Todays’ the day that Lehigh County Democrats will pick their candidate to replace incoming Lehigh County Executive Josh Siegel in his Allentown and Salisbury based 22nd District seat. The candidates are lining up:
Four Democratic candidates — precinct committee person Erlinda Aguilar; Allentown City Councilwoman Ce-Ce Gerlach; Julian Guridy, an aide to state Sen. Nick Miller; and Lewis Shupe, who attempted to launch a congressional campaign in 2024 — submitted their names for consideration ahead of Thursday’s 5 p.m. deadline, Lehigh County Democratic Committee Chair Lori McFarland said.
A fifth, Douglas Kunkle, withdrew his nomination.
Kunkle apparently withdrew out of frustration with the process. Gerlach has also complained about who is and who isn’t an eligible voter, from what I’ve been told. Many expected that. The Allentown City Democrats did fold several years ago, leading to some questions about who is and who isn’t still on the committee, though it actually appears that this isn’t as real of a question as some believed. Jessica Ortiz, who had a Facebook page to run for this seat, did not apply for the Democratic nomination either.
If you put a gun to my head and asked me who is going to win today, well you wouldn’t need the gun, because I would tell you that it will be Julian Guridy. Guridy is publicly supported by Mayor Tuerk, Siegel, and Allentown’s other two Representatives, Mike Schlossberg and Pete Schweyer, and a functioning adult would guess State Senator Nick Miller, Guridy’s current boss. Does anyone think the committee is going to go out of it’s way to embarrass literally every significant elected official at the state level from Allentown? Of course not.
Gerlach is formidable (I don’t know the other two candidates very well, so I can’t comment there) and this is not the end. She has support from most of the more leftist groups in Allentown, and this committee selection is only binding for the February 24th Special Election. She is still more than able to run in the May Primary, and has a base of support for that race.
With all of that said, Guridy is going to win today.
Doesn’t this look like a nice spot for a warehouse to you? Sorry, it’s in Warren County.
Let’s just be clear here- the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission is not going to get it’s $461,375 INCREASE in it’s budget from Northampton County. Even if Council approves the increase in cash at their next meeting, that’s going to get a veto from the Executive. Three of the five Democrats are never going to vote to override that. Councilman Brown said he doesn’t support a tax increase, and I doubt Councilman Goffredo does either. What conservative wants to increase taxes to pay for a regional government body’s staff? Good luck getting to six votes for the tax increase to fund this. It will die at the veto, 5-4.
As it should. Councilman Ken Kraft said it better than me:
“Why do we want to give Lehigh Valley Planning Commission all this money?” demanded Council member Ken Kraft. “You heard them when they were here. They have a huge budget surplus.”
Council member John Brown supported an increase and said it was part of the agreement we have with our sister county. But in the eyes of Kraft and many others going back to former Council President Wayne Grube, we are treated more like the ugly red-headed step-sister.
Kraft went on a tear. “I didn’t tell them to move into a new building. I didn’t tell them to incur all this new debt that they did and I don’t think our taxpayers should pay for that. And 90% of it was in salaries alone. … I think they need to figure out how to pay their bills without handouts. I’m a strong No. …. I can’t believe we’re doing this.” … “It’s ludicrous to give this kind of money to them when they said most of it is for salaries. Remember, they are the people who brought you the warehouses all over the county. They told every one of these little municipalities back in Walt Dealtry’s days, if you remember, to change their zoning and planning to allow what happened. And then in the future, we’re like ‘Oh my God, there’s warehouses and cars and everything everywhere.’ Who gave us that? The LVPC. … They have a lot of reserves. We should have their reserves.”
So there’s a lot here, but the main point is “NO.” I often times think the “we get treated like the little brother” argument is a bit trumped up. Is there some truth to it? Sure, but not as much as people think. Let’s dig into the real meat of this though. LVPC does not dispute that they have cash reserves. They did say most of this money would go to salaries. In what world should we fund salaries for an organization that has cash reserves? How far can their reserves stretch? How much of their reserves were county tax dollars? Current taxpayers don’t need to fund future rainy day funds or current bloated regional bodies. It’s not fair in this economy.
Then there is the whole discussion of warehouses and over development. My Father happens to be a township planner, and well, zoning is actually important. Township planning commissioners have very limited abilities to fight back against over development when zoning was already approved for more development and their Township Supervisors don’t have the stomach to fight against deep pocketed developers in court. Essentially most Planning Commissions in municipalities end up simply making sure developers dot their I’d and cross their T’s when they want to make a giant sum or money on a former farm land. If you’re lucky you can get the developer to put in an interchange (route 33 and Tatamy) or maybe give you a little league field (Forks used to love this). If someone buys a piece of land to develop it and has all their legal ducks in a row, they can. Is LVPC responsible for all of the townships being in this position? That’s probably a bit much to claim. Did most of the Lehigh Valley kind of, sort of all zone themselves into this mess in the first place? Yeah, basically. Is there a body that was kind of, sort of supposed to help them avoid that? Yeah, maybe there is.
