When I asked Peter what he meant, he told me he was heading off rumors that he tried to get a stack of parking tickets fixed when he was first elected to City Council. He said the information on his website clearly shows that he only had a few tickets when he was first elected and paid them himself.
I checked what Peter told me with Easton Police Chief Carl Scalzo, "I'm not going to lie to you or anybody," said the Chief. He told me that Melan approached him with a stack of 7 or 8 parking tickets after he was first elected and wanted them "fixed". They were tickets issued to his constituent, not Melan himself. Scalzo told Melan, "I don't do that, we don't do that." He explained that there's an appeals process to challenge tickets that are improperly issued.
Melan suggested that Panto fixes tickets for his friends, but Scalzo told Peter that Panto fixes those tickets by paying them out of his own pocket. "Panto actually pays a lot pf tickets," Scalzo told me.
When I spoke again with Melan, he denied that he ever asked anyone to fix 7 or 8 parking tickets for his friends. "I don't even have 8 friends!" he said.
Melan added that he just paid $125 for a total stranger who parked in a handicapped spot and forgot to display his placard or plug the meter.
Had he displayed his placard, Nowroski's code might have seized it as an illegal sign.
Scalzo could have taken the high road, declined to comment and not involve himself in this but alas, he didn’t. Could it just be that he’s upset that the police union is backing Councilman Melan in his bid for mayor?
ReplyDeleteMelan is smart. Reaching out to O'Hare and treating you like a legitimate news source is politically smart. He may one day attain full mancrush status if he kisses up enough.
ReplyDelete"Scalzo could have taken the high road, declined to comment and not involve himself in this but alas, he didn’t. Could it just be that he’s upset that the police union is backing Councilman Melan in his bid for mayor?"
ReplyDeleteActually, this is on Peter for bringing the whole thing up to begin with
I don’t believe Panto paid for any parking tickets, he’s too cheap.
ReplyDeleteAt least Melan is finally telling the truth when he says he doesn’t even have 8 friends.
ReplyDeleteI wish the terminology of fixing parking tickets would be removed from discourse throughout the Valley there is no such nefarious apparatus. You either pay it at the various Parking Authorities, or you are forced to appeal it after a citation/ summons is filed at the Magistrate in that district who handles the case. It gets there by a defense design, or by ignoring the ticket inadvertently. You then have a hearing with a representative of the authority who works out a plea typically to some, or all the citations if there are numerous ones. The word “fix”, connotes corruption and is ignorant of all negotiated resolutions in the legal system.
ReplyDeleteI love seeing Melan post of a picture of Sal and Pawlowski on Facebook (and getting called out by Jim Hickey) while outright yelling corruption, and at the same time calling in political favors.
ReplyDeleteGreat job Peter 😂
"I wish the terminology of fixing parking tickets would be removed from discourse throughout the Valley there is no such nefarious apparatus. "
ReplyDeleteYou are incorrect. While it is impossible to "fix" a ticket in the LV's cities, it is still quite possible in other municipalities in both counties.
Melan is his own worst enemy.
ReplyDeleteHe is just not a good person. This loss to Sal will be his third I loss, hopefully he will go away
ReplyDeleteThe subject matter of this blog was the Easton Parking Authority and Mr Melan. That is the procedure I referred to. Where Parking Authorities do not exist in “other Municipalities ” where you believe fixing occurs, the tickets are issued by police and still are resolved at the Magistrate’s Court in that jurisdictional When you throw around terms like “fixing”, you create a connotation of corruption. Also pertaining to the issue you raised here, if Melan paid for someone else’s tickets how is that fixing. I think you would be better serving your blog reader by going back to the now dormant discussion of Northampton County’s DAs race instead of the inanity of this posting.
ReplyDeleteBernieOHare to 3:05, as I said, you are incorrect. Ticket fixing definitely does occur in municipalities outside of the cities, and not just for parking violations. I know this because I have seen it. There definitely is corruption. And it’s a lot easier now that there are so few watchdogs.
ReplyDeleteIt’s just coincidence that, in 2015, in Forty Fort, PA, the current code officer and team was under investigation for alleged political favoritism, and just a coincidence that the same code officer left before the results of the investigation were finalized, after promising full release of findings,and just a coincidence that the sign removals in Easton , that had never been enforced, suddenly were done during this year’s campaign. So many coincidences, so many unanswered questions.
ReplyDelete@ 7:01
ReplyDeleteThat is very interesting information. It is rumored that Norowski would be Melan's city administrator.