Liberal Unfriendly Place: Allentown, PA

...and another comment...

Yes, having lived in Lehigh County all of my 24 years so far, I can say Allentown is liberal-unfriendly and increasingly so in the last five years. Republican Mayor Bill Heydt comes from the West End, where all of the city's people with money that haven't fled to the suburbs live. He cared more about getting X-mas lights in the Lehigh Parkway than keeping business downtown. Our two downtown department stores, Leh's and Hess's (briefly the Bon-Ton), shut down during his reign, but can we blame him? A sinkhole swallowed Corporate Plaza downtown and Heydt got to work courting a New Jersey developer to build another bigger and better office building. A few months later, the developer backed out due to lack of prospective tenants. Heydt made no further efforts to get anyone else to do the project!

The Morning Call, the city's only paper, routinely prints racist letters to the editor about Hispanics moving in from Philadelphia and New York and causing a crime wave in the center city area. Emma Tropiano, a racist councilwoman, has run three times for mayor. She is a registered Democrat (an insult to the party) and, the first two times, ran as an independent. The second time was Heydt's first victory, possible only because Tropiano split the Democratic vote. Without her, Democrat Jack Pressman would have won. She is a traitor and the Republicans' secret weapon.

In the 1995 election, Heydt ran for re-election. Tropiano this time ran for the Democratic nomination. The powers-that-be purposefully placed Tropiano and Martin Velazquez within a few votes of each other. Velazquez won the recount, but having been discredited of a clear victory, lost to Heydt. I didn't even expect Tropiano to come close in the primary, for crying out loud! She was trounced this year in the state representative primary. There had to have been election fraud last May!

This year, our Democratic congressman, Paul McHale, bucked the party leadership by backing Clinton's impeachment. He was not running for re-election after three years of good service, so he was free to say and vote whatever he wanted on the matter. Pat Toomey, the owner of two major Allentown nightspots, won the Republican nomination and used his own money to outspend State Senator Roy Afflerbach 2-to-1 and win. He had won the nominations of both the Morning Call and Northampton County's Express-Times. Word has it that blacks are denied entry to Toomey's Boca Joe's/Rockin' Robin's complex prior to 11 PM, but I cannot verify this.

This area has received bad press from the Freeman brothers of Salisbury Township, who were skinheads, killing their parents and from Mark Thomas of Longswamp Township, the Pennsylvania Aryan Nations leader, plotting a bank-robbery conspiracy for money to overthrow "ZOG" (the Zionist-Occupied Government.) Most Lehigh Valley residents detest extremist groups, though racism persists among some people. The Morning Call prints articles favoring racial harmony, but at the same time prints racist letters to the editor.

The Lehigh Valley is the largest market in the nation without major network stations of its own. Our only hometown stations are a PBS affiliate and two independent stations. One of those independent stations, WFMZ-69, broadcasts the only local news for this area. The remaining programming is all either old shows or rightist religious ra-ra. Who needs more religion on local TV when the other independent station, WBPH-60, is an all-religious station? No wonder our local stations are underwatched and people tune in to channels from Philadelphia and Wilkes-Barre/Scranton.

The Democratic Party of Lehigh County is in shambles. The leadership of Glenn Moyer was terrible and he finally resigned. The Republican machine of Lehigh County has a free hand in determining local policy. Our county executive, Jane Baker, implemented a policy billing county jail inmates $10 a day, and bragged about it on re-election fliers like it was good! That really makes sense, punishing people for being punished. Where do you think they would get the money when they can't get jobs to pay their debts off, which is likely due to their criminal records? They'll steal and/or deal drugs! Talk about a counter-productive policy!

Occasionally there are rays of hope here. In an Allentown state rep election, Democrat Jennifer Mann upset former county executive Dave Bausch. I was glad to see Bausch lose, since in his four terms as executive, he did not do didley for us, and wondered why the Lehigh Valley was not pulling its fair shair of grant money! Unfortunately, the usual rule is that good ideas are quite slow to be acepted by the powers-that-be here, if they are not rejected. The only rapid changes here are generally negative. There are people that care, and you will find some at the LEPOCO Peace Center, 313 W. 4th Street, Bethlehem.