Health & Fitness
It's Easy With Material Like This
Thursday night's Upper Macungie Supervisors meeting was a perfect example of someone protecting their own interests.
A problem most people face when starting a new blog is figuring out what to write. When Upper Macungie Patch editor Tom De Martini mentioned the idea of blogging about my election campaign, I knew that wouldn't be a problem, at least not after Supervisor Kathy Rader's performance at Thursday night's Board of Supervisors meeting.
In a news release posted on Patch Thursday morning I urged voters to reject the 'business as usual' politics of the past and to help me send a message in the primary election. Thursday night Mrs. Rader aptly demonstrated my point. She placed an item on the agenda which would form a committee to hire a replacement for retiring Community Development Director (CDD) Bruce Wlazelek. Mrs. Rader, who's daytime job is Assistant Community Development Director for the township, proposed herself as a member of that committee. There are so many things wrong with this whole idea that we'll need to number them.
1. Why the rush to hire Mr Wlazelek's replacement? Mrs. Rader's plan would have the township paying for two CDD's and an Assistant CDD for at least three months at a time when we probably don't even need one. Which brings us to...
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2. The state of the economy in 2011 is such that UMT might not even need a full-time CDD. One thing the Supervisors did seem to agree on Thursday night was that Mr. Wlazelek's responsibilities have changed drastically over the last several years and a lot of his duties are being handled by others in the township. Mrs. Rader even said that one of Mr. Wlazelek's most recent duties had been 'like a township manager', seeking compromize and solutions among the supervisors. This revelation seemed to come as a complete surprise to many in attendance, including the other supervisors.
3. Here's where we get to the conflict of interest: Mrs. Rader wants to be on the committee to hire her future boss in Community Development. This is one of the things Mrs. Rader the Supervisor has gotten very good at, protecting the interests of Mrs. Rader the Assistant Community Development Director. I'm sure we'd all like to have a job where we get to hire our supervisor, but I'm not sure that's in the best interests of Upper Macungie Township.
Find out what's happening in Upper Macungiewith free, real-time updates from Patch.
Chairman of the Board Ed Earley effectively tabled the discussion on this issue until the May meeting. It will be interesting to see what Mrs. Rader's next move is. If she gets her way the new CDD will be very lucky to have Mrs. Rader as both boss and assistant. As we will see, she's very good at protecting the man in the middle.