GOP apologist way off the mark in attacking Mahoney
If it’s the job of Republican State Committeeman Gregory Chrash to publicly defend the track records of incumbent state Reps. Matt Dowling and Ryan Warner, he needs to do better.
In his Oct. 25 letter to the editor, apparently drawing the short straw as the GOP sycophant drafted to respond to recent commentaries from Democrat Timothy S. Mahoney, Chrash veered way off course and, well, crashed.
Instead of addressing Mahoney’s criticisms point-by-point, he simply accused Mahoney of filling his own commentaries with “misinformation.”
Really?
Mahoney said he wondered why the current Republican legislators (including Dowling and Warner) haven’t invited Attorney General Josh Shapiro, who is breaking up heroin rings in other counties, into Fayette County — a move that Mahoney has made. That’s not misinformation; that’s a fact.
Mahoney said he couldn’t believe Dowling and Warner would support killing the final leg of the MonFayette
Expressway and letting another region have the $2 billion earmarked to finish the project. That’s
not misinformation; that’s a fact.
Mahoney said that local Democrats, whether in the majority or minority, did a better job of wielding legislative clout than the current batch of Republicans, who are part of a huge GOP majority in the state House. That’s not misinformation; that’s an opinion many of us share, followed by a fact.
Finally, Mahoney said that on many issues — like crime, the heroin epidemic and job creation — most people he knows would say things are worse — not better or the same — under Republican rule of the county. That’s not misinformation or an attempt to mislead residents; that’s an honest critique of their job performance.
When it comes to the opioid crisis, when Mahoney was a state representative, he held one of the first, if not the first, Town Hall meetings in the state to address that issue. He enlisted the help of Gary Tennis, then the director of the state’s Office of Drug and Alcohol Programs, as a key ally. He sought to make drug education part of the elementary school curriculum.
These are hardly the achievements of a man whom Chrash called “missing in action” in regard to the drug epidemic. So the next time Chrash warns you to beware “smoke and mirrors,” just remember that the smell and the reflection are coming from his direction.
Gloria Dillon
Uniontown
state Democratic committee