I am looking at the flyers I received from the Glenn Reibman campaign in the first week of November, the last days of his campaign for County Executive. They show his opponent, Ron Angle, peering out from behind bars, with money flowing into his pockets, and characterize him as a con man and thief. I suggest that the genesis of these ads were a phenomenon we call projection, in which the accuser projects his characteristics on his adversary. For those ads are, in reality, a perfect description of the Reibman administration. The indictment of Michael Solomon for fraud shows a man who was so sure of his ability to rip off the government from within the Reibman administration that he was making deals with insurers BEFORE Reibman took office. Solomon was able to skim money from every level of County insurance, including Gracedale, employee health coverage, and the prison. His dealings from the Executive office of our County government detail a pattern of corruption so profound that it is almost inconceivable that Reibman himself was unaware of this behavior.

The key word is almost. I was a candidate for County Council this year, and observed Mr. Reibman in action through the campaign. This is a man who had to huddle with his aides Mr.’s Hickey and Dominach, before he could answer questions about minority hiring at the NAACP candidate’s night. He repeatedly claimed his greatest achievement was the installation of new elevators at Gracedale. He is totally dependent on his staff for any cogent statements and routinely relies on Hickey and Dominach for answers to questions raised by Council at County Council meetings. In other words, as a politician, he’s a good weight trainer. It would not surprise me if Solomon were able to totally delude Reibman, but does that change the venality and corruption of the administration? I say NO.

There were two key issues in this campaign. The first is The Bond. This was the brainchild of the recently indicted wunderkind Solomon, whose eyes were gleaming at the prospect of over $110,000,000 of contracts from which to skim kickbacks. Obediently, Glenn Reibman, the Democrat for County Executive, has engineered the passage of this bond issue, first with the 2000 $110,000,000 bond issue which was rejected by the DCED due to lack of preparation by Council. Reibman then presented Council with a similar but not identical 2001 $111,000,000 bond issue, which was again passed with minor changes, albeit with an elongated series of public hearings. The incumbent Council, all Democrats, had therefore endorsed a controversial measure, proposed by a master of fraud, which would expand the Courthouse, initiate a $22 million installment on a prison expansion slated to cost from seventy to eighty million dollars, provide industrial and commercial development grants to Bethlehem Steel, the State Theater, development real estate owned by Charles Chrin, Nolan Perin, Charles Horwith, and Lehigh Valley Industrial Park. The bond also provided money to improve and expand County parks, and a paltry three million dollars to farmland preservation. The bonds have been held up by lawsuits (to which I am a party) spearheaded by Bernie O’Hare, which have raised profound constitutional and ethical issues related to the ability of the County to give public money to private enterprise. As a candidate and a citizen, I agree with Bernie and my co-plaintiffs that it is not appropriate for our government to directly grant such monies to corporations. Especially not in the circumstances we are now facing, with an administration besieged with fraud and indictment. There are many ways to encourage development short of massive direct grants - tax breaks and low interest loans are already available. These direct grants are a form of legal corruption, as I have stated in the past. They should all be re-examined in the light of the behavior of the administration which has proposed them. Reibman friends and supporters should all be excluded from received such feedings at the public trough. To include such important measures as prison expansion with the trivial State Theater and corrupt industrial development grants does not do service to the planning process. The courthouse expansion and prison project deserve separate consideration and a total review of all processes in their administration.

The other issue which was brought to all the candidates by the voters and citizens, was the need for green initiatives. The candidates are aware that farmland and open space preservation are very important to the local citizenry. Uniformly, the candidates supported open space initiatives. All the candidates supported on some level the need for preserving the local quality of life through better planning and direct purchase of development rights and farmland. In Lower Nazareth Township, Green Party candidate Steve Keppel obtained over 30% of the vote, and moved the debate in the Township toward a green approach to planning and zoning. It remains to be seen how well the new County Council will pursue the desire of the people for some protection against untrammeled development.

