I read today that City Council will be sending a letter to the U.S. Attorney to ask them to expedite the prosecution of Mayor Ed Pawlowski.
I think the danger is to continually focus on Ed's crimes, and the prosecution thereof, and miss the bigger issue as it relates to the City of Allentown. Ed Pawlowski has colossally mismanaged this city. In any other business he would have been fired by now. One need only look back at the past couple of weeks....
We learned that yet another change order was submitted for the cedar beach pool. Ed has now spent $3,400,000 of tax payers' dollars and 3 years repairing one pool and it still isn't finished or open! That is 4% of Allentown's entire annual budget...on one pool. To be clear, that is to repair one pool, not even to build it. Perhaps more disturbing is that 4 out of 5 pools owned by the City of Allentown are closed, so we may be in for millions more when the other pools are to be repaired.
I have reviewed the scope of work involved with this project. As a developer, I can say, without equivocation, that I would have completed this job for under $500,000 and reopened it in a matter of months. As any decent businessperson knows, all that was needed was an iron clad contract and good supervision to ensure that the work was completed on time and on budget. And no one would have been paid unless those 2 things were accomplished.
This was absolute and blatant mismanagement. If anyone worked for me and handled a job in the same manner that Ed has, they would be fired. If anyone worked for any company and handled a job the way Ed has, they would be fired.
Another relatively routine problem arose last week when some kids were making noise on a basketball court and angered the neighbors. Surely a Mayor can handle a problem like this with efficiency. Not our Mayor. He reacted impetuously and bungled this simple problem to the extent that it became enormously contentious, requiring a town-hall meeting.
I would suggest that we put aside the fact that 5 people in Ed's administration pled guilty to felonies and will testify against him and that Ed's own attorney said one would be "foolish" to think that he will not be indicted. Forget that the FBI has Ed on tape offering public services for money and that he was sweeping his office and patting people down for listening devices. And disregard the fact that City operations are at a standstill because he doesn't speak with City Council and the police and fire departments have utter disdain for him.
Let's forget all of those things, and focus on one simple issue....Ed should be fired from his position for absolute mismanagement of our city.
