In August '06, Upper Macungie Township Supervisor Tom Gorr sent shockwaves through the Lehigh Valley blogosphere when he suddenly resigned under a cloud of suspicion. It was rumored he was abusing township credit cards. A few months later, the state ethics commission ruled that, in addition to this playing with township plastic, Gorr failed to file the appropriate ethics statements. He was fined $4,000. Without authorization, he even charged the township for the cost of two laptops as well as some college classes.He's b-a-a-a-c-k.
Behind the scenes, he's attempting to steer Lehigh County in the wrong direction. Who knows? Maybe he could use a few county credit cards.
His Lehigh County protege, at least for a time, was Commissioner candidate Mark Prinzinger. Yeah, Mark is the dude who hates the nonpartisan stance that incumbent Percy Dougherty takes on most county issues. He'd like him to be more partisan and divisive, just like Northampton County Council.
Whoopee!
And now he has just the outfit he needs to run a sleaze campaign directed at Percy. Who might that be, pray tell? Why it's none other than Precision Marketing, which just happens to be owned by Scissorhands Severson, King of Sleazeball Politics. Amazing! Mark and his campaign manager are quite indignant about Julian Stolz' sloppy campaign finance reports. But they have absolutely no problem using a political consultant whose campaign antics are under a very real investigation by the state AG.
Gorr & Severson. Yeah, Prinzinger must really be interested in good government.
Don't believe me? Here's an excerpt from an email that Prinzinger himself sent to potential donor Bob Guzzardi on January 27.
"Lastly I have been in talks with Tom Gorr. He was Jim Lansceks campaign manager for the last primary race that Percy Dougherty was in 4 years ago. Tom has run a number of campaigns and has agreed to come on board with the Prinzinger camp. With that being said Tom has spoken highly of Precision Marketing out of Easton. They are the firm that help Jim Lanscek with his race and they produced some very high quality mailers as well as walking lit. I have set up a meeting with them next Tuesday at 10:30 am. I was wondering 2 things, 1 if you would be interested in coming to the meeting to see what they have to say about a plan and 2 how you feel about going down the road with a consulting firm instead of the original game plan we discussed at your office. I would also like you to meet Tom Gorr sometime. He seems to have a vast knowledge of campaigning as well as the make-up of the district."
The Prinzinger camp may deny any Gorr connection. But their decision to use Precision Marketing indicates they are listening to him, no matter what they say.
Sometimes irony has a way of being pretty damn ironic, eh?
