During the May 15 meeting where Fayette County Commissioners Al Ambrosini and Vince Zapotosky hired a new chief clerk and public works director, we are told by some folks who were in attendance that something very interesting was said.
Ambrosini and Zapotosky came under fire from citizens -- primarily Jerrie Mazza, Michael Cavanagh and Evelyn Hovanec -- for the hires of HeraldStandard.com reporter Amy Revak for $32,740 as chief clerk and Connellsville Township supervisor Robert Carson as public works director at $40,331 (or $41,000-something, depending on who spins the salary wheel today).
In the face of blistering criticism over one or both of these hires, our sources say that Ambrosini said something to the effect that he and Zapotosky shouldn't be judged just on these two moves. Rather, we're told, Ambrosini intimated -- or said outright -- that he and Zapotosky have a plan on where they want to take the county.
We are paraphrasing here, of course, but the gist of it is Ambrosini reportedly attempted to diffuse the situation by saying that there are more moves to be made, and that people should reserve judgment until all the pieces of the plan are put in place.
Surprisingly, no news reporters have chosen to follow up on this theme. But it is well worth pursuing. If there is a plan, shouldn't Ambrosini and Zapotosky, now armed with media expert Revak, be able to adequately convey it to the public? Doesn't the public of Fayette County, hungry enough for change to dump former Democratic Commissioner Vincent A. Vicites in favor of Ambrosini, deserve to know where Ambrosini and Zapotosky plan to steer this ship for the next three years?
Maybe they intend to use the extra $4 million from this year's 28-percent county real estate tax hike to do something wonderful and bold. But if that's the case, shouldn't they be telling us how? Shouldn't the public be clamoring to know the plan?
Surely for this plan to work, it must involve more than dumping Joseph E. Ferens Jr. as county chief solicitor, naming Westmoreland County attoney Kenneth Burkley as the "interim" solicitor for three to six months, at $4,000 per month. (And there are skeptics who think it is just a matter of time before Burkley is named to the post permanently.)
For the plan to be effective, it must have a better strategy than advertising for a new county clerk using a job description heavy on business and accounting skills, then hiring someone because of their supposed general knowledge of county government and media relations skills.
Does this plan to transform Fayette County include more than hiring a business manager for the Fayette County Prison -- and will that job, too, end up going to someone based on a skill set tthat morphs into something the average person wouldn't ascertain from the advertised job description?
Is granting a three-year contract, at $122,400 a year, to Greensburg's Felice Associates for human resources services -- and then watching the ever-changing starting salaries for the new chief clerk and public works director look like a carnival game of spin-the-wheel -- part of the plan?
We have heard mention elsewhere, in defense of Ambrosini and Zapotosky, that part of the plan is to direct some of this year's extra tax revenue -- a sum that Commissioner Angela Zimmerlink said was twice what was needed to be raised -- as local match toward water and sewerage projects in the county, so it can grow and prosper.
If this is part of the plan, Ambrosini and Zapotosky sure haven't done a good job telling everyone about it. That shouldn't be a problem now, with Revak at their side. If they are searching for a way to say, "We intend to roll out an ambitious $2 million water-and-sewerage grant or loan program using county funds," she can surely write up a press release that says, "We intend to roll out an ambitious $2 million water-and-sewerage grant or loan program using county funds."
We have even heard rumors of a new Fayette County Prison being built. But that would definitely eat up any county budget surplus, and then some, and would require another increase in county property taxes. Is this or is it not part of the overall plan?
At the next commissioners' meeting, the people of Fayette County and the press should follow up on Ambrosini's comments. They can't judge whether it is a good or bad plan, or whether they should or should not support it, until they know the details on what it is.
Showing posts with label Fayette County PA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fayette County PA. Show all posts
Friday, May 25, 2012
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Lally not lollygagging
Here in the patch, we don't know the meaning of life, or even why the Pittsburgh Penguins got bounced from the NHL playoffs by the Philadelphia Flyers. But we do know that if you are sick, you should listen to the doctor, and that the sudden clunking sound from your car's transmission is best diagnosed by a good mechanic.
So we took great interest when Fayette County controller Sean Lally threw a big monkey wrench into the plan of Fayette County commissioners Vince Zapotosky and Al Ambrosini to give a $2,600 pay raise to the new county chief clerk-in-waiting before she even works one day on the job.
The job is already on the books with a $32,064 starting salary, but it doesn't take a genius to figure out that Zapotosky and Ambrosini, who voted April 17 to hire Herald-Standard.com reporter Amy Revak for the job, would like to throw some extra cash her way before she accepts the position.
Revak, you will recall, has absolutely zero experience in accounting or finance, which are key skills for anyone who would be expected to help devise and manage the county's multi-million-dollar budget.
