Racine Invites, Then Disinvites Fed Ed

On February 17, Allentown Mayor Edwin "Fed Ed" Pawlowski's publicly paid propagandist issued a news release proudly announcing that ha had been invited to Racine, Wisconsin. That city is considering building its own arena and hotel, and Fed Ed was going to share his pearls of wisdom. Thanks to their local newspaper, the Journal Times, he's been disinvited as fast as a judge's tipstaff can say, "All rise."

That newspaper did what some newspapers still do. It checked and learned that not only is Fed Ed himself under investigation for political corruption but six people around him have already enter guilty pleas to little things like bribery, lying to the FBI and bid-rigging. Three of those involved were city employees. One was his former campaign manager, who was also a business "consultant" to those who wanted to do business in Allentown.

“When you talk about a person who’s credible, in his case, he’s incredible,” Hendricks told the Journal Times. “He’s one of the least transparent, open and honest politicians I’ve ever met.”

“The investigation has been going on for almost two years and there’s been no charges filed against me,” Fed Ed told the Wisconsin paper. “I’m running for my fourth term as mayor and we’re getting good response.”

After that story broke, Racine Mayor John Dickert pulled the plug on Pawlowski's trip. “It was very disheartening how quickly the purpose of (Mayor Pawlowski's) visit and presentation turned into political mudslinging," he said in a dig at what he called the "hometown" paper. The integrity and economic benefit of this project is too important to allow it to be politicized.”

Rickert obviously failed to look into Fed Ed before inviting him. Given this lack of due diligence on his part, I question what effort he's really put into an arena project.

And that'snot political.