Julio Guridy And Emma Tropiano

The picture above is from an article on Allentown's current English Only ballot question.  As background the article references Emma Tropiano and then-newcomer Julio Guridy.  Guridy indicates that he was motivated to run for city council as a counter measure against what he perceived as a racist slight by Tropiano. 

What the article's author doesn't know, and what Guridy probably would never acknowledge, is how Guridy benefitted from the Tropiano encounter.  When Guridy announced his candidacy for the council race, he secured a financial future he never envisioned.  Philadelphia's Hispanic leadership figured that Julio was a rising political star to their north, and recommended to Rendell that Guridy be appointed to a state commission.  At the time his sponsors didn't know that Allentown would be dominated for the next fifteen years by Ed Pawlowski. Commission jobs in this state are considered political plums, and require very little time.  Guridy's job on the Joint Bridge Commission has yielded him a good salary for the last sixteen years.  Guridy can complain about how racist the ordinance and Tropiano were, but ironically he ended up with a lucrative non-demanding position because of his pushback to them.

Readers may wonder who this blog favors. I don't cater to anyone, nor do I try to target anyone. While Julio might not be happy with this post,  I know that Allentown has benefited from him being here. Beyond his many years on city council, he has devoted countless hours to the city.  From other posts last week, people may mistakenly think that I want to target both the Democratic and Republican parties. Actually, this blog is written for the historical record. Whether the post concerns a local historical place, or a local political situation, my attempt is to provide the back-story.  With the local paper's shrinking staff, institutional knowledge is becoming a sparse commodity in these parts. 

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