Bethlehem City Council races are almost always decided in the primary, when Democrats decide on their nominees. Republicans offer either no or only token resistance from perennial challengers like Esther Lee, who's been defeated 8 times, or John Cornish, whose political career consists of 13 losses. In fact, Cornish once joked his only hope of winning would be if one of the Democrats died. But all that will change this year, when Republicans offer a full slate of candidates for the three Council seats up for grabs.Al Bernotas, Tom Carroll and Tony Simao are already regulars at City Council meetings, and would like to see what the view looks like from the other side of the dais. Two of these candidates, Carroll and Simao, are also members of the LV Tea Party. All three are running on a platform that will demand fiscal responsibility and accountability from an administration that has run up deficits of $8 million over the past two years.
Al Bernotas, a retired marketer who still works as an emergency substitute teacher, is a vocal opponent of the Elias Farmers Market expansion, and has immersed himself in planning and zoning issues.
Tom Carroll, a former prosecutor in Montgomery and Northampton County, is nephew to Jean Belinski, a current member of Council. He has an active practice spanning eight counties, but has been attending meetings for years.
Tony Simao, a client advocate in the health insurance industry, already films and publishes every Council meeting on Youtube. He wants to end what he calls a "steady cycle" of "spend, tax and borrow."
Registration statements in the elections office list Bob Pfenning, another regular at City Council meetings, as their campaign treasurer.
City Council President Bob Donchez and Councilmember J. William Reynolds, both Democrats, are expected to seek re-election. They'll be joined by Mike Recchiuti, a local lawyer making his second run for Council.
Gordon B Mowrer, a Council veteran and former Mayor, has already announced he is retiring and will not seek re-election.
(Photo: Tony Simao in front of the South Mountain Lookout)
Republican bagger candidates wearing American Flag ties, how original. Well if I am a real patriot I better vote for them.
ReplyDeleteJohn Q. Publius
Back in the last 80's and early 90's Republicans were able to get elected to the Bethlehem City Council. Otto Ehrsam and Tom Mohr each served at least two terms.
ReplyDeleteVary poor choice in Al Bernatos.
ReplyDeleteThe word is spelled, "very," and the last name is spelled, "Bernotas."
ReplyDeleteI think the City of Bethlehem needs more minority representation on City Council. Too many retired teachers and old Caucasians.
ReplyDeletetoss out the rubber stamp teachers and get some business people in there. after all the city is a business, not a playground for wannabees
ReplyDeleteI believe Portuguese people could be considered a minority group.
ReplyDeleteI will not vote for him based on the tie. Does Lee Greenwood play when you touch the eagle? Did he really think if he wore a tie like that it would make people think he is a patriot? I can't take someone who wears such a patronizing tie seriously.
ReplyDeleteNot my most profound comment I know but please if you want people to treat you like an adult dress like one.
Donald, that has to be the most amazing single-issue voter explanation I've ever heard. I might suggest that the single issue that bothers you most is that Tony is a tea party Republican
ReplyDeleteNo Bernie, stop being such a robot. You claim to be intelligent and knowledgeable, try to act as such.
ReplyDeleteDonald, is like many other people tired of the nonsensical "patriot games" that these types play.
I guess if you wear an American flag derived tie, a flag lapel pin, and a pair of American Flag boxers, you must really be a "real" American. All this is kind of funny because in the late 60's and early 70's kids would wear this stuff and get arrested for desecrating the flag by making clothing items out if it. Too bad they didn't wait to become teabaggers, then they would not be desiccators but real patriots.
The sad fact is that so many of these dittoheads think if you take some 1776 quotations out of context and wave flags with snakes on them, out of contest again, scream slogans that meant something when Americans couldn't vote for their British leaders but really are non-sequitur in today's America, that somehow all of that represents the "real America"
No Bernie, Donald has a keen eye and a keen mind. That is one of the best reasons I can think of to disqualify a candidate. If someone is so pandering as to think I believe they have a special relationship with America because of a cheap tie, pin, nonsensical slogan, etc.. that candidate is immediately off the list of serious candidates. Come back when you grow up.
Or when you figure out that Glenn Beck was a failed radio shock jock and Rush Limbaugh was a failed sports promoter/ broadcaster. Of course like the saying goes, there is a sucker born everyday. So these failed individuals are now multi-millionaires.
You vote for the boys with the ties. I had fun with fraternity nonsense once, then I grew up.
The Third Eye!
All this bile over a patriotically themed tie. I guess draping yourself in a flag, the way most pols do, is perfectly acceptable.
ReplyDeleteLet's be honest. His tie does not bother you, but his ideology scares you.
Naw, its the tie.
ReplyDeletePersonally I don't think it's the best tie in the world, but after reading about him on his website I noticed that he is a former Marine. This is why I consider him a patriot, flag tie or not.
ReplyDeleteIt's obvious that all the detractors on here are in total fear of these candidates because instead of the issues they're talking about a tie. I could care less what type of tie the man is wearing. I want to know what he plans on doing to solve the serious issues that face the city. I want to see some competition when we choose local government instead of having the election constantly decided at the primary by a single party.
