Friday, April 24, 2009

Bob Sypniewski for Controller-the interview


I met with Luzerne County GOP Controller candidate Bob Sypniewski last Sunday. Bob was born and raised in Wilkes-Barre. He graduated fron GAR High School and attended LCCC. He's another Yankees fan which now seems to be a requirement for the position. He likes the Eagles in the NFL and defying the logic of my world he somehow roots for the Miami Hurricanes in college football.
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Why should you be the next Luzerne County Controller?
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I believe the background that I come from being the 15th of 16 kids and my dad being a Wilkes-Barre police officer for 40 years taught me that hard work and honesty will get you somewhere in life. Today with the corruption going on in Luzerne County I have no ties to anyone and everything I have in life I’ve gotten because of hard work. I believe the qualities I possess and the leadership I possess will change and help the foundation of Luzerne County to head in the right direction. My financial background is 10 plus years running my own business on my own. I believe what I’ve done to help people to buy homes will help to fix the county. The biggest thing is sitting on the county board and seeing the corruption that I saw with this assessment. I fought hard to get on this board to help people lower their taxes, not because I felt sorry for them but it was the right thing to do. One thing I want to talk about is a property being assessed at $125,000 that is right next to the Susquehanna River and our county hired a company that assessed it at $125,000 and we knocked it down to $7,000 because that was were it belonged because the property flooded six months out of the year. I believe my time on the board showed what I can do. I can also bring it to the county as the Controller.
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You mentioned that the last time I heard you speak. Why didn’t you go public with it sooner?
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The reason why I didn’t go public was this. I knew the corruption that was going on in the courthouse and if I went there and said listen, this is what I’m seeing, I know that would have done to me. They would have got me off the board and replaced me with somebody else. You saw when the formal appeals first started, the cries in the newspaper of foul, there weren’t a lot of people on that board that I believe that were really out there helping the people. They made some changes and I sat there quietly and made reductions where I could. And I knew this, if I went to Skrep or Petrilla they would have got me out of there.
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Will you be a full time Controller?
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I will be a full time Controller. Just like when I ran the assessment board, I ran that full time. I put my businesses to the side. I am the only candidate that can say that I took 2 of my business and shut them off from 8 o’clock to 6:30 at night for 4 months. I did that with my business. The proof is in the pudding and my will tell you that, I was gone. What I did for the assessment board in 4 months I can do better as a full time Controller in 4 years.
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I have a couple of questions from some of my helpers. Will you commit to serving no more than 2 terms?
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It’s going to take at least 4 years to get the county courthouse headed in the right direction. I believe 2 terms after that will be enough were I can sit back and ask do I want to further my life as a politician or do I want to sit back. That’s a tough question to answer. I learned in politics very early that you never say never. Right now I’m committed to getting elected for 4 years with the understanding that this is going to take longer than 4 years to clean up. It’s been going on for how many years? So we’re going to put 4 years into this and look into this every time you’re up for reelection.
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The Controller doesn’t have a lot of policy input. Who would you partner with in the county government to help clean things up?
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When I come to office I understand that are positions that I can change immediately. My assistant Controller is going to change immediately, my Solicitor is going to change immediately. I have a list of people from both sides of the aisle that we are going to bring in. I really respect Steve Urban for what he has done in the past, I respect Steve Flood and what he’s done. I don’t believe I’m going to partner with any of our elected officials right this second because I do not know who to trust in there. We need new faces, we need fresh faces. We need people who never worked there before to come in and clean house. At this very moment I’m not willing not commit to working with anyone in that courthouse other than the team of people we’re going to come in with to clean house there.
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So you’re saying that you won’t be a rubber stamp for what has been going on
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Most definitely, it makes sense that when that when a contract is handed to you and not a single Commissioners signature is on it that you don’t make payment on it.
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The Republican Party endorsement went to Nanda Pallisery. How do you feel about that?
