From Pawlowski's Facebook submissions, you would never know that there is a giant shadow of suspicion cast upon the 5th floor of city hall. This morning the mayor linked to another report showing that crime is down in Allentown. Apparently, they are not including white collar crime in those figures. Personally, I find those reports meaningless, considering all the shootings and stabbings that do occur. At any rate, I invite Mayor Pawlowski to attend City Council this evening, and get some feedback from his constituents.
I never take up for the Mayor, but I am going to break protocol for a minute here.
ReplyDeleteThe Mayor's FB page is not to be taken with any degree of seriousness, and certainly I do not expect the guy to trumpet that he is "under suspicion" for anything. Legally, that's just about admitting he did something wrong.
Lower crime stats are lower crime stats, any administration would be talking those up. God knows this Mayor needs to point up what accomplishments he can. He is not trying to deny that there remains a serious crime problem in Allentown (2013) -the number of thefts per 100,000 residents are 2283/100,000 people, burglaries stand at 1058/100,000 people, auto thefts are 282/100,000 people.
However, compared with ten years ago in general there has been marked improvement, and Mayor Ed Pawlowski deserves credit for that much. Considering how incredibly wretched this town was once-that is an accomplishment of note. It is hardly "renaissance" level serenity. Then again-Baltimore managed to raise the Inner Harbor, renovate Fells Point, tear down all of the old public housing and still endure protracted riots and now a massive crime wave is tearing through that city. Gussying up an entire city cannot erase social ills, and this regrettably Allentown has aplenty.