In the past there have been a number of comments on this very blog about how voters wish they had more of a choice. Now that a choice is given to them they focus on what someone is wearing. I guess J. Willie Reynolds wearing a vest with his suit like some sort of a sears catalog special should make me think twice about him. Or maybe Mr. Mowrer's Bermuda shorts which he once wore to a meeting should in turn make him a horrible leader.
ReplyDeleteIf anyone needs to grow up and stop acting like little high school girls it's the people acting like the fashion police.
I will not vote for him based on the tie. Does Lee Greenwood play when you touch the eagle? Did he really think if he wore a tie like that it would make people think he is a patriot? I can't take someone who wears such a patronizing tie seriously.
ReplyDeleteNot my most profound comment I know but please if you want people to treat you like an adult dress like one.
Sure Donald, but you'll vote for someone who got caught schtooping the waitress at the Apollo Restaurant. Then again, he also gives you big bear hugs after loosing what everyone in the local echo chamber swore up and down was a "sure win".
At first I thought you were just a sore looser, now I see that you are nothing more than partisan.
To proclaim that you're not going vote for someone because of a tie is about as intelligent of a statement as those who believe that because a person is homosexual they have to be HIV+. Both are idiotic statements and everyone can see right through them!
The Third Eye!
ReplyDelete2:41 AM
The protest of the Colonies against usurpation of the rights of citizens, the Declaration of Independence, the Revolutionary War, the writing and adoption of the Constitution of the United States. The philosophy of government, as set up under our Constitution, finds its keynote in individualism as opposed to that misguided philosophy of collectivism, which makes the State paramount in its demands over the unalienable rights of its individual citizens. Incomprehensible as it may seem, the political problems of America and of the world at large are embodied in this question of individualism as opposed to collectivism as the philosophy of government for the future development of the welfare state.
A study of the history of the United States, particularly during the past 135 years, reveals a condition that to every thinking man and woman is fraught with grave danger to the continuation and maintenance of our constitutional form of government and the blessings of liberty. We must be prepared to recognize this situation and find the solution of the problem.
"The question was never the immediate amount of taxation that the British were asking of the colonists. The question was whether the British had the right to do it at all. We're talking about people [the American colonists] with enormous sensitivity to the dangers of power. If you conceded the right to Parliament to tax and if there was no check on it, no limit, it could go on indefinitely. You could be bled white. The power to tax was the power to destroy."
Sam Adams
In these sentiments, Sir, I agree to this Constitution, with all its faults, — if they are such; because I think a general Government necessary for us, and there is no form of government but what may be a blessing to the people, if well administered; and I believe, farther, that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and [but it] can only end in despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government, [they] being incapable of any other. – Benjamin Franklin speaking to the Constitutional Convention (June 28, 1787)
"We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debts as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessities and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements,...our people...must come to labor sixteen hours in the twenty-four, give the earnings of fifteen of these to government,...and have no time to think, no means to call the mismanagers to account; but to be glad to obtain sustenance by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow sufferers...And this is the tendency of all human governments; a departure from principle in one instance becomes a precedent for a second, that second for a third, and so on 'till the bulk of society has been reduced to be mere automations of misery...And the forehorse of this frightful team is public debt; Taxation follows that and, in its train, wretchedness and oppression."
- Thomas Jefferson (1823)
GOV'T. DEBT=TAXES=INVOLUNTARY SERVITUDE TO THE GOV"T
"You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the struggle for independence."
A. Beard, American Historian, 1874-1948
"Individualism is a concept which the advocates of most political systems try desperately to avoid. They'd prefer that political contests, debates and symposia were limited to answering loaded questions such as, 'WHICH type of powerful government should we have?', 'WHICH type of dictatorship do you tend to prefer?", 'WHAT KINDS of intrusiveness should government engage in?' and, 'WHICH type of control freaks are best suited to run your life for you?' ... They often get upset, even hysterical, if you point out that socialism, fascism, communism and mixed-economy welfare-states have a lot in common. They carry on and on as if non-essentials such as style(!) or WHAT anybody sacrifices individual rights in the name of (the master race, the proletariat, the society, the common good, the majority, the country, the fatherland, the motherland the brother-in-law-land, the revered leader or savior or god or whatever) is a big freakin' deal, especially as only in their particular fantasies do they imagine everyone, the enforcers and even their victims, acting forever polite and cooperative in the sacrifice-extracting rituals (as have many fledgling and would-be dictators, including the incredibly bloody Pol Pot at first)." -- Rick Gaber
ReplyDeleteGoodness you guys are nerds.
ReplyDeleteFor someone who seems to be so concerned with misappropriation of city funding, Al Bernotas was able to manipulate city council, and drag them into a long expensive battle, that was not a necessity for the city of Bethlehem, against a local business to settle his own vendetta. The funds used to fuel his own agenda could have been better spent on local parks and recreation. Funny how Bernotas’ principals and values change to suit his goals.
ReplyDelete