Jul 2, 2018 4 min read

We’ve tried to see both sides and offer Monessen’s mayor and freshman councilman the benefit of the doubt. There’s a learning curve when you’re new to the political arena, and not every step is going to be perfect.

Several missed meetings later, we’d like to deliver a message to Mayor Matt Shorraw and Councilman Gil Coles: your reckless and intentional absences are disgraceful.

We’d very much like if you could pick up your bat and ball and come back to the playing field. Finish what you signed up for, and accept that sometimes, things are not going to go your way.

Before you say it, we’ll acknowledge it: sometimes, politics is a game. It shouldn’t be, but it sometimes is. It’s rife with agendas, the playing field isn’t always level and the people aren’t always going to cheer for you, even when you make valid points.

Yet, politics is what you signed up for when you ran for office. You signed up to be present, listen to your constituents and work at the sometimes thankless task of helping them. Mayor Shorraw, city residents didn’t put you in office with the expectation that you would communicate with them by way of statements on your Facebook page or ads in the newspaper.

What happened Friday at council’s emergency meeting made a mockery of what public officials are supposed to do. Two councilmen — the two who have routinely shown up — again sat in their seats. Coles, who hadn’t been to a meeting in four months, came in at the last second, voted to renew the city’s liability insurance that was set to expire Saturday, and then left as public comment started. Without a quorum of members, the remaining two councilmen were forced to adjourn the meeting.

Why not sit there and hear what your constituents have to say, Councilman Coles? Those who don’t know you have no idea why you haven’t come to a meeting since Feb. 8, and deserved some sort of explanation. If you cannot fulfill the duties to which you were elected, then step down.

Even more infuriating was Shorraw’s absence. Mayor, you are supposed to be the figurehead of your community, highlighting your city of about 7,300 residents.

You’ve done the latter, we suppose, but in a terribly negative way. Your absences have caught the attention not just of the newspapers in your area, but of additional media outlets.

Continuing to shirk your duties by being a no-show mayor is absurd and you, too, should step down if you cannot or do not care to be present for the voters who put you in the mayoral seat.

Shorraw has emailed statements and posted on Facebook about his decision to miss council meetings. He says he feels ganged up on and doesn’t want to be the person who makes a quorum so that the two council members who are routinely there can vote to replace a council member who passed away in May.

Leave it up the courts, he says.

It’s not even that we object to that. Part of a judge’s role is to be an impartial arbiter in a dispute. Westmoreland’s judiciary will do just that, considering qualifications, and making the best possible choice for the citizenry. But what if the judges appoint someone who doesn’t align with you, mayor? Are you going to continue to skip meetings and post your feelings on Facebook?

For all intents and purposes, you’re acting like a child who isn’t getting his way instead of facing adversity head-on.

This is not a shot at Shorraw’s young age. He was elected to the post at 26, making him the youngest mayor the city’s had. When that happened, we were encouraged to see a young man so interested in politics and so ardently invested in his hometown.

A few months and bumps into the ride, though, it appears your enthusiasm consisted of empty words.

Now we have a state senator pushing for legislation to change the state’s Constitution so that absentee elected officials can be more readily removed. That’s a sad state of affairs.

So, Mayor Shorraw, Councilman Coles, we implore you: Come back to the table. If you’re on the wrong end of the vote, accept it and move on. Government should never be a game where the person on the losing side can just walk away.

That kind of apathy is unacceptable.