Bill Scheirer is one of Bethlehem's wise men (and women), a group that pre-Covid was at nearly every meeting conducted in Bethlehem. The people standing before the dais and in the peanut gallery are unusually thoughtful and intelligent, and over the years, have had a profound impact on the city's governance. Bill supports Dana Grubb for Mayor, and this is why:
"I support Dana Grubb for Mayor of Bethlehem, which is in danger of losing its special quality, because of developments that overwhelm neighborhoods by being too big and/or too tall. Mr. Grubb is more sensitive to this danger. He is not accepting campaign contributions from major developers. Dana was a member of a committee of citizens that crafted a 30-page ethics ordinance that was introduced into the city council by Councilmembers Negron and Colon. It was never acted on by the council, not even to pass certain parts. Mr. Grubb's opponent preferred two rather innocuous ordinances passed by council. One authorized training on the quite weak state ethics law. The other was a gift ban that didn't go much beyond existing law. Left untouched were all other considerations, such as campaign contributions, which can create an apparent conflict of interest. Unlike his opponent, Mr. Grubb has specific plans including reintroducing a comprehensive ethics ordinance to increase public confidence that elected officials are transparent and ethical. I have known Dana for 18 years. He is quite possibly the most ethical person I have ever met, and I am 83 years old."
30 comments:
He's right! Ev3n Lehigh Valley for all wrote a post chastising Reynolds for his immature hit piece on Dana. Still hard to believe that city candidate Kwiatek and county candidate Bruno have publicly endorsed Reynolds. They won't get my vote!
I question overzealous Zoning Board members who trot out the usual “We can’t accept this new build because it changes the character of the neighborhood, etc.” These same people have no problem tearing down structures completely (depending upon who’s asking). NOTHING changes the neighborhood character more than making part of it disappear completely!
Wild Bill is not exactly an unbiased resource on Bethlehem. This guy supported everyone that has run against Reynolds, including Tea Party Tom Carroll and his roommate.
I want to vote for Dana, but the City Hall altercation has made me wonder if he has the temperament to handle the stress of the job, as well as the ability to regain the respect of anyone who may still work for Bethlehem and was witness to the incident. On paper, Grubb is a far better choice than Reynolds, but I don’t want a mayor who may be a liability. Believe me, I don’t want Reynolds as my mayor, but I don’t want a hot-headed mayor, either.
"Wild Bill is not exactly an unbiased resource on Bethlehem. This guy supported everyone that has run against Reynolds, including Tea Party Tom Carroll and his roommate."'
Never said he was unbiased. I said he is wise. He supported Tom Carroll back when Tom used to be reasonable.
"I want to vote for Dana, but the City Hall altercation has made me wonder if he has the temperament to handle the stress of the job, as well as the ability to regain the respect of anyone who may still work for Bethlehem and was witness to the incident. "
You do realize that shoving match is decades old and that Grubb has the endorsement of numerous retired city workers who know him well?
Please don't ever use the word ethics and Negron in the same sentence. She solicited city residents to use the law firm she works for and that her boyfriend owns to try and get residents to sue the city!! Unreal!!
Not sure your anonymous claim is accurate. Negron is married to a MDJ, not the owner of that firm. I am unaware of any lawsuit that firm has filed against the city. What is your evidence? Do you have any?
No one ever came forward and no lawsuit was ever filed but she had it posted on her facebook account.
Dana Grubb haas the temperment to be our mayor. Those in the know realize that the entire altercation was a setup.. The gentleman who threw the punch that broke Dana's nose was under investigation for potential corruption. He also was related to a Department head who was a close confidant to the mayor. That is why both the attacker and
the victim were tarred with the same brush.
So no lawsuit was filed. She is married to an MDJ and not the head of that firm. You fail to provide her exhortation and do not ID yourself. You are either a liar or recklessly irresponsible. I do not like Olga, but no one should be attacked with lies
Tom Carroll was never reasonable. He was already a tea party board member when he ran for City Council. Those who supported him in 2011 were blind to or ignorant of his offensiveness. Hard to call yourself a Democrat if you supported him and his buddy.
Bernie, what did you make of the complete silence from Willie Reynolds -- our self-proclaimed champion of environmental protection and affordable housing and smart growth/pedestrianism -- not peeping a word at the City Council meeting last night when the Martin Tower developers were trying to get an zoning text amendment that would give them total freedom to do whatever they want with parking at the site? As the person who blew the whistle on Willie's behind the scenes dealings with these developers back in 2015, I'm surprised you are letting this pass by without comment. He claims to have stopped taking donations from developers, yet he is apparently still tied to them if he can't even speak up at a meeting about the obvious problems with the proposal put forward for the Martin Tower Property. Maybe he promised them or Donchez he'd keep his mouth shut? Crampsie Smith and Dr. Wirt did a good job challenging the proposed zoning amendment, but their fearless leader who cannot for a second shut his mouth in any other meeting, was all of a sudden completely silent. How puzzling!!!! It is of course, not so puzzling that the result of this meeting was to delay any actual decision on the amendment until after the election. Willie may not be working very hard for City Council right now, but it's troubling how their actions just happen to work out so well for him.
