, Wind Gap resident John Maher was the next person to whine. He just happens to be treasurer of the Joe Long Dems, and is primarily known for his disastrous county council race against the Northampton County Bulldog, Ron Angle. Maher's anonymous robo-calls and sleaze mailings infuriated most of the slate belt, and he went down in flames, 5,583 to 4,495.

Last night, he complained about the "haphazard" way the county responded last month to an overturned truck containing hazardous chemicals. Five thousand Wind Gap area residents were forced to evacuate their homes for about 12 hours.

Stoffa quickly rejected Maher's criticism. "Not one single person was hurt." Noting that the county had combined its 911 and emergency services a few years before, Stoffa called that decision a "stroke of genius" which made an emergency response more efficient. "In fifteen minutes, we can call 2,000 people and get them out of their house. A lot of counties don't have that. This happened on a Saturday morning. A lot of people were sleeping. I think we did a fantastic job."

The way Stoffa and Director of Administration John Conklin have organized for disasters is one of Stoffa's many untold success stories. Just the week before this near tragedy, Stoffa had told reporters about the importance of emergency response and reverse 911, and the efforts his team has made to deal with what later happened. It wasn't glitzy enough for the papers or even this blog, but it probably saved lives.

Election Jab No. 3: You Never Asked Us About the Treatment Center

The last jab came from lame duck council member Diane Neiper, who noted that Council had never been asked formally to approve the concept of a treatment center in Bethlehem Township. She proposed that Council express its sentiments. What she really wanted to do was give some members a chance to use the county's prison problem as a political football. McHale and Dertinger, both of whom are running for office, were able to pander some votes by voting No. Lamont McClure, whose district includes Bethlehem Township, had a nice fat NIMBY vote.

McHale explains her No vote with what I can only call a lie. I'm sorry, but that's what it is. She told fellow council members, and later the Express Times, that Stoffa is now proposing the facility for both treatment and work release but had earlier sold it as just a treatment center. "This was meant to treat addiction, and now all of a sudden it's for everything."

This is completely untrue. In a memo to council members on May 14, 2008, Stoffa makes it very clear that the treatment center was also intended as a work release facility. He specifically called it "TREATMENT CENTER - WORK RELEASE." Stoffa then discussed it in a June Council meeting. Also, when Stoffa made his initial presentation to Bethlehem Township months in February, it was described as a "new work release/rehabilitation treatment center." It has ALWAYS been a work release center.

Ann, if you want to lie, do a better job. Don't say something that takes me under five minutes to prove completely false. McHale is hoping to attract a few NIMBY voters in Bethlehem Township, but will they support someone who is dishonest?

Shocked by McHale's cavalier dismissal of something he considers important, Stoffa told her "the jail is full right now." Imperious McHale responded, "The jail is always full in the summer."

Sixty-five cents of every county tax dollar is spent on the back end of crime, the warehousing of prisoners. That housing industry may be slow, but the prison biz is booming, baby! Lock 'em all up! In Northampton County alone, our new prison was over capacity less than a year after being built. In 2006, the US was housing a whopping 2.2 million people in jails. The land of the free has the highest incarceration rate in the world.

Treatment/work release centers like the one proposed by Stoffa are designed to reduce what he calls a 69% recidivism rate. The more we reduce that figure, the less we have to spend. So in the long run, Stoffa's proposal makes fiscal sense and has the approval of the court. McHale and Dertinger are more interested in grabbing a few Bethlehem Township voters than in actually reducing the number of people returning to Chez Northampton County.