Apr 11, 2016

Julio Guridy On Julio

First, I congratulate Mr. Molovinsky for maintaining his blog. I would had preferred that he would had contacted me to get the true and correct story of what he wrote about me. However, I will try to set the records straight and address some of Mr. Molovinsky's pedantic, condescending and accusatory statements. Here are the facts: In the 14 plus years I have been serving the public in Allentown City Council, I have been chosen by my colleagues in council as their president for 3 years, and vice president for 5 years (4 years in early 2000s and in 2015). In 2009, I was again nominated by the late Councilman Michael Donovan (may he RIP) and seconded for VP of Council and I declined it as a good gesture to give the position to newly appointed Tony Phillips, the first African American councilman who unsuccessfully ran for mayor as the Republican candidate against Mayor Pawlowsky.

Mr. Molovinsky, please know that before being appointed by Gov. Rendell to the DRJTBC position as director of Compact Authorized Investment (now I am Director of Contract Compliance), I was Vice President of Bank of America. I started banking as a Management Trainee for First Valley Bank and rose to become Assistant Branch Manager to an Assistant Vice President and from there to Vice President and worked in the Community and Economic Development Department in Summit Bank, Fleet Bank and Bank of America. I worked in the banking industry for over 11 years. Simultaneously, I opened a Travel Agency with my wife which we had for 13 years and employed 3 full-time and 4 part-timers people. During the same time, in 2001, I ran for City Council and with the support of the great voters of Allentown (Republicans, Democrats and Independents) I won and have been reelected ever since.
 I am always mindful that God has blessed me as I came to the this beautiful country at the age of 15 years old not speaking a word in English and have been fortunate enough to be elected as a councilman to serve ALL people. In my tenure in council, I have sponsored and supported hundreds of legislations to make Allentown a better place for ALL.
 Mr. Molovisky, I am sure you can remember that since the early 1980s decades there were hardly any new economic development projects in Allentown coupled with an immense amount of corporate flights from the city as well a significant number of homeowners moving out of Allentown to the suburbs. As you can see, now there has been over 1 billion dollars of investment in the city and a great number of middle class and upper class coming back, as well as millenniums buying and renting properties in Allentown. I don’t think you would deny that thousands of people are coming to Allentown’s restaurants, stores, and entertainments at the PPL Center, AAM, AOWM, and others venues! For more information please go to www.allentownpa.gov. Yes, I understand that we still have a lot to do and we are trying to make the city a better place for all citizens. I know there are a lot more good people in our city than bad ones. Hence, many of us will continue volunteering our time to make our city a better place to live for all of us.
 Lastly, please speak with me and I will gladly share with you what we do at the DRJTBC. I wish you the best and hope that we can productively work together for the benefit of our citizens. I know that some tend to feebly fall into the abysmal of negative criticism of those whom they don’t like or agree with, but it is a lot more fruitful if we all work together for the benefit of our city, state, country and the world, regardless of the populists demagogue harangued by a few. I believe that we the people who truly care will continue working to make our city a better place for all. God bless you, and God bless our city.

The above was submitted as a comment by Mr. Guridy to the post, Julio Guridy's Confession.  Because the post goes back to January 22, 2016, I know that very few people saw Julio's reply, submitted on March 18th.    Julio writes that he would had preferred that he would had contacted me to get the true and correct story of what he wrote about me.  This is something that I tend not to do, I prefer not to be spun. On the other hand, I have known Julio since he was elected the first time,  and have observed him at countless council meetings.  I bill this blog as informed commentary, and that certainly pertains in the case with Julio.  I will not analyze Julio's comment line by line, but do take exception with his statement about a great number of middle class and upper class coming back.  I think that the actual public return on a $billion dollars has been very small.  We couldn't afford too many programs like this one.  I'm glad to host Julio's reply,  and will always do so for anybody mentioned in a blog post.

15 comments:

  1. Clearly Mr Guridly is a political hack or an extremely gullible.

    To believe that the billion dollars of tax money redirected into Hamilton Street has reversed the decline of the city puts him into one of those two categories.

