Friday, May 22, 2009

I'll take my ball and go home

Pittston Mayor Joe Keating quit after he lost the primary election to newcomer Jason Klush. Keating claimed his surprise resignation was not about " sour grapes"

but said "I can not be effective in that short time period … However, the voters have seen they do not like the direction in which Pittston City has taken.”

He was hired to a job until January 2010 and instead of throwing a shit fit because he lost the election Keating should do it.


PittstonPolitics.com has the lowdown


A Northwest Area School Board member did something similar.


2 comments:

POPE GEORGE RINGO said...

It's nice to see turnover as far as Pittston's mayoral office is concerned. For years the office was held by one man, Bob Loftus, who served from 1962 to the early 80's. He resigned amid scandal, and his protege Tom Walsh took over. Walsh was ultimately defeated by another young upstart, Mike Lombardo who served two terms. Keating's sour grapes is probably due to the fact that this is the second time he has been ousted from employment by the voters; previously he lost his appointed position as a district magistrate in 1991 to another young newcomer, Fred Pierentoni. Keating's not a bad guy, but he most certainly sacrificed class for pride this time around. ON the trivial side, as far as I know there has never been a mayor of Pittston who was neither Irish of Italian. The interim Mayor, Ms. Connors keeps that tradition; I do no know from where Mr. Klush's ancestors are from, but the name does not come off as Irish or Italian, which is refreshing.

D.B. Echo said...

The situation with the Northwest school board member (who, full disclosure, is a relative) is not exactly the same.

She was never really elected to that post; she was selected to fill a vacancy after a previous unsuccessful run. While, as her letter to the editor and the CV article both point out, she has accomplished a lot in her time on the school board - spearheading anti-bullying programs and library reform, both in the face of stiff opposition from other members of the school board and vocal members of the Northwest community - she has found herself constantly hamstrung by the politics inherent in the school board and the district. In the end the election results made it clear that a majority of the voters weren't interested in what she was doing, and the other eight members of the board would be free to ignore her dissenting voice for the remainder of her term. So there was really no point in continuing to invest her time and effort into a few frustrating and irrelevant months of seat-warming. The voters in Northwest have made their decision, and now there's no reason to postpone its implementation. I guess the other members of the board are now free to appoint some other like-minded person.

Hope the voters in Northwest know the numbers of some good babysitters, tutors, and therapists...they'll be needing them.