So I’m a little split on the arguments Kraft made, but he’s generally right- they have money, their reasons for needing more money aren’t really our problem, and maybe, just maybe, this level of government hasn’t worked out all that well for what the residents of the Lehigh Valley would like. I’ll go another step though. Back in the dark ages of the Biden Administration, when infrastructure money became available, there was a shot at connecting up to regional rail from Northampton County to New York City. PennDOT wanted to put a “quiet veto” on that, and basically sought to do so by simultaneously raising the idea of connecting Allentown to SEPTA. The elected County Executive in Northampton County came out and publicly supported AMTRAK to NYC. It’s been alleged by OTHER elected officials that the folks at the LVPC asked them to not seek rail to New York City, because PennDOT would then yank their alleged interest in connecting Allentown to SEPTA (The “other” electeds are from Lehigh County). Neither has happened, nor probably will they, which was really what PennDOT wanted. You see, those bureaucrats stay no matter who is the Governor, and they oppose building anything but highways- even though they build some of the shittiest highways in the country. Even taking everyone at best intentions, they called for killing calls to connect Northampton County and it’s citizens to passenger lines to New York in favor of a never realized passenger line from Lehigh County to Philadelphia. So, in the best of intentioned scenarios you see Kraft’s “little brother” argument with LVPC, and well, he’s right. Worst case? PennDot didn’t want to do shit for anyone in the Lehigh Valley, which is why we have two lane highways all over instead of three way highways, and why we sit in the parking lot called US-22 from 3pm to 6pm every day. PennDOT fat cats keep padding the pension and you get nothing. LVPC either is not picking this up, or has too cushy of a relationship with PennDOT. Either way, if LVPC doesn’t support the objectives of the elected government in Northampton County, why give it extra money beyond what it needs to function?
County government isn’t exciting. It does societal necessities that save lives, but it doesn’t get glorified in every day life. It runs the children & youth department. It provides public defenders. Here in Northampton and Lehigh Counties, they run the county nursing home. They protect open space. They house those under arrest while they await trial. The provide a justice system to our public. These are necessary functions. They are not things that thankfully, most of us have to worry about every day. For the most part, our local Lehigh Valley counties have been run well for the last eight years. Minimal to no tax hikes, no cuts in services. Lamont McClure and Phil Armstrong both did a nice job.
So imagine the most terrible kind of guy to replace Armstrong in Lehigh County. He’s a man who lives off of the public, who was intimately close to a scandal ridden administration that still casts a shadow over Allentown. He ineptly ran a police department that ran wild over the city, even as crime sky rocketed. He lead city council as the administration stole services from the public. He’s a party switcher who promises the chaos of DC for local residents here. He gives comfort to conspiracy theories and wants to weaken the right to vote. He’s kind of a mess.
Meet Roger Maclean.
Roger is a grifter. He lives in a city owned home that he doesn’t have to pay for. He hasn’t worked for the city in years in any capacity, but those were the terms to get him here. Boy, lucky for Allentown. If he was just a grifter, I guess I’d just say oh well. Unfortunately that’s the tip of the ice berg. Roger served as Ed Pawlowski’s favorite police chief in Allentown, ineptly overseeing an era of record setting crime, especially violent crime, much worse than we have seen in years. While criminals were running wild, I do have to say that Roger’s force was active- just not apparently at fighting crime. Obviously most cops are good cops, but Roger had a rogue element under his nose terrorizing the city. The District Attorney’s office has charged several already this year for crimes committed back in those days, crimes like forcing a woman to commit a sex act to avoid jail. Perhaps he had no idea, but isn’t that even worse then?
Perhaps he wanted to atone, or maybe he had no clue, but Roger decided to further serve Ed Pawlowski. I guess his time as his police chief wasn’t good enough service, so he ran for city council. As a councilman, he had no daylight between him and “Fed Ed.” Roger was such a good soldier that they made him Council President! Remember, at that time Pawlowski allies controlled a majority of the council, so loyalty was valued. As he rubber stamped Pawlowski’s budgets and spending. Roger was right there for his friend, there to the bitter end, bumbling through both of his roles in the city with no clue the mess that was going on.
It’s kind of hilarious that Roger’s “issues” page on his website tells us that he’ll be a fiscal conservative as Executive, protect public safety, and bring transparency to the county, give his record with the city. That’s kind of the point though in a campaign where everything is a lie. Sure, he did the opposite of those things at the city, so he’ll do them here. Then he’ll tell you he’s a moderate, because he switched from Democrat to Republican, because the Democrats left him. In fact, I’m sure he’ll tell Lehigh County Republicans he was always a true MAGA guy. I’d love to hear who he actually voted for in the 2016 Democratic Primary though, Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders? Fact is fiction though with this guy.
On his “issues” page, Roger kind of tells you why he’s dangerous though. Just as he served Pawlowski as his master in Allentown, he’ll serve the GOP establishment that asked him to run for this job. The county government administers and oversees elections. What’s Roger say about “election security” though?
A representative democracy depends upon free and fair elections. Every voter deserves a system that makes it easy to vote and hard to cheat. As County Executive, Roger will restore confidence in our election system and ensure that every legal voter’s voice is heard free from corruption or coercion.
Who is it that doesn’t have confidence in our local election operations? What election was contested unfairly? Roger won’t answer that for you. Roger is going to do what he was told. Roger is going to get rid of drop boxes and try to eliminate voting by mail in Lehigh County. Just as he complied to Dear Leader Pawlowski, Roger will now comply to King Trump’s executive orders to make it hard to vote. He had to give something to these people in order to be offered another job and a higher pension. He’s going to hand over your right to vote.
Some people in politics will dance with the wind and do anything for the next opportunity. In fact, I’d gauge that most of them will. Roger Maclean is one of those people. When he had the opportunity to serve the people of Allentown, he let them down to satisfy his funder, Ed Pawlowski. Now, he’s going to bring that same ethic to Lehigh County to satisfy the Lehigh County GOP. While he supported a more looney tunes character in the primary to my knowledge, I’m sure Ryan Mackenzie will be there to stand by his yes man. Roger will dutifully kill vote-by-mail and harm Cedarbrook Nursing Home. Don’t let the fox in the hen house.
Apocalypse Vibes 