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  2. dave@6:19, if one uses the link i provided to my january post, they will notice that julio doesn't address that post's premise, that he always voted yes for every pawlowski bill.

    julio's career has been unique. first he was hired by the banks as a hispanic face for allentown, then put on to one of harrisburg's notorious commissions, which do no work, with the thought that he was the upcoming voice of allentown. he has been paid well and has conformed well for the democratic party, although he never got beyond city council.

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  3. MM,
    Mr greedy was counsils king court jester when I presented the infamous whole house water filter in counsil chambers? The filter looked like it was load with fecal matter not to mention the undetecable substances now apperant that were brought to counsils attention at the time?

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  4. So Julio got the gig just by coincidence? No one in the private sector was better for the job? Of course Julio is a good man, and he truly has been blessed. The question remains by who.

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  5. scott@7:56, it was my understanding that angel cruz, rep from philadelphia, pushed for him with rendell. julio's no show, no work position was to overseer the professional municipal bond managers for the joint bridge commission. the position is a contradiction in itself, why would professional managers need to be managed by someone with no experience or background in bonds?

    these commissions and their plum jobs represent some of the worse corruption aspects of harrisburg. sometimes i feel that i should apologize to the taxpayers for not following through with my outsider republican thought of running for the 183rd. as it turned out, dean browning, glen eckhart and the LC Reps. bet on the wrong horse. both R's are from northampton county.

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  6. It should be noted that Mr Guridy's online Linkedin resume shows he was a sociology major at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. It does not indicate any training in finance or banking or politica science before he began his banking career or his later political career

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  7. I still can't believe that anyone that was in a decision making capacity concerning the Allentown police pension debacle is still actively serving on our council.

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  8. I am just glad to see that the rubber stamp apparatchik Guridy can spell Mayor Pawlowski's name correctly. Oh wait, my mistake. Well I'm just glad for Guridy, anyway.

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  9. Try as I might to dislike him and his alliances. I actually like Julio, I do think his intentions are very good. I also think he got sucked into the machine and used... he's now trying to recover what can be left of his political career in the wake of Pawlowski's demise. I commend him for writing this response. He's right... constant antagnoistic behavior doesn't actually net any gains. At the same time making sure we aren't looking at the growth and development in Allentown with Rose Colored glasses is ALSO imperative... noone is flocking to the city... yes we've made progress, but new businesses are shuttering regularly because the customer base of middle/upper class isn't here to support them (Pop-Mart, American Hairlines, Shula, Tony Lukes and a slew of others that aren't even you the radar yet).
    ~Gina Blevins

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  10. gina@8:26, i rather like him also. robert trotner took exception to this post, and the one about the tenant association. my reply to him on facebook

    Robert, allow me to address this comment and a previous one about the tenant association. although, you have been a student of allentown government for a few years, please understand that i have been attending class for over 35 years. i view julio over 15 years in office, and the real estate/rental situation over 45 years. admittedly, my critiques are harsh, but then again, there is too little scrutiny in allentown.

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  11. Ah yes, "good intentions" --- the Pawlowski Palace of Sport was built on top of about $ 177.1 million dollars of "good intentions", if my memory serves me correctly (and it does).

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  12. ironpigpen@8:45, i wish your memory served you better, then you would know that you have written that the pawlowski palace of sport cost $177.1 million hundreds of times on this blog. this is the last time that phrase will remain in a post comment.

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  13. What is there to like about men who colluded to over charge Allentown citizens to burn their trash for over $100 per ton?

    We are just waiting for the FBI to let us know what they found with the failed Delta Thermo Energy scam led by Marcel Groen.

    Disgusting. Corrupt to the core.

    Don't fool yourselves.

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  14. You missed the whole point about good intentions, didn't you, Molovinsky?

    Yes, you did.

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  15. By the way, Mr. MM. what I said was that it was the first time I voted against Pawlowsky's budget, that does not mean it was the first time I voted against anything he presented or proposed. You like to distort the facts. I have voted against a lot of things the 2 mayors I served with have presented. You have to learn how the budget process works. First, the mayor presents the budget to council and we are able to make amendments to it and then vote. By the City Home Rule Charter, if we fail to adopt a budget by December 15th, the mayor's original balanced budget will automatically become the City's official budget for the following year.

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