Tony Brooks for Wilkes-Barre City Council

Tony Brooks had a great turnout for his campaign kickoff for the  W-B District B council seat at Le Manhattan Bistro on South Main St. last night.  He reports that the event pulled in almost $3700 which is some serious coin for a city council race. It was also the first event I ever went to were the waitstaff was circulating escargot with the other hors-d'oeuvres

This guy has created more excitement in a local race than I have seen in years but he has big hill to climb to overcome the Democratic registration advantage,but he can do it. In the primary
more Dems voted than Republicans 807 to 167 but in the last General Election in 2011 only 1254 people bothered to vote. If he can identify his voters and increase turnout he wins.

And why not? Like me he was born in the old Wyoming Valley Hospital on Dana St. and left for a few years but came back to place he was born and loves. Tony is a historian known for leading tours of Wilkes-Barre's treasures.

In his address to the crowd he threw out some ideas like residents are the key to the downtown. You need a 5-10 year plan to revitalize Wilkes- Barre not just wing it. We need more neighborhood associations and even look at making downtown into a retirement village where people can actually walk to things to meet their needs. We need walkable neighborhoods like Rick Williams recently proposed on county council  He made a strong point by saying don't move, Improve.   Like me he thinks the KOZ program has been a failure. He also addressed the Sherman Hills problem by pointing out that people won't go downtown because of all the problems but they still go to Wegman's which is closer to the notorious apartment complex. Being a Republican he ruled out a tax increase calling for expanding the tax base. Tony pointed out that many places don't have partisan elections for local offices and he not in this to trade votes for jobs. He then did a Q&A with the crowd and one person reminded us that there a lot of good people living in Sherman Hills.

He delighted in  pointing that the crowd not only included  Republicans but Democrats, Greens and even a Socialist from the soviet of Washington State and claimed that his primary opponents in both parties had endorsed him. 

I teased Shawn Walker of the WB Area School Board that the headline of this post would be Walker Endorses Brooks. He was fine with that saying he couldn't get any more popular with the other board members.

I also had a nice chat with Republican Mayor candidate  Frank Sorick who told me he hates asking people for money for a political campaign because people are taxed enough.

In local elections in the last 20 years I have voted for more Republicans than Democrats because there is no party way to plow the streets or pick up the trash. What matters is competence and integrity .Tony Brooks has both.

No post on local politics would not be complete without these 2 characters. Anchor baby on the left the fashion challenged  guy on the right.

Pictures on my FB page