Lehigh Valley News has already hosted a debate between Allentown Mayor Matt Tuerk and his Democratic rival, City Council member Ed Zucal. Tuerk was obviously the more polished of the two, and I suspect that Zucal has already conceded his loss in the primary and is hoping to get enough write-in votes on the GOP side so he can take the race into November. While that might be a good strategy in some of the more purple municipalities, Allentown is by far the most Democratic-heavy jurisdiction in the Lehigh Valley. Zucal has already lost this race.
Fortunately, there will be more debates in the coming days:
April 28: Bethlehem Mayoral primary debate between incumbent Mayor Willie Reynolds and City Council member Grace Crampsie Smith.
April 30: NorCo Executive primary debate between Controller Tara Zrinski and Amy Cozze. The winner of this race will face Republican Tom Giovanni in November.
May 7: Lehigh County Exec primary debate between Mike Welsh and Roger MacLean. The winner of that race will square off against Democrat Josh Siegel in November.
If the past is any indication, what is going on nationally is going to have a huge impact on the general election.
The debates will be posted at Lehigh Valley News' Facebook page as well as PBS39 Youtube channel.
27 comments:
If you are not impressed with Tuerk, but don’t believe Zucal is the solution, I encourage Allentown residents to write in “none of the above.” If Tuerk wins with a record low number of votes it will communicate where we all stand. We’ll take him over Zucal but we are not blown away with the results this administration has delivered. There are none.
This is all fine and good but the decisions are with the the councils and boards. Those are the candidates the voters should learn about. The mayor or county executive is one person who has sway and will recommend direction, but needs approval from another elected group to get an agenda across. The (usually) five who make up the majority of a council or board are the elected officials who can raise your taxes, approve that warehouse, unwanted apartments, a Wawa, build (or in the case of Northampton SD, stop building after millions already spent) a new school, et al. Those are the people who you need to know about. They lurk in the darkness and they remain nameless and faceless except for occasional (and almost always deserved) bashing on this blog.
Until Quinn Allen and, of course, King Allentown are allowed to be involved none of these "debates" are valid.
Really? How many people remember that Tuerk barely squeaked into office in his first primary with about 26% support? I’d say few to none.
If you’re upset with Tuerk, send a message and vote him OUT. Do I think Zucal is that much better? Maybe not, but he’d certainly be an improvement.
At least Zucal would see the obvious problems that Tuerk is oblivious to.
We haven’t even gotten to Tuerk’s REALLY bad ideas, like closing off a lane of traffic on Hamilton Street downtown or jamming small homes into back yards.
If you want Allentown to become an urban slum, by all means vote Tuerk. If you want hope for something different, vote Zucal.
Matt EarsTuerk is as bad as wee willie Reynolds- both incompetent.
you think he cares? a win is a win
Wow Bernie, I normally don't comment here, but you seem overly confident in a Tuerk win. Whenever I speak to anyone from Allentown, 9 out 10 people do not like Matt Tuerk. They don't believe what he says. Matt is worried and should be. People really do not like him. Hispanics hate it when he speaks Spanish and acts like he is one of them. Do you really want higher taxes? The 100 million dollar bond the mayor wants to build a new police station and fire station station will surely raise taxes Atleast 5%-10%. The city hall employees would endure 4 more year of a toxic hostile work environment. Matt has ambitions to be a congressman one day. LMAO. Never going to have happen. Matt cares about Matt and Matt only.
With that strategy, risk having Zucal win.
I followed some posts on the Blog from Molovinsky and there are multiple efforts to have Republicans switch their voter registration status to Democrat so they can vote for DINO Zucal. The real democrats need to show up and vote Tuerk because as one of my republican friends even said, "you might not agree with every thing he has done, but he is a far better choice than Zucal."
Why not write in one of the other two candidates, King Allentown or Quinn Allen? Both are running as a write-in.
