Wows & Scowls
Wow: Former Fayette County Commissioners Sean M. Cavanagh and Ronald M. Nehls have entered the race for Democratic Party State Committeeman. Fayette voters will elect two to the position, in a race that also features Menallen Township Supervisor Joe Petrucci and Perry Township Supervisor Andrew “A.J.” Boni, who are running as a team. But there’s more to this contest than meets the eye, and if you guessed it has something to do with the 51st District Legislative race, which includes Fayette County Commissioner Vincent A. Vicites and former Fayette County Jury Commissioner Tim Mahoney, you might be barking up the right tree. Scowl: It doesn’t appear that your highly paid, full-time state legislature is going to cough up any meaningful school district tax reform any time soon. House Republicans, who are in the majority, want to increase the state sales tax, but that idea is not being embraced by senators from both parties and House Democrats. As a group, the latter oppose increasing any state taxes to provide larger school district property tax cuts. As legislators know, and as most of you would quickly find out under any reform, there’s no easy solution to reducing or replacing the $6 billion that Pennsylvanians pay each year in school district property taxes.
Scowl: State Rep. Peter J. Daley (D-California) has other problems on hand than his re-election bid. In addition to voting for last year’s controversial pay raise and taking the controversial unvouchered expenses, which he tried to justify by purchasing food vouchers for senior citizens, Daley’s American Deli’s Inc. has headed to bankruptcy court. Daley and his wife own 52 percent of the firm, which operated Quizno’s sub franchises in Morgantown, W.Va., and State College. The firm owes $42,633 in Pennsylvania state taxes, $89,726 in federal taxes and $2,408 in City of Morgantown business and occupation taxes. If you had that kind of track record, do you think voters would send you to Harrisburg? Maybe Daley should have used his unvouchered expenses to purchase Quizno’s sub vouchers for those seniors. Every little bit helps, right?
Wow: PACleanSweep founder Russ Diamond is running for governor as an independent candidate. That should surprise no one, as many political insiders raised this possibility when Diamond and his throw-out-all-incumbents movement lurched onto the scene after July’s midnight pay raise. According to a press release announcing his candidacy, Diamond’s vision for a new Pennsylvania includes facilitating a constitutional convention, repealing Act 71 (the slots bill), reducing property taxes, eliminating government waste and planning for the Commonwealth’s looming pension crisis.
Said Diamond: “We’ve taken on the legislature. We’ve taken on the judiciary. Now it’s time to focus some energy on the Executive Branch. The governor is the one man who could have stopped the pay raise with a stroke of his pen, but failed to do so.” Diamond has a strong base from which to operate, and with Republican challenger Lynn Swann comparatively reticent to him when it comes to rocking the boat in the state capitol, we applaud Diamond’s candidacy.
Scowl: Do state Rep. Bill DeWeese and state Sen. Barry Stout really need to be showing their mugs Wednesday at Lake Wilma in Blacksville, where the state Fish and Boat Commission will be stocking trout? After all, according to a press release put out by DeWeese’s office, the commission started stocking the lake in mid-March. If it’s such a big deal, we wonder: Were these two caring legislators on hand for that big event? And since they are such regular guys, who clearly aren’t interested in capitalizing on a state-funded program in advance of next month’s election, we have another question. Do either of them have a valid fishing license?
Wow: Planners and volunteers affiliated with the Hopwood Village project envision an appealing makeover for that hamlet’s Route 40 corridor, one designed to boost “curb appeal” by dressing things up. It’s the type of reasonable plan that can actually be implemented and should have a positive result. And it goes to prove that concerned residents can get something done to better their community.
Scowl: While the cause may seem noble to some, if not many, there’s something unsettling about state Reps. Bill DeWeese and Mike Veon, two handsomely compensated Democrats by virtue of the positions they hold in Harrisburg, crowing about how they’ve spearheaded the fight to get the House to approve a minimum wage hike. Said DeWeese, “It’s a great day for each and every working Pennsylvanian. It has been nearly a decade since the last increase in the minimum wage and working families have seen prices and costs rise while their incomes remain stagnant.”
Let’s see … one of those lucky ones whose incomes will never remain stagnant is DeWeese, who helped install an automatic cost-of-living raise into his own salary, which eclipsed $104,000 this year. And that still wasn’t apparently enough, because he voted to boost it to $134,000 in last July’s aborted pay raise fiasco. And most of those on his $1.3 million staff payroll aren’t going to fall behind, either.
People shouldn’t fall for this kind of election year concern for the low-ladder worker. And the state Senate still has to approve the minimum wage hike, which isn’t a sure thing.