On October 24th, I was forced
to change my police chief prediction from Ted Kohuth to Joel Fitzgerald. Kohuth had made sense for the department and the city. As a local law enforcement officer, he had the respect of the department's rank and file membership. His appointment would have avoided the rancor that had come with the last out of town appointment, Chief Kuhns from Chicago, under Afflerbach. Pawlowski had been part of that administration, and knew of that disruption first hand. By mid October, blogger sources were telling me that Pawlowski had decided to go with his governor quest, rather than the APD's morale. Fitzgerald will play well in Philadelphia, his home town. For picking the first minority police chief of Pennsylvania's third largest city, Pawlowski continues his narrative as a innovator. Joe Biden called Pawlowski to congratulate him on his overwhelming victory in last week's election. Nowhere in the narrative does it say that his opponent only decided to run this past spring, as an independent, and spent the summer in Ukraine. On the road to Harrisburg, Pawlowski will get much more milage from Fitzgerald than he would have ever gotten from Kohuth.
UPDATE: 6:00a.m. According to
The Morning Call, Fitzgerald was the top choice of the Allentown Police Union.
photocredit:Emily Robson/The Morning Call/November 11, 2013
From what I've heard, what little attention Pawlowski was getting in his run for governor is gone. He got only 61% against an unfunded, absent opponent? At the same time he's transforming Allentown? And had Muller doing everything he could to get the Democratic vote out? It was a pathetic showing.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, he's still hanging onto the dream, and thus this appointment.
Wonder when he drops his sights and runs for LT. Governor? We've elected people to that job who barely had a pulse, he'd fit right in.
To get the 61 percent of the vote, can someone post the votes that Pawlowski received as a democrat nd on the republican ticket that would total his 61 percent.
ReplyDelete