Team King Allentown for life. His slap shot is wicked amazing.
the best outcome for Allentown Council is ridding it of Zucal.His dislike for Tuerk and his limited ability to play out a scenario to see the whole picture is what led to the chaos with the racial allegations.
Great opportunity to vote out Natalie Santos who until she announced she was running has not physically attended the majority of events nor has spoken to share her thoughts since she follows Gerlach's lead. I would like to hear from Christian and Binder for 2 new perspectives and maintain the stability of Hendricks and Mota.
9:07 - I’m a democrat, and I couldn’t disagree more. Tuerk’s been a disaster for four years and has plans for things that are even worse than the damage he’s already done. Zucal’s hardly a DINO and has been a democrat longer than Tuerk has lived in the city. Zucal is the far better choice, whether you’re a democrat, republican or independent.
Matt came off very arrogant in the debate. Him kissing up to Shapiro is the definition of political ambitions. Funny that last year Matt said we can expect a double digit tax increase in 2025, but at the debate when Zucal brought it up, Matt acted like that was a preposterous idea.
What is Zucal’s vision? What is Matt’s vision while we are at it? In the absence of a vision from either we will get a little bit of stability if Tuerk is reelected.
You almost had me. Hendrix needs to go with his buddy Zucal both are embarrassments to City government.
Are you speaking to the 10 Pennsylvania Dutch people left in the city? I mean Zucal wants to make Allentown Pennsylvania Dutch and Irish again or maybe just white. His performance at the debate was a joke just like his time on City Council.
He does have quite the set of listeners lol.
I think you didn't understand what he meant by bringing back Dutch and Irish. He should have clarified better, but he meant the city was originally mostly made up by those two groups. And that everyone should be treated equally not just Latinos. Of course you would take that out of context and run with it.
I read all these comments which seem to favor more Zucal. I'm republican and I certainly won't be voting for Tuerk. Tuerk is a need and tries ways to hard to fit in. I have to admit I don't know what he has really accomplished. The parks are dumps unsafe. People still feel unsafe in downtown. The restaurants are leaving. Pawlowski did way more for the city than Tuerk could do in 8 years. What I like about Zucal is he honest and straightforward. He tells it like it is. Even if you like Chief Roca, which i don't and think he is highly under qualified you have to respect Zucals stance of, if I win Roca will be replaced. Tuerk has no stances except for wanting bike lanes. City needs change and Zucal is straightforward and no nonsense
Hermano Tuérk is known to have had a cuban Abuela, is it possible she was to some degree afro Latino because they had lots of slaves there for a long time. If so this would make camarada Tuérk a black LatinX person and could really broaden his already huge coalition.
Bernie comparing Pee Wee Tuerk to the real Pee Wee was great!
This mayor had 4 yrs to improve quality of life issues in city, guess what we haven’t improved one. The latest was garbage contract wow what disappointment, we get large increases for next 5 yrs. And that’s without raising taxes !!! This guy has no clue how to run a city !!
There's a reason Matt "ears" Tuerk got a vote of no confidence- he's incompetent- I hope the voters in Allentown finally wake up!
Test. Test.
6:11 - I’ve seen Tuerk’s ACTIONS. It seems to revolve around ignoring quality of life issues and not holding anyone accountable. That’s a path to failure. I’ll happily give Zucal four years to outperform him.
Saw Pee Wee playing ball on the news. He should challenge Pee Wee Willie for a battle of the ears Mayoral race.
A comment no one seized on the in the debate said by Matt Tuerk: "Crime is just a feeling."
I wonder how the person is "feeling" who got shot in broad daylight yesterday on Hamilton St.
I'm sure the mayor will have nothing to say, but couldn't wait to seize on a chance to say a stabbing reported at another east side venue was nothing more than a minor laceration. But yet the police referred this incident to the very nuisance abatement board the mayor said had too many hurdles to clear for all the other serious violent crime to meet the definition of "nuisance."
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