Slogan versus reality

Words are funny things. You can say just about anything, but the hard part comes when the discerning listener asks if there are any facts to back up what he or she has just heard. So it was in the patch a couple days ago, when we tuned in to WMBS thinking the Pirates-Dodgers game would be on.

We instead were treated to a different kind of play-by-play, from incumbent Fayette County commissioners Vince Zapotosky and Vince Vicites. They were aided by some friendly home cooking by their own Fayette County Zoning Hearing board appointee (recently elevated to talk show host) Mark Rafail.

Listening to the Vinces, one would think that under their combined leadership, Fayette County has become the land of milk and honey. With absolutely no comparative statistical basis to support any of these contentions -- and Rafail wasn't going to try pinning them down, even if it wasn't paid airtime -- here are some things they said:

"We are moving in the right direction." -- Vicites.

"We're getting things done." -- Zapotosky.

"It's been a great three-and-a-half years ... The future of Fayette County is promising." -- Zapotosky.

"Leaders must be positive, not negative." -- Vicites.

And, of course, they proffered the usual pablum about taking the high road during the campaign and not making any derogatory comments. (We wonder when someone is going to call Bob Foltz, the deposed longtime host of "Let's Talk," to ask his opinion of those statements.) By the way, it's a little trick of the trade in Fayette County politics that you always use surrogates to do the real dirty work, so that as a candidate you can claim that you are above such things.

People who live in Fayette County should take a good, hard, objective look around.

Do you think we are "moving in the right direction," as claimed by Vicites, who has been the coxswain on this boat for 16 long years? In what category are we better off now than when Vicites first won election in 1995?

Do you think it has been "a great three-and-a-half years," and that "we're getting things done," as claimed by Zapotosky? The fact that he has been gainfully employed for the past three-and-a-half years may make it a great period for Zapotosky, but what about everyone else?

On Tuesday, Zapotosky said of his newfound alliance with Vicites, of whom he was sharply critical in the 2007 primary election, that as commissioner you must do a job "and work with whomever that may be." If that's true, perhaps someone should inform Zapotosky that Angela Zimmerlink, too, was elected as a county commissioner -- albeit as a Republican.

In the future, we challenge Vicites and Zapotosky -- and more importantly, the folks who have an opportunity to question them -- to back up their vague assertions with statistical facts. They should be able to tell us where Fayette County ranks in terms of job creation, average income, poverty rate, etc., and how that standing has improved since they took office.

Anyone who boldly proclaims that they are "getting things done" should be able to back it up, don't you think? Otherwise, the slogan doesn't match the reality.