The Case Against NorCo Exec John Brown

Tomorrow, you decide whether to keep Northampton County Executive John Brown in office for four more years or replace him with Lamont McClure. Brown needs to go.

On his webpage, McClure lays out what essentially is an indictment of Brown as corrupt, crony-filled and callous. He backs it up, too, with numerous examples of each these three Cs. Yes, Brown really did use your money to hire a PR consultant. He really did appoint an Administrator with no education, no experience and who was shackled by tax liens and a foreclosure. He endangered his own workforce by refusing to fill vacancies at the jail, resulting in mandatory overtime. He blew $72,000 of your money on a jail study that he could have obtained at no cost to taxpayers. After getting this report, he refuses to disclose the sites that had been considered. He wasted your money without talking to the major stakeholders, i.e. the judges and the DA. He posted armed guards outside his office during a news conference to keep Council members out. He spent his third year in office running for state auditor general, while collecting a salary. He tried to balance his first budget with an illegal $20 million line of credit. He appointed a voice over artist as his Director of Community and Economic Development. He still refuses to do anything about a toxic Human Resourced Director. In fact, he accepted a contribution from her husband. He referred to the county workers as "entitled spoiled brat government employees who need to get with the program." He misrepresented himself as some sort of rescuer of failed businesses. The truth is that he was a middle level business manager who was fired from two jobs and laid off at a third.

When he was elected four years ago, I really wanted to give him a chance. So did John Stoffa, his predecessor. Stoffa went out of his way to make things easy for Brown. Stoffa even provided an office to Brown, and wanted the transition to be as smooth as possible.

Brown thanked Stoffa in his very first news conference by attacking him.

The late Elmer Gates, who really was a captain of industry, said that Brown "violated the first rule of leadership: 'Don’t criticize your predecessor to try to make yourself look good.' It diminishes your stature as a leader!"

Gates is right, but Brown has never been a leader. Rather than relying on his workforce for ideas that could save money, he leaned on consultants with no institutional knowledge. He ignored the county's many centurions because he knew better.

The day he demeaned John Stoffa is the day he lost me. That man has the most integrity of anyone I ever saw in office.

Vote McClure!