Incumbent Democrat County Executive Glenn Reibman defeated Republican Ron Angle by a 2200 vote margin, aided by the last week negative ad campaign blitz. Glenn did not run on his record. As a participant with all the County candidates in numerous candidates’ forums, I heard Mr. Reibman claim as his greatest achievement the elevators installed in Gracedale. Other nights, he would be huddled with the true “minds” of the administration, Mr.’s Hickey and Dominach, as they pondered the answer to an audience question. Mr. Reibman is not noted for the depth of his political thinking, and anyone who took the time to see the candidates in action would pick this up very quickly. Mr. Angle made the mistake of engaging his opponent on a visceral level too often, instead of presenting a relentless positive program. By harping on the obvious corruption of the Reibman administration, Angle failed to combat his greatest obstacle, which is that he had huge negatives among many voting sectors, especially women and Democrats. As we Greens campaigned through the summer and fall, we encountered many people who would have loved to vote for anyone but Reibman, but could not countenance a vote for Angle. This was due partly to a lack of willingness by voters to really find out about the candidates, and partly to Angle’s gadfly history during which he has not hesitated to challenge one and all, and often in less than elegant fashion. Also, Angle’s steadfast opposition to the bond issues placed him at odds with the corporate interests of the Valley, and he therefore had opposition from the wealthy establishment Republican who preferred the Reibman money trough to Angle’s populist bullmoose Republicanism. Also, Reibman received endorsements by both the Express and Call (weak though they were - they acknowledged corruption in the Reibman camp, but had to tilt against the anti-corporate candidate). The editorial support of the local press for Reibman had a telling effect on an under-informed electorate, I believe. Rather than identify the Reibman administration as hopelessly corrupt, inept and dedicated to self-enrichment, the Express-Times and Morning Call joined the corporate interests who are gathering at the money hose Reibman proposes to direct at his supporters.

The Council was a different story. The Democrats were dumped from office. For the first time, the Republicans have a majority on the Council. The only Democrat to win, Wayne Grube, is a perennial favorite of the voters because of his years as an Easton High School football coach. He struggled to answer a question at the Nazareth/Slate Belt Chamber of Commerce about the last time he opposed an administration idea, and will not be a factor on the new Council. The Republican candidates who won, Mary Ensslin, Nick Sabatine, Tim Merwarth, and Peg Ferraro will be able to challenge the Reibman non-program with Michael Dowd and Ron Angle, who remain on Council as District Representatives. (I obtained about 7% of the vote on the Green Party ticket, which is 30 times the number of registered Greens, but about 17,000 votes short of victory. In other words, I won’t give up my day job for a life in Green politics.)

In order for Reibman to get his pot of money into the hands of the County and the General Purpose Authority (and onward to his buddies), he will have to issue the bonds before this new Council takes office. The administration, through ur-Executive Jim Hickey, has stated that it will pay a $500,000 insurance fee in order to pass the bond while appeals of its legality are pending. This would be an outrage and a waste of a large chunk of taxpayer money. It seems to me that the old Council would have to approve such an action, that there should be a public discussion before such an action could be taken. I do not believe there is public support for this conglomeration of pork barrel projects. If Reibman is allowed to issue these bonds before the new Council can act, the Council will be dragged into the Reibman plan and its lack of vision. They will not be able to shape the prison project, adequately review the courthouse, or provide for more farmland preservation monies. I believe that the voters rejected the Council which supported these bonds and want a Council which will provide oversight to these wild-eyed, profligate, administration spending sprees.

The bulk of this campaign took place after September 11. The ramifications of this disaster had not penetrated the local political process during the campaign. The fact that local governments will have to allow for more money for security, for preparedness, to compensate for the new realities of a nation at war was not a main source of debate. Certainly, the Reibman administration presented no ideas for meeting this new challenge and Angle’s persistent questioning of the County’s preparedness made no impact on the campaign. The Council donated $10,000 to relief efforts. In general, there was a shallow approach to this historic moment. For example, during the campaign, the Council passed a Ron Angle ordinance mandating a prayer before Council meetings, so that presumably we will all have the support of the Almighty in the event of any emergencies. Beyond that, don’t depend on County government for safety.

There was a lot of stake in this election, there is a lot at stake in the actions of the new Council. There is no hope for change in the actions of the Reibman administration, which should be curtailed. As a Green, I hope for more and more voter and citizen participation in the process of elections, the process of government. It is only in the silence, the numbness, the lack of a motivated citizenry that the theft and corruption of government can continue. Recognize that if all you do is vote, you are not doing enough, and if you neither vote nor take an active interest in your government and society, you are complicit with the worst crimes committed in your name.

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