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It disappoints me not about the endorsement. It disappoints me that there is 275 committee people and less than 130 even cast a vote. I believe that 29 cast it do not endorse which I believe I take credit for. I was the only candidate out there crying do not endorse, let us all run on our own merits. So if you look at it, Nanda walked away with 40 votes. I don’t know if that is a Republican endorsement or if that is the same old politics endorsement. It doesn’t affect me, what I want is the people’s endorsement. I want their vote to represent them not as a Republican, not as a Democrat Controller but as an independent voice that’s going to bring change.
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You want to add to your earlier comments about reassessment.
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I want to touch base this about this assessment. I didn’t understand as much as I thought I knew until I sat down and realized by helping people through the appeals process and adjust them adjust their home values and saw the hurt that our political people did to our people. It caused me to contact Derrick Williams from Tioga County. People may remember that Tioga County kicked out this same assessment company, Century 21 Appraisals. They got kicked out because of a breach of contract. I spoke to Derrick Williams twice and there is a new report coming out on the 28th that I believe is going to back Tioga County and this is why I stayed private with this because silently I want to put together a majority of people to one day see that we can take what Tioga County did and bring it here to Luzerne County. I believe we need to start all over with this with our own people. In the next coming days you are going to see a press release from the independent arbitrator that was assigned to Tioga’s County dealings. And I believe if you elect me as Controller I will have a bigger say when you look at that actual contract and I think that will be a big key to my race as well. There is only so much you can do as a taxpayer crying foul but there is more you can do as an elected official.
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As Controller you are going to oversee the county’s finances. What experience do you have with government accounting?
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I was a business major in high school. It’s pretty easy, when your debits outweigh your credits you have a problem. When you have a Controller that’s not monitoring statements showing all these debit card purchases coming out and not saying anything that’s a big issue. A lot of it is commonsense thinking first of all. Second of all we are going to bring a good team of people into this. You take the last 10 years of my business and I’m looking at people’s finances. Could they afford this house? Not just based on what is on their credit reports. We are looking at their grocery bills, their utility bills… and in 10 years of helping people buy a home I never had a bank call me back and say you misquoted their budget and now we’re taking this house back and we want our money back that we paid you. So I believe the common sense thinking I bring to it plus the 10 years of helping people with their finances is going to be a huge benefit to the county. But understand this too. I can’t do it on my own, I know I can’t. That’s why the team of people that I bring there is going to be an effort as a team of people that are going to come together to put this in order. It’s not humanly possible to do it alone nor could any other candidate say that. If they did, they are lying to you. I will have a CPA as my assistant Controller and I will have a Solicitor that has the minds, thoughts and interests of the taxpayers in mind. The three of us are going to look at this and get this done right.
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A little nuts and bolts about campaigning. How are you doing on money?
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We just sent out our first fundraising letter about 2 weeks ago. I actually funded most of my campaign right now. I don’t look at it as money today; I’m going door to door. I’m doing the old style politics where I go out and meet the people so they know who I am. We are going to raise some money but not a whole heck of a lot. People are asking me where is your website, where is your signs? I understand that websites and signs don’t get you elected. If people don’t know who I am they are not going to vote for me so I am making more of my efforts in getting out there. But like I said we just put together our first fundraiser and we probably raise about 10 to 20 thousands dollars. That is our expectation on that.
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Do you plan to do any media? Print, radio or TV
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Right now we’re taking advantage of the free press. We sent in a lot of letters to the editor and I will be a frequent caller into the Steve Corbett show as well as Sue Henry and Nancy and Kevin in the Morning. I plan on trying to put together a commercial. Humanly possibly there is no way I can get to the four corners of the county. Maybe a couple of commercials.
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What do you think about Home Rule?
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I’m big supporter of open government. Take Steve Flood for example. When this Juvenile Detention Center was being built wanted a public forum on this and he was chastised for it and then his own party took him out. I don’t know all the policies of Home Rule but from what I understand about it, it’s going to be more of an open government which I stand firm with.
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As far as streamlining the county do you have any ideas? I have been an advocate of getting rid of elections for things like Prothonotary, Jury Commissioner and possibly even Controller if you can up with a different way of doing it.
