When former mayor Ed Pawlowski was found guilty, Ray O'Connell told the media "Tomorrow is a new day with integrity, honesty and trustworthiness back in city hall." I'm sorry to report that despite that encouraging proclamation, city hall in some sense may be worse than ever.
I have no reason to believe that campaign donations or money exchanges of any kind are continuing at city hall, but otherwise, I must question what O'Connell meant about integrity?
Earlier in the fall I posted about a homeowner on the east side who was being improperly harassed by code to accommodate a neighbor. I have photographic documentation showing the head of code, Robert Sandt, socializing with the neighbor, and the neighbor allowing code thru his rental property, to photograph their targeted victim's adjoining property, up to the day of the hearing. At the hearing, in addition to the field inspector, Donald Reed, Sandt himself appeared. At the hearing the city changed the initial charges, conceding that there was no defect with the homeowner's railings. The magistrate allowed them to change their focus to a superfluous upright, and claimed that the deck was built without a permit. Although the judge seemed eager to accommodate the city with a guilty verdict, he was forced to reverse himself, when the homeowner produced the permit from 2002.
The city code department has again filed the same violation against the homeowner, again submitting her to the same harassment. The field inspector told the homeowner that Leonard Lightner, Community Development Director, ordered the refiling, because he is concerned for her safety in regard to the deck. While the deck could support a Sherman Tank, it is apparent that Lightner and O'Connell cannot control their code officers. Neither Lightner or O'Connell returned my calls on this topic earlier in the fall.
For the first hearing, the code department actually fabricated a printout of permits, showing that the homeowner didn't have a permit for the deck. If O'Connell thinks that dozens of man hours and falsifying documents to harass a homeowner is integrity, Allentown is not much better off now than it was before, under Pawlowski.
molovinsky on allentown is produced every weekday, year-round.
Ray is just a caretaker mayor, very likely either a willing a pawn or controlled by the corrupt people Ed brought in to populate city hall. This said, he is a nice guy who perhaps wants to do the right thing. It's just not happening.
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