Four more years?

The patch was set abuzz with laughter the other day when, upon reading the Herald-Standard’s coverage of a “United for Workers” rally, the following comment from Fayette County Commissioner Vincent A. Vicites actually appeared in print:

With Fayette County ready to "explode with growth in the next decade," Vicites said that it's imperative to ensure that companies hire union workers.

That’s the perfect feel-good prediction for Vicites to foist on the memory-challenged electorate, particularly since nothing even close to that has happened during his first decade-and-a-half as a county commissioner.
Vicites first won election in 1995 and took office in 1996. He has mouthed those same “prosperity is around-the-corner” words in five election cycles now. If Fayette County hasn’t “exploded with growth” in his first 16 years in office, what makes anyone think something would change by giving him four more?
Here is the truth of what has happened during the Vicites era: In the 2000 census, Fayette County’s population dipped below 145,000, a severe enough slip that by law it should have changed from a fourth-class to a fifth-class county. His solution to this dilemma? Get state Sen. Richard A. Kasunic to change the law, so Fayette could remain a fourth-class county even with a fifth-class county population.
In the 2010 census, the population slipped even more. With Vicites, his policies and his cronies in office for the entire decade, Fayette lost another 8.2 percent of its population. It was the third-highest percentage loss among Pennsylvania’s 67 counties -- and the worst in western Pennsylvania.
Everyone in the patch knows that Thursday’s rally had nothing to do with preserving the jobs of union workers or the sanctity of the union movement. They also know it had everything to do with helping grease the re-election skids of Vicites and his nominal running mate, first-termer Vincent “Let’s All Work Together So I Won’t Have To” Zapotosky.
It isn’t surprising that the Herald-Standard gave full throttle coverage to this thinly masked campaign event. Remember, Vicites and Zapotosky are their financial benefactors by virtue of agreeing to help steer $50,000 in county tourism funds to Fayette TV, the station formerly known as HSTV. (Just what is going on with that “tourism” channel, anyway?)
If Vicites truly believes that “it's imperative to ensure that companies hire union workers,” perhaps he should be reminded that the Herald-Standard is one of the biggest non-union employers in his ever-dwindling county.