A Good Vote For The Wrong Reason

On Wednesday night Cynthia Mota made a good vote for the wrong reason. When voting for Charles Roca as the new police chief she said “We need our leaders to look like the people they’re serving and Chief Roca reflects that..." When a city puts color or ethnicity first before competence, it's compromising the best results for the citizens. 

This time for Cynthia Mota the result was good, which is more than can be said for many of her votes. During the Pawlowski corruption rampage, her first vote as a council person was for a private company to import garbage to Allentown, which they wanted to mix with sewage and burn for energy. Fortunately, that plant was never built because of funding shortages. She also nominated Hasshan Batts for replacement mayor after Pawlowski's resignation, without revealing that she worked for him. That conflict of interest story was first broken on this blog, and used by the Morning Call without attribution.

Roca appears to be an excellent choice for new chief. A Dieruff graduate, he rose through the department ranks. He's taking the top post for a very hardscrabble job. It burnt out his predecessor, who moved away to Mayberry. I for one will be giving the new chief latitude. I won't be looking at short term crime reports, but instead for long term trends.

photocredit:Wanda Genao de Salas