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I believe in what you just said there. The Controller is a position you need a leader in there and if that is changing hands because of political powers then there is a problem, same thing with Prothonotary. Down the road I believe, hopefully not right now because I’m running for it, those should be positions (not Union positions) that should be full time. Because if you are constantly doing this every 4 years you have to run for reelection so somewhere along the line in that year that you’re running for reelection you’re going to burn yourself out to the point of what’s going to come first and what are you going to walk away from? You are going to walk away from time on the job just so you can be elected again for another 4 year term. So I would agree that somewhere down the road to possibly rewriting the Controllers position, the Prothonotary and also the Jury Commissioner to make them not political seats. And make them full time position not political positions. I’m open to that.
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My observation that some people may not agree with in this economic climate is that the Row Officers and Commissioners are not paid enough.
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If you look at the size of our county and look at some smaller ones, they’re paid more. In my business I actually hired an ex-president of a bank. People say why would an ex-president of a bank work for a 28 year old broker? I paid him well. I realize this, if you pay people well they will be there full time. And you look at what the Commissioner get paid and there is a lot going on. Sometimes they have second jobs so they can actually maintain a life. I believe in time, once we get this in order there should be a pay raise for some of the county officials not because of political purposes. My philosophy is this, pay them right and the job will be done right. If you look at what has been going on in the county, look at the greed.
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Involving some very high paid people
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But the funny this is this, you had 2 Commissioners that had to allow that juvenile detention center to go. Those judges were corrupt but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about those 2 Commissioners, Greg Skrepenak and Todd Vonderheid, they were the ones that brought this forth. If they had listened to Steve Urban and Steve Flood this would have been thrown out. So when you put people in the Commissioners area make that worth their while to make sure the county is run effectively. I believe a lot of theses deals probably would not have been made. I agree that there should be an increase but also there are some offices that shouldn’t have as much. There is too many chiefs and not enough Indians out there. There is too much manpower in some of the offices in the courthouse that could be let go, we don’t need it. I won’t harp too much on this but if the Assessor’s office had done the job that was required we wouldn’t had to need hire an outside company to reassess our county. I would take a look at the stories I hear about people going out in the field to measure properties, I want to see their work reports. I want to see where they have been. I tell you what, it doesn’t pass my test as far as getting the job done. With an increase to certain positions in the courthouse there could be a huge decrease in personnel. I know it’s not a popular statement and I know a lot of county officials won’t like that but a fact is a fact. There are too many people that work in these offices and there is not enough work to show for it..
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Closing statement
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As I worked hard on the assessment board I saw what the corruption of county politics can do to the hard working people. The people that are trying to make a living but yet our government constantly knocks us back. I worked 4 months for the county people and have been able to decrease thousands of household’s property taxes. I believe if I’m the Controller I can do even more. I could be the inside person for the people in the county courthouse. A lot of people have hammered me because I didn’t come public with this but they have to understand if I went public they would have taken me out and replaced with somebody else. I’m the 15th child out of 16 children grew up in the Wilkes-Barre Heights and I have no political ties and I have no strings attached. I’m going to run this job like I ran my own businesses, it will be full time. It will be with all my heart and soul to get this thing right. I have 3 boys that are counting on me to make this right. Here is a fact, if I don’t get this right my generation of people are moving out, they’re going. My biggest fear is getting a phone call from Harrisburg or Washington, DC saying Luzerne County we’re cutting you off until you get this right. We need to elect a fresh face, someone new with no political ties. There is a debate coming up on the 28th at Wilkes, I encourage people to get down there. I hope they broadcast it. I think this is going to be a great chance to see the differences. Who is going to run that office? Who is going to run it efficiently? Is it going to be an attorney that is running a law firm? Is it going to be the guy that runs the mechanic business? Is it going to be an accountant that already runs a business? I’m the only candidate that has shown that I can work for the county, work for the taxpayers and then do my life second. I’m done it before, give me 4 years so I can prove it.

