Lamont McClure Shows His Mean Streak

Lamont McClure and Ken Kraft have been telling everyone that their amendment to Northampton County's revolving door ordinance (see my story here) really has no application to county employees who serve on the boards of nonprofits like CACLV, which receive county funds. They deny it is an attempt to punish CACLV Executive Director Alan Jennings or the two County employees who serve on his board. They claim this ordinance only applies to entities that do business or provide paid services with the County.

But let me clue them in. CACLV does business with the County. It does provide paid services. Their attempt to pretend it has no application to nonprofits is completely contrary to the plain language of the ordinance as well as the Council discussion on Thursday night. Moreover, it is completely contrary to what McClure himself said to Jennings in an email exchange on Friday.

I filed a RTK request with Jennings, figuring he would ask McClure what was going on. Sure enough, he did.

Below is Jennings' email to McClure, followed by McClure's insincere reply, in which he demonstrates pretty clearly that he is punishing Jennings over the Marcus hire and is kicking around two County workers who look out for our money on his board while the Controller does union organizing.

Jennings to McClure:

Hi, Lamont –

I had no idea that Council was considering the ordinance it adopted last night regarding County employees’ service on boards of directors. I was away on vacation when the first reading occurred and never learned of the proposal until someone told me about the post on Bernie's blog this morning.

I didn't realize how much our hiring of Ross Marcus disturbed Council members. I sent President Cusick an apology but got no response.

The federal law that authorizes the existence of Community Action Agencies like ours requires us to include elected officials or their appointed representatives on our boards. In fact, at least one-third of our board must represent that public sector.

For more than 40 years, we have had designated seats for representatives of the two counties and the three cities. For 30 years we have also included representatives of the communities with the next highest poverty rates; that means the Slatington area, Fountain Hill, and the Slate Belt, particularly Bangor.

The concept behind the federal law is that anti-poverty work should grow out of collaborative discussion involving all sectors of the community, which means the public sector, the private sector and low-income people themselves. I believe that process has served this region very well. You know from your own experience, for example, that it was CACLV that stepped up to take on the foreclosure crisis. I hope you know that we have many, many other examples of CACLV agility in taking on new community challenges.

It would be very unfortunate if Northampton County removed itself from that process. For that reason I will be encouraging the County executive to veto the ordinance.

As an aside, I had no idea that you had such disdain for this agency or me. If there is anything I can do to heal that relationship I hope you will give me that opportunity.

Best –

Alan

McClure's Reply to Jennings:

Frank Flisser [Council Clerk] forwarded your email to me. It’s always unfortunate, when people personalize an issue. Indeed, while the genesis for this Ordinance was the Ross Marcus hiring, this issue has little, to nothing to do with CACLV, in my mind. I don’t have any personal disdain for you or your organization. As you correctly noted, I’ve worked successfully with your CACLV in the past to help folks threatened by foreclosure. As you may remember, I was the author of the Mortgage Foreclosure Diversion Program in Northampton County and I fought to get it passed. I will work with CACLV again when it is in the best interests of the people of Northampton County.

With respect to the substance of the issues you raise in your email, Northampton County law was violated when you hired Ross Marcus. That violation of the law will not be addressed in the short term as CACLV is essentially a sole source provider for certain of the human services that it provides to the County. I understood you to have said that you had no fear of the contracts being put out to bid as you would mostly likely be the only bidder or the lowest bidder. That tells me you understood what the law in Northampton County was, but due to your leverage, you chose to hire Mr. Marcus anyway.

As for the provision that was passed last night, it is your right to advocate for a veto. In many ways, after the issues Mr. Stoffa raised last night, and that you reiterated today in your email, I look forward to the opportunity to attempt to override the veto as I don’t believe the manner in which Mr. Marcus came to be employed at CACLV in violation of Northampton County law, has been adequately vetted. Heretofore, the role, in the hiring of Mr. Marcus, of the board members who are also employees of Northampton County, has not been thoroughly explored.

We have also recently just passed through a situation where the County Controller was forced to resign a teaching position at the Community College. I certainly think teaching the leaders of tomorrow at a community college is a public good. However, the classes were during the regular work day, and while the Controller did not violate any law, he wisely chose to give up the post. In the override fight, it would probably also be important to review how much time Northampton County employees spend on CACLV business during regular county working hours.

While this Ordinance, was not meant to be personalized, you and Mr. Stoffa have done so, which is very unfortunate. This Ordinance was inspired by your actions in breach of your contracts with the county, but what it is meant to do is prevent county employees from serving two competing interests. The intent of the law is to ensure that county employees have the taxpayers best interests in mind at all times. I also believe you are technically mistaken regarding one point. Elected officials are not impacted by this Ordinance. Therefore, the County Executive, any of the 9 members of County Council, the Controller or even the DA could sit on CACLV’s board. Therefore, Northampton County will not disengage from the process.

Should you wish to discuss this matter further, please do not hesitate to call.