Dec 7, 2015

Bill White's Pawlowski Column



Although Bill White's column is a template set on seasonal themes, such as Eating His Way Through Musikfest, he also now serves as the paper's de facto editorial writer. Recently, I observed that although the paper's love affair with the NIZ continues, the honeymoon with Ed Pawlowski seems to be over. On Sunday, Bill White interrupted his normal Christmas light column, and with profound regret, suggested that Ed Pawlowski should resign. Bill said that he refrained from writing an earlier column defending Ed, but that sentiment had, never the less, permeated several of his columns. White strove to disassociate himself from the naysayers, which he now labels as Pawlowski haters.

White's fundamental faulty thinking is contained in the last line; Ed Pawlowski helped get Allentown moving in the right direction. What White refuses to acknowledge is that Reillyville has nothing to do with Pawlowski, it just happened on his watch. Reillyville, although perfectly legal, is not the pure driven snow that White and The Morning Call have bestowed upon it. It is an aberration of the marketplace, for the private gain of just a few individuals. It is a result of a morally flexible state government, with a long tradition of corruption. It is promoted and justified by a newspaper impressed by new buildings of no merit, occupied by poached tenants. The NIZ creators, in their profound manipulative way, even included the Morning Call building in the zone, although it's across the street from the rest of the district.

5 comments:

  1. Mike,

    Put this on my Facebook page after reading the column;



    Message to Bill White, The term "Pawlowski Haters" was coined by Ed Pawlowski's administration to discredit and impugn his critics. Bill White uses the term in his column asking for the mayor to resign.
    "There are plenty of Pawlowski-haters out there. I haven't been one of them"
    Well Bill, if you had bothered to pay any attention to Allentown these past ten years then you would have noticed the apparent corruption, the spreading blight, and annually rising poverty in the city.

    If you had used your position as a commentator in the local press and written about any of this, then you too would have been labelled a Pawlowski Hater." You could have been one of the few who bothered/dared to speak out against these same troubling concerns.
    But you didn't and you weren't.

    Scott Armstrong

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  2. Too little, too late...

    Alfonso Todd

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  3. The Pawloski Tide is turning.

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  4. anon@11:05, as i wrote in the post, this is as close to an editorial as the morning call now produces. although activists have been asking for pawlowski's resignation, and also asking for city council to do the same, the requests now will only increase, both in frequency and influence. at some point it will become apparent that his refusal to resign has nothing to do with the city's best interest.

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  5. I get the feeling White's column is more of a suggested template for Pawlowski to consider when drafting his resignation speech. Unlike fearless bloggers, White must succumb to the whims of an editor. I very much suspect the Call itself has finally realized it must distance itself from Pawlowski if it is to maintain any semblance of credibility. White is merely a well recognized errand boy.

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