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

if anyone is gonna sit behind a desk in the controllers from 8:30 to 5:00 for $36K, they probably don't have a life, and certainly wont get my vote. and if they shut down their business for the job, they cant be that good of a businessman.

Anonymous said...

The Candidate said this !!!!!

"The reason why I didn’t go public was this. I knew the corruption that was going on in the courthouse and if I went there and said listen, this is what I’m seeing, I know that would have done to me."
Just what we need in the Courthouse another guy that is afraid to speak up for the taxpayers. This guy is clueless on the response to the interview and the needs of the taxpayers.

Terri-W-B said...

Look at all the people that rallied against the assessment. Where did it get them. This guy knew enough not to go to the same corrupt politicans and tell them what he was seeing and you call him clueless, afraid to speak up for the taxpayers. Like Bob said he lowered thousands of TAXPAYERS taxes in 4 months. What do you have to say for yourself. What he did spoke LOUDER than any commissioners has ever done for me. The fact that he was willing to put his two businesses aside to help the situation speaks about his leasdership in a time when we need the most.

Anonymous said...

Anon 7:08 - You are an absolute, total fool...a complete idiot. Love Bob, or hate Bob, you have a scary philosophy when it comes to service to our nation. How did we go from a nation of Founding Fathers who pledged their "life, fortune and sacred honor" to someone as self centered as you? Think about what you are saying and how shallow you are. You will not vote for a person who commits to working fulltime for the county because he doesn't demand enough money? You are a total fool and it is your type of self-centered philosophy that is tearing down America.

Anonymous said...

Anon 11:56 - Well said! He's most likely a Nanda guy. Did you notice the "they probably don't have a life" line? That is straight from the Nanda playbook. So let's see if I've got this right: if someone is willing to actually serve our nation by taking a position that pays 36k, you don't have a life and don't deserve a vote. Wow!

Anonymous said...

Hey 1156 & 1204 - I'm an idiot? call me whatever you want. I couldn't care less. This is 2009, not 1950. If you're still making 35K a year, your are the idiot. In fact, if you're not making at least 2X that by now, most likely your a fat lazy slob who hangs out at Walmart and bolwing allies. Nanda was absolutely right and shouldn't have apologized: People who still only make 36,000 a year do not have a life. I am voting for Nanda because he is the only one in the race with money. And he was also right when he pointed out that people with money are much less likely to be tempted by money than you poor Walmart Republicans. That only makes sense. So take that and eat it you lazy no life's.

Andropeter said...

Gort -
Thanks for a great interview. I've not heard anything about this guy. I look forward to the future interviews as well with the other candidates.
Question: are you sure he said (or meant to say) that one of his qualifications was that he was a business major in HIGH SCHOOL? I'm guessing he meant to say college, since you don't have a major in high school. Plus, I don't that most candidates would be putting their high school classes out there as a qualification for election. My guess is that he was a business major in college?

Anonymous said...

He never graduated with a 4-year degree. Gort got it right: Bob MAJORED in high school in business. That surely qualifies him, doesn't it?

He didn't speak up about corruption he knew about because he'd be replaced? WTF? Is that what we need? another spineless row officer?

Terri W-B said...

Andropeter,

I don't think you have much of a brain to understand that Bob was humoring us. That in high school they taught you this quote "It’s pretty easy, when your debits out weigh your credits you have a problem." I sure thought you would have been able to understand this. I would love to see any of you jackasses take the courage that this young man is willing to take. Sometimes money is not what modivates people like Bob. You all sit there blog these comments and don't have the courage to put your name next to your comments

Bill said...

Anonymous 8:46 sound alot like one of the candidates. Very angry becasue when Haggerty and Mesuer brought him to Casey they told him this would be an easy victory. This goes to show how selfesh he really is and his thoughts about people that have not been awarded mega bucks from lawsuits.

Anonymous said...

I like Bob, but I wish he had a better answer to the number of terms he'd serve - something like: The Courthouse is a mess and it will take time to clean up. My plan calls for having a complete review of procedures done within 6 months, new processes with checks and balances in place at the end of my first year. I will have the financial elements of the Courthouse running like a Swiss watch within two years. I plan on serving a second terms to be sure my improved processes will be ingrained and replace the current culture of corruption.

