Friday, October 26, 2007

Wilkes-Barre Council race

All the Wilkes-Barre City Council candidates were invited to a forum at Kings College but most of them took a pass. Even the Citizens Voice didn't show up. This was probably the only time before the election that all the candidates would share the same platform before the election. The TL has a recap of the positions of the people who actually lowered themselves to answer questions from the voters. They were:

Walter Griffith, Republican, District A

Vincent Guarneri, Republican, District B

Peter Gagliardi, Republican, District C

Linda Stets, Republican, District D

Michael Merritt, Democrat, District E

Missing in action:

Rick Cronauer, Democrat, District A

Tony Thomas Jr., Democrat,District B, INCUMBENT

Kathy Kane, Democrat, District C, INCUMBENT

Bill Barrett, Democrat, District D, INCUMBENT

Republican John Yencha, District E

Independent candidate Tony George, District B

Write-in candidate Sam Troy, District C.

Anybody see a pattern?

My friend David has his usual thorough coverage the event at The Lu Lac Political Letter. He covers the issues, the atmosphere and even a fashion report.

Wilkes-Barre political websites:

Mayor Tom Leighton

Mayoral candidate and District D Council candidate Linda Stets

District A candidate Walter Griffith

The 6th District Republican Committee covers W-B candidates and other races

Wilkes-Barre Can Survive! is pushing Republicans in the city and county

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh my goodness, if we are gonna build a new prison, they should build one extra-big cell and put Commissioner Skrepenak in it.

Raise the price of Twinkies at the commissary; he will pay off the bond note for that prison by himself in a week! Just one rule, and that is that his daddy will have to put money in his commissary account - no more debit cards for free lunches.

How's that for a sound public policy?!

Anonymous said...

Dave,
The Meet the Candidate Night was great. I think the ones that didnt show for the forum are speaking as loud as possible that they do not care about the taxpayers or the City they represent. Rick Cronauer is afraid of Walter Griffith and the taxpayers and the rest of the incumbents feel they are a shoe in for election. I sure hope the taxpayers do what is right and vote the whole bunch out of office and show them that the taxpayers are the boss and demand the respect that they wont give them by their lack of concern for them as well as the thumbing of their noses at the forums for the electorate to be informed and knowledgable.

Anonymous said...

anyone who did not show up is an enemy of king's College and an Enemy of mine, it wierd that the only D to show up is in the disitrict that was not represented by an R. Also I think King's is in Disitirct E, if I was still there I would own that district

Danny Bauder said...

Gort

I attended the forum and will have a post on it shortly.

While it's very interesting to not that the incumbent members of council failed to attend, their opponents did a fine job of explaining why they should be re-elected. Between the name calling and gloomy tone of their diatribes, I don't see how anyone could support them. What a shame. Government - especially local - needs a constant flow of ideas and our elected officials need to be challenged in elections. The slate of candidates at King's was a joke.