Nov 15, 2023

Allentown's Mutiny


When I observed Pawlowski's corruption trial, sitting in the gallery was Phoebe Harris. She and Jessica Lee Ortiz were staunch Pawlowski supporters. 

Mayor Tuerk has not inherited that support, on the contrary. There was an incident at Ortiz's Ark Foundation with a supposed racial slur. I say supposed because the word is used differently by different people, and I'm not qualified to judge what someone meant by it. 

One thing is for certain, the Ortiz's didn't appreciate how Tuerk and his administration reacted. The poster shown above was created by Jessica Ortiz. If City Council will override Tuerk's veto of their no tax hike budget version, or reach a compromise, remains to be seen tonight.

A sure bet is that Ortiz and Harris will be there, along with others dissatisfied with this administration.

8 comments:

  1. Mike, the city and school district are being run by bad and worse. This is what the voters voted in and will no doubt vote to continue to support in the future. What is amazing is that within our little one party state the controlling party can only cough up such people as candidates. It's a real one, two punch in the gut to any hope of good government in the city.

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  2. While this should be a no-brainer for the five council members who voted for a no-tax-hike budget before, I have no illusions that they won’t snatch defeat from the jaws of victory and screw the taxpayers over this time around.

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  3. If council votes for a tax hike tonight, when residents are already getting a hike in their trash fees and yesterday found out they’re getting a hike in their water rates, then council is more out of touch than even I believed.

    Anyone voting for the tax hike tonight should be ousted from council as soon as possible.

    If they can’t find what amounts to less than 1% of the budget to cut and eliminate the tax hike, then they are too incompetent to serve.

    And that goes double for our Mayor, who does the job full time and has an oversized staff to help him.

    That list of cuts shouldn’t include the Fourth of July fireworks or Lights in the Parkway. There is plenty in the budget that is unpopular, un-needed, and/or generally wasteful. Instead of prepping his speech to convince members of council to raise taxes, Tuerk should have spent more time finding those items.

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  4. "Cuts" is never a good word to use when discussing government funding. It never is meant to actually reduce spending, i.e: We spent $100 last year, we only need to spend $50 on this line item. No, "Cuts" means reducing the level of increase from what was hoped to what was settled upon. We spent $100 last year on this item, we hope to increase it to $125. However we agreed to "cut" it to $110. So a "Cut" is still a increase, just a less of one..

    The word that needs to be used is "reduction". We're reducing spending from $100 to %50. Alas, in government that does not happen. Whether it be the ruling party or the opposing party. That is the nature of government spending your tax dollars. We'll just spend less of them then what we planned, so the 6% increase will only be 2.5% increase. But we did "cut" the budget to achieve that.

    I worked in State Government (not PA) for some years. Initially I needed to establish all my budgetary line items in year one, and get them approved. Fine, achieved. Now, year two, Last years expenditures are in my "base budget" and i need some more things now in year two. Since my year one expenditures are in my base budget, those don't get scrutinized. Only the new items do. Once they're approved, then they'll be in the "base budget" that still includes all the funds I requested for year one, that just gets carried over to the next, and subsequent years without discussion.

    That is how government grows. Its done all the time and by every government agency I ever worked for.

    Zero based budgeting? To justify every expenditure of your tax money every year, line by line? Pipe dream that will never happen


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  5. You have to love Ce Ce Gerlach and other liberals staunch opposition to even a moderate 2% property tax increase. She is simply pandering for votes. While LCA proposes massive uncontested increases in water and sewer rates, Gerlach and others are going to try an defeat a modest and reasonable tax increase that would cost Allentown property owners $20 to $40 a year.

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  6. Who is truly running the City? Who is really the mayor. Seems individuals like this Jessica seem to have influence within the residents and those are who the mayor is elected to serve is it not? So who is the peoples real mayor.

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  7. Me thinks we've had enough raises already and it's high time to sharpen the axe and chop away!!! Unfortunately, the schnooks ALWAYS get what they want irrespective of needs... the ONLY word in their vocabulary is MORE!!!!
    And the best part... we pay MORE for LESS... what's wrong with this picture??? Garbage is a joke... they accept less and charge more AND you need to pay to remove certain items, but the best part is watching the recyclables get tossed in with the regular garbage... you know, the items we would get fined for not separating...!!!
    We're at the point where our monthly bills cost far in excess of what our mortgage cost us!!! Sheesh....

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  8. Kind of ironic, isn't it? These are probably two people who usually support bigger budgets and higher taxes.

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