The Pension Surprise

When Ed Pawlowski ran for Mayor in 2005, he bored listeners with a long power point presentation, showing that Allentown would be hit with a huge pension shortfall. He had a plan, and would make all necessary adjustments to avoid the calamity. Here we are in 2012, and the sky is falling; Sell the water and layoff the firemen! He brags that there has not been a tax increase under his administrations; There should have been. There should have been both cutbacks in redundant supervisory personnel, and measured increases in taxes. In fairness to Pawlowski, other mayors also buried their head in the sand in the same manner, but I never had to suffer through their power points. Also in fairness, the market crash of 2008 contributed to the shortfall, but that was four years ago. What happen to that supposed steering skill to avoid the calamity? The administration now claims that those calamities are opportunities. He dragged a former mayor from New Jersey to Allentown to explain how wonderful private water companies can be. He now has the Fire Chief saying that we really don't need more than two men on a fire engine. We are a town that can build a $277 million dollar arena, but can't afford proper fire protection.