As well as many current city workers as well. Police. Fire. Etc.
Anonymous at 8:51 AM
Please do your homework before questioning Mr. Grubb's temperment. He has explained the incident here: https://thebethlehemgadfly.com/2021/04/30/reprinted-from-march-11-mayoral-candidate-grubb-explains-2004-incident/
Some reasons why you should be concerned with Reynolds' temperment are explained here: https://thebethlehemgadfly.com/2021/05/04/gadfly-mayoral-forum-8-negative-campaigning/
Mr. Reynolds’ has been purposefully misrepresenting a physical assault on a city employee in order to further his own political agenda. Dana Grubb was assaulted because he was standing up against corruption in our own city government. If Reynolds actually cared about ethics in government, he could have used this discussion to explain that he would never allow such corruption to bleed over into violence inside city hall. Instead he has decided to continue exploiting the situation by pretending that there is some pattern of behavior in Grubb's past to suggest this, when in fact all Reynolds has is a single incident that Reynolds is spreading misinformation about.
This behavior by Reynolds is once again demonstrating that his interest in ethics in government is shallow and performative. Clearly he does not have a genuine commitment to ally with those who do the right thing in a tough spot. Imagine for just a moment if Mr. Grubb were a woman. If a women suffered a physical injury as a consequence of reporting the unethical behavior of a co-worker, many people would now be criticizing Reynolds for failing to ally with a woman who was victimized in the workplace. Reynolds is able to continue with this line of misinformation about the event because Mr. Grubb is a man, and so no one is questioning the complete disregard it shows for people who suffer from violence and who are then blamed for that violence. That women continue to allow this mischaracterization of the event is appalling.
11:33, I attended a few of the earlier tea party meetings when they were primarily educational and had speakers each month. I do not remember Carroll being a member of their board at that time, though he was active. Although they were mostly conservative, I did enjoy some of those speakers. You need to listen to views that differ from yours instead of living inside a bubble. You are probably right that Carroll was always unreasonable, but he had me fooled for a time. I thought the vicious homophobic attack orchestrated by Willie on his running mate was quite ugly as well.
BR1--If you believe Dana's version of events, that you are as delusional as he is about his chances of winning.
Talk to someone who was there and witnessed it. Dana was the aggressor when confronted by Mr. Joseph. And there was no investigation into corruption. Mr. Joseph was not an innocent victim, as he did punch Dana, but was not on the take, as Dana stated.
And the Morning Call reporter is dead, so he cannot defend himself from Dana's false attacks.
"Dana Grubb was assaulted because he was standing up against corruption in our own city government"
Really? the first-hand account that was relayed to me was that Dana was physically threatening a female employee
I'm not gonna judge the guy based upon one incident. his body of work is impressive. but at the same time, let's not whitewash it into something it isn't
Anonymous at 3:28
If Grubb's chances are so slim, why is WR sending out mailers associating him with Trump and sitting on the fence when important issues come up at City Council meetings? Those are the actions of someone who looks pretty desperate, not someone whose got the election in the bag. At least people get to see how he behaves when things don't go his way. I think I'll trust the opinion of all the people Dana worked with in City Hall over many years as a testament to his ethics. They have absolutely nothing to gain from lying about him. As for the lack of an investigation, we can thank Callahan for making sure that didn't happen.
I heard first hand, Dana was colluding with the Russians!!!! Putin has something on him. And, only a rumor, he was involved with Ukraine. That's only a rumor.
Dana is a ginger. There is your problem!
Anonymous at 4:19
I wonder who your first hand knowledge is from and which female employee you think he threatened. Meanwhile, WR, much more recently had to be escorted by security guards away from a female BASD director after getting in an argument with her when she did not agree with him. Dana explained that little incident on the Gadfly blog too; if you need help figuring out who to ask about whether that's true, just get the person's name from Willie.
Which Mr. Joseph got into a confrontation with Mr. Grub? Are you implying Mr. Joseph was the aggressor and corrupt? 9
And what's wrong with being a tea party board member?
Anon 11:48,
Read this https://www.mcall.com/news/mc-xpm-2004-11-18-3571823-story.html
It will explain it all.
10:33 Bernie - What do you mean about Reynolds orchestrating a vicious homophobic attack? This raises a very serious question about whether someone should even be on City Council, let alone become Mayor!!
What happened with Reynolds? I didn't see that anywhere. Why did he have to be escorted away from a School Board member by a cop?
That article was helpful. I did not know all the facts. If Grubb started the fight by pushing Joseph then I put the blame on Grubb. No one has the right to touch another co-worker for any reason what so ever!
Your statement is more of a problem.
Democrats for Kachmar....it's time for a change!
No matter the party, it's time for change.
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