After 8 years of service to our community, I hope and expect the voters of NEPA will see what I've accomplished and support me if I decide to run for other political office or return to the public sector confident I've contributed to our community in a meaningful way.

Anonymous said...

Bob Sypniewski said:
"I’m the only candidate that has shown that I can work for the county, work for the taxpayers and then do my life second. I’m done it before, give me 4 years so I can prove it."
We see how you worked for the taxpayers by not speaking to the press about the corruption in the Assessors Office right? Looks like you were working for the County only for a paycheck just like the rest of the "do nothing" people in the courthouse. So if you lowered assessments for some of the people Bob and didnt speak about the corruption, does that mean you were just as bad as the people we hired to do the assessement? How did you get the appointment to the Assessement Board, should we check with Steve Urban, and also the fact that your father is a retired Wilkes-Barre Policeman? and you have no political ties? I think this interview was very enlightening.

Anonymous said...

This guy is a total coward and not very intelligent! If he was afraid to speak up, out of fear of being fired, well he could have gone to the FBI and I highly recommend he do it NOW while they are still investigating corruption here!
He also could have spoken up when the job ended in December (while there was still time to stop this
corrupted reassessment). No, not
even then did he speak up, after his $100 a day plus mileage job was over! He waited months more, when he was running for office and tried to capitalize on the situation, while he actually did NOTHING to help the taxpayers! We
have such deep and rampant corruption in our county because people sit by in silence. We need someone with some backbone.
And this blogger who thinks only
lower income people can be tempted by bribes and kickbacks ought to take a long hard look at the folks going down in this corruption scandal! Start with the Judges who earn $150,000 plus a year; the
Court Administrator @ $90,000 a year, and on and on. Look at the people taking and giving the bribes, as they are all very wealthy people; NOT low income people! Whoever wrote that is VERY naive! Look at the big shot bankers and the Wall Street bigwigs who have destroyed the economy--the wealthiest of the wealthiest in this country took it to the ground with their greed and
corruption. You have it all wrong!
This Bob guy disgusts me with his total BS, and that is all it is, BS! His lack of courage will make for yet another controller held under the gun by the higher up power mongers in this county (and most of them are not holding elected office, they are holding our elected officials in the palms of their hands!)

Terri W-B said...

Anonymous 12:05

Who said there was corruption in the Assessor's office? I did not read that in this interview. First let me start off by saying, you must me a candidate (Nanda or Walter) you question why he was asked to work on the board and not you. The both of you disgust me, you both try to get your name in the paper or on the news for personal satisfaction or political reasons. You are hitting some all time lows when you take a jab at the W-B Police Dept as being connected to the corruption. I happen to know bob and I know this, his father died 3 years ago and for either one you to make an insult like that speaks volumes about how you are as a person. Hide all you want under your anonymous blogging, this was really low.

for w-b police officer's son Jerry said...

When I saw the comments that asseserted that his dad a w-b policer was tied to or connected to this corrupt county,this was low. This is a slap in the face to the w-b police dept. My father was a police officer alongside Bob's dad. My father served 33 years and his dad served 40 years. To make a comment that w-b police are connected and corrupt!!! You did not know the police of that time. I want to share somethings with you about sypper's dad that you may not know because of your ignorance, his father was hired in 1957 as a partrolman and he retired in 1997 as a patrolman as did my dad. Never once taking on a increase in rank, he was one of the few to ever wear the #1 badge as a partolman, most are of a higher rank. Our dads retired in 1997 and his dad was not as lucky as my did was, his dad had a massive stroke that left him in a vegatable stage the rest of his life until he passed away 3 years ago. You are a coward and scum to make that kind of assesertaion. If you only knew his dad. One of his children finally stands up an runs for controller and one of his first insults is " His father is connected." That is sad. Syp I wish you the best of luck, I know the FOP Lodge 36 stands by the legacy that your dad left behind. He is truly missed. As for these comments, there is no place in politics for this.