Julio Guridy is the only sitting member of City Council who actually voted for the police pension plan, which is now supposedly crippling the city. He now is advocating for the mayor's 50 year water lease plan. Before starting their referendum petition drive, Dan Poresky, founder of Dan's Camera City, and other members of the citizen committee, offered to work with council and find alternatives to the lease plan. That offer is still on the table. Guridy rejected their help,
because residents of the city would not have as much inside knowledge about the city's financial problems as members of council do. He told Colin McEvoy of the Easton Express Times; "Throwing this issue out to the public would be a big mistake..That's why we're here. We know the ins and the outs. We're more aware of the issues because we're working on it every day." Needless to say, the taxpayers would be much better off with Poresky's business acumen, than Guridy's political considerations. Pawlowski, and his wannabe, Guridy, are working against the referendum, claiming representative democracy knows best. I suppose that depends on who your representatives are. Clearly, some members of this council are not up to a decision that affects rate payers for fifty years. Looking back at the police pension, I'll take Poresky and the referendum any day.
MM
ReplyDeleteCan you help me grasp how Atown got in this position regarding the pensions in the first place?
Do you have information about when the police contract was put in place and the circumstances surrounding it? Was it forced into passing or else a complete police strike? How did we get here?
as a candidate in 2005, ed pawlowski went around with a power point presentation, explaining how he would deal and plan for the pensions given away by afflerbach. pawlowski also encouraged city council to drop a lawsuit against the contract, saying that concessions made by the police union were sufficient. at no time was there ever a threatened strike.
ReplyDeleteMs Mota knows the "in and outs" of finance better than Poresky ???
ReplyDeleteReally ? With a straight face, really. ????
MM -
ReplyDeleteI'd like to add to your 9:24 response with my own recollection.
It was candidate Pawlowski who co-opted Bill Heydt's pledge to overturn the police pension contract in court. Shortly into the suit and after he had won the election, however, Pawlowski hastily settled.
At the time, Pawlowski said that settlement would solve the pension problem. That was obviously one of many Pawlowsi's lies on the subject.
I think it's important to note that Pawlowski received a large amount of union support (not just the police union) in that first campaign. That union support (financial and other) continues to this day.
I think that it's more than fair to question who Pawlowski really represents. I don't think it's the taxpayer.
Also, thank you for calling into question Julio's judgement. He obviously failed when he approved the original contract, when council also had "all the facts".
i have removed a comment which another reader found insensitive. it was at any rate irrelevant to the topic
ReplyDeleteThe real fact is that Council NEVER approved that FOP Contract. First, Council fought the contract approved by an arbitrator (not council) and the court of common pleas in LC ruled that council had "no standing" to suit. Council was lied to by FOP pres. French, and given erroneous information by the Mayor Afflerbach as to how much money the city was going to save by dropping the law suit and how many police officers were going to retire. Regardless of Mr. Molovisnky's twists of the facts, that is what happened. Readers should question Mr. Molovinsky's real motives for trying to blame me for all this. As you may know, there were 5 other council members who voted as I did and he only mentioned me, like I had all the power in council to vote for dropping the law suit by myself. This is preposterous. He reminds me of D. Trump. It appears that Mr. M. makes a lot of nonfactual accusations.
ReplyDeletejulio, please understand that your comment of today is made three and one half years after i made the post. i doubt that anybody will see these comments at this time. i understand that you find some current posts unflattering toward you, but i assure you i carry no ill will, or any ulterior motive. this post of oct. 2013 was essentially about the water lease, even if i could have been more concise about the police contract in 2005. you are welcome to comment any concerns to a current post, even though they may be of a different topic.
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