The fall election season is upon us, finally!
Voters in the City of Bethlehem will be electing a new council person and a new controller.
The City Council are as follows:
Democractic Ticket: Robert Donchez, J. William Reynolds and Gordon Mowrer
Republican Ticket: Esther Lee
Reynolds is the 26-year old legislative aide to State Rep. Steve Samuelson. He pulled off his major victory in spring when he came in second in a crowded Democratic primary that included an incumbent councilwoman, a former councilman and a former county councilman.
Lee is the party hopping head of the local chapter of NAACP. She was a Democrat in the past and has been a Republican for the past few years. Earlier this summer she led the protest against the Ludacris performance at Musikfest. She was also a member of the Bethlehem Defense Fund, a group which unsuccessfully attempted to stop the Sands-Bethworks project.
Donchez, the recently retired Allen High School teacher and winner of the Democratic primary, will be running for his 4th term on Council. He has recently joined State Rep. Joe Brennan's office as a Legislative Aide.
Mowrer, who finished third in the primary, will be seeking his 2nd consective term, after previously serving as Mayor and on City Council in the 1960s and 1970s. He is currently a local Moravian minister and was a strong anti-casino voice on Council.
Analysis: Are there any Republicans in Bethlehem to vote for Esther Lee? I will go out on a limb here and predict that the Democrats sweep. Reynolds will become the youngest council person in Bethlehem history.
City Controller Race:
The City will have a new controller for the first in a long time. Wallace DeCrosta was the long time controller passed away last year. The remainder of his term was filled by Alan Blair, who was the assistant controller. I think people forget the importance of this position until something happens like it did in NorCo's Clerk of Courts office or with Marge Szulborski in Upper Macungie. People need to make informed decisions when voting a controller.
The candidates for Bethlehem Controller are:
Democrat David Digiacinto, a former member of the Bethlehem Authority; and
Republican Meg Holland, who owns Meg Holland & Associates, a local accounting company.
I admittedly know little about either candidate. Ms. Holland's resume is quite impressive, though.
I think I will need to pass on the analyis of this race until I can look at each candidate more closely. Look for a post in the future.
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6 comments:
For Lehigh Valley political observers, last season’s “Bonnie Dodge for Senate” campaign no doubt offered a peculiar pageantry. Teetering back and forth on a variety of off-kilter planks – from monorails for the Poconos to herbal remedies for the masses – the quixotic effort probably at times seemed refreshingly entertaining. After all, no gray-flannel campaign managed by expensive consultants would roll out the enigmatic slogan, “I’ve got my hands in my own pockets,” illustrated with a photo of the candidate with palms dutifully plunged into an austere pantsuit, a vaguely disturbing pantomime.
Yet as Voltaire observed, “All history is little else than a long succession of useless cruelties.” And this is the real history of the Bonnie for Senate campaign. The doomed effort may not merit much of a retrospective, even though it is likely this self-righteous political figure does intend to lay her “family values” wares before the electorate once again (in a race for magistrate, we hear). But there is a whole other dimension to the campaign and to the behavior of the candidate that has never been revealed, one that is all too familiar to members of our family.
Several weeks ago, I took the first step in alerting the wider community to the hypocrisy and mean-spiritedness of this unctuously moralistic candidate by posting the following response on the Lehigh Valley Ramblings blog to one of her ad-hominem tirades: http://lehighvalleyramblings.blogspot.com/2007/06/boscolas-former-opponent-bonnie-dodge.html
Many members of the Dodge family, most of whom she has completely alienated, agree with me that the more attention we can bring to this individual’s behavior, the more likely we are to ensure the health and safety of our father, and protect the family from the spasms of venom that she has continually injected into family relationships.
But beyond this, there is an unwritten story of profligacy and greed that puts the “hands in pockets” candidate at the center of an immense financial disaster. Part of this web is the “Upbeat with Bonnie Dodge” radio show that she hosted for more than a year on WGPA. This was a pay-for-play program that required massive cash infusions. No doubt it was meant to prepare the way for a subsequent triumph at the polls. Instead, in my view, it is likely to have helped pave the way for the financial collapse of the family business, and the loss of jobs for more than two dozen Lehigh Valley workers.
In the end, “Bonnie values” have left a good and decent family in tatters. It is something to remember the next time she pops up to challenge the Catholic “credentials” of a political opponent, or reappears at a public forum cloaked in piety, stirring the familiar cauldron of recrimination.
Charles S. Dodge
Carlsbad, California
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