California Meet the Candidates night held
CALIFORNIA – Chins cradled between forefinger and thumb, Mayor Gerald “Galvie” Gardner and Casey Durdines waited for a question during a Meet the Candidates gathering Tuesday evening. The moment of mutual pose remained a rare semblance between Gardner, the incumbent, and Durdines, a well-groomed 20-year-old college sophomore, throughout the event. A California University of Pennsylvania political science major, Durdines, who gained the Republican nomination in the May primary, said he is running for mayor “out of a desire to help the community,” adding that he “did not agree” with the way his opponent has run the town for the past four years.
A 20-year law-enforcement veteran, Gardner, who got the Democratic nod in May, said a conspiracy to unseat him brews among some borough council members, so he was eager to be heard on the hot topic of the evening — the borough’s police department.
Jeannine Metal, California Chamber of Commerce president and the event’s moderator, posed this question to the mayoral candidates: “What are your plans to correct the serious problem that exists in the California Borough Police Department today?”
Durdines said he wanted California Borough Chief Stephen Silbaugh, who recently resigned after stating his position as chief was reduced to the role of a “parking meter coin collector,” to return.
Silbaugh’s resignation would become effective three days after election day.
“I want to put the police department in the chief’s hands,” Durdines said. “I’ll be there to supervise, but ideally I’d like (the department) to be handled by the police chief.”
Gardner said the police department is the most critical issue facing the mayor.
“Unless council makes a decision on retirement of senior officers this office will continue to struggle,” he said. “This job as a police officer is a job for a young person.”
The public is being protected despite problems, he added.
The department currently employees 12 part-time officers and five full-time officers, four of whom are on compensated leave. Gardner said insurance is a “major stumbling block” in the retirement of senior officers.
He said the police department negotiated contracts without a benefit plan years ago and the borough pays the officer’s benefits. With retirement those benefits cease, he said, adding that three full-time borough police officers have told him they wish to retire. Gardner said the borough could afford to pay half the retired officers benefits from money saved with a negotiation to pay new hires 85 percent of wages during their first year on the force. The new hires would earn full wages in their fourth year, he added.
Jon Bittner, a Democratic challenger for a council seat, said council needs to take a “creative look” at the police department.
“One of my priorities is to change this police department around,” he said. “We need to get officers on 24-7.”
Durdines said “public safety” would be his “number one goal” if elected.
“It’s going to be tough,” he said. “We need to work together on this.”
During a question and answer period of the televised event, a telephone caller asked the mayoral candidates what qualities they felt were most important in a police chief.
Durdines said a chief should be “professional, clean cut and set an example for other officers.” Qualities, he said, Silbaugh possesses.
Gardner, who often butted heads with the chief, said “being able to work with people, walking the street on a beat, socializing, talking to people, designating duties with dignity.”
“A chief does not make a police department,” he said. “It’s made with a chief, a mayor and officers.”
The candidates also discussed how to improve California’s living conditions, the possible merger between the borough and Coal Center and teamwork.
Gardner said his plan to make California a better place to live includes attracting new businesses, building a hotel and supporting a university-driven maglev project.
“California is targeted as an area that is on the move,” he said. “I want to be a part of that.”
Perryman Co., a titanium products maker, which will occupy three buildings on a 40-acre sight in California Technology Park and become operational in 2007, is set to bring jobs and expansion to the area already.
As for the merger between California and Coal Center, Durdines was the only decided candidate.
“You have to look years down the road,” he said. “It will increase taxable property in the borough. I intend to vote for it, but you have to look at the positives and negatives and vote for yourself.”
Gardner and council candidates John DiFillipo, Amelia Gajan-Mitchell and Bittner, said they were still deciding which way they would vote when the question of whether to merge the two boroughs is officially asked on election ballots Nov. 8. DiFillipo and Gajan-Mitchell are incumbents. DiFillipo was nominated in the spring on the Democratic ticket, while Gajan-Mitchell received the Republican nod.
Fifty-one percent of residents from each borough must vote yes for the process of a merger to begin.
Gardner said sewage plans, which candidates agreed was a major factor in attracting residents and businesses to the area, are in the “finalizing stages with engineers and DEP (Department of Environmental Protection).”
“If we don’t have sewage and water, we’re not going to attract new businesses,” said DiFillipo, who has been on council 22 years. “There are buildings in town that we need to get rid of.”
Recreation also plays a major role in attracting more residents to the area, Gajan-Mitchell added.
Gardner said the key to a prosperous borough is a unified vision.
“For anything to happen the council and mayor need to work together,” he said. “The key to California Borough on everything is being innovative and working together.”
Walter Weld Jr. and Vicki Gallo, Democratic challengers for one of four seats, did not attend the candidates’ night.