Zapotosky and Ambrosini may be willing to gloss over the big gaps in Revak's resume when it comes to the job they wish to put her in. But Lally, who knows a thing or three about accouting and budgets, clearly isn't afraid to point them out, as he did in Wednesday's Tribune-Review story, "Fayette OKs public works post, unofficially":
http://triblive.com/news/fayette/1163924-74/salary-meeting-revak-board-ambrosini-commissioners-position-zapotosky-zimmerlink-accounting
Lally wanted to keep the starting salary at $32,064 because Revak, who has a bachelor's degree in English, lacks accounting education and experience. He said the $34,600 figure is slightly less than the salary of an employee in his office who has four years' experience and a degree in accounting.
Lally said his employee, who would provide Revak with the figures needed to prepare the budget, would then be "making a whopping $1,300 a year more, with four years' experience and a four-year degree in accounting.
Every resident of Fayette County should read those two paragraphs very closely. Then they should ask themselves two questions:
1. Why would Zaptosky and Ambrosini want to hire someone to manage the county budget if that person lacks accounting education and experience?
2. Why would a chief clerk with no accounting background (who would basically serve as a fiscal figurehead) deserve $2,600 more if an employee already working in the conroller's office is simply going to provide all the figures needed to prepare the budget?
That raise didn't happen at this week's salary board meeting, because Lally wouldn't play ball.
But there is another paragraph in the Trib story that should also be digested by all residents:
(Commissioner Angela) Zimmerlink said that leaves commissioners with two ways to set Revak's salary - via a memo signed by at least two commissioners and then ratified during a commissioners' meeting, she said, or by waiting until the next commissioners' meeting in May to allow all three commissioners to vote on it before it is approved.
Either of those moves would appear, on face value, to remove controller Lally from the equation. These two methods would let Zapotosky and Ambrosini outvote (or out-sign) only Zimmerlink.
Does anyone besides us get the gnawing feeling that all those election-time promises about "running the county like a business" are starting to ring very, very hollow?
So we took great interest when Fayette County controller Sean Lally threw a big monkey wrench into the plan of Fayette County commissioners Vince Zapotosky and Al Ambrosini to give a $2,600 pay raise to the new county chief clerk-in-waiting before she even works one day on the job.
The job is already on the books with a $32,064 starting salary, but it doesn't take a genius to figure out that Zapotosky and Ambrosini, who voted April 17 to hire Herald-Standard.com reporter Amy Revak for the job, would like to throw some extra cash her way before she accepts the position.
Revak, you will recall, has absolutely zero experience in accounting or finance, which are key skills for anyone who would be expected to help devise and manage the county's multi-million-dollar budget.
Zapotosky and Ambrosini may be willing to gloss over the big gaps in Revak's resume when it comes to the job they wish to put her in. But Lally, who knows a thing or three about accouting and budgets, clearly isn't afraid to point them out, as he did in Wednesday's Tribune-Review story, "Fayette OKs public works post, unofficially":
http://triblive.com/news/fayette/1163924-74/salary-meeting-revak-board-ambrosini-commissioners-position-zapotosky-zimmerlink-accounting
Lally wanted to keep the starting salary at $32,064 because Revak, who has a bachelor's degree in English, lacks accounting education and experience. He said the $34,600 figure is slightly less than the salary of an employee in his office who has four years' experience and a degree in accounting.
Lally said his employee, who would provide Revak with the figures needed to prepare the budget, would then be "making a whopping $1,300 a year more, with four years' experience and a four-year degree in accounting.
Every resident of Fayette County should read those two paragraphs very closely. Then they should ask themselves two questions:
1. Why would Zaptosky and Ambrosini want to hire someone to manage the county budget if that person lacks accounting education and experience?
2. Why would a chief clerk with no accounting background (who would basically serve as a fiscal figurehead) deserve $2,600 more if an employee already working in the conroller's office is simply going to provide all the figures needed to prepare the budget?
That raise didn't happen at this week's salary board meeting, because Lally wouldn't play ball.
But there is another paragraph in the Trib story that should also be digested by all residents:
(Commissioner Angela) Zimmerlink said that leaves commissioners with two ways to set Revak's salary - via a memo signed by at least two commissioners and then ratified during a commissioners' meeting, she said, or by waiting until the next commissioners' meeting in May to allow all three commissioners to vote on it before it is approved.
Either of those moves would appear, on face value, to remove controller Lally from the equation. These two methods would let Zapotosky and Ambrosini outvote (or out-sign) only Zimmerlink.
Does anyone besides us get the gnawing feeling that all those election-time promises about "running the county like a business" are starting to ring very, very hollow?
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Different Vince, same result
Fayette County voters may have dispensed with long-time incumbent county commissioner Vince Vicites on Tuesday, in favor of newcomer Al Ambrosini, but the Vicites tradition is likely to live on in the person of Vince Zapotosky.
It was a three-man primary with two winners, so it was a foregone conclusion that unless voters fell for the "getting things done" slogan, one of the Vicites-Zapotosky tandem was going to wave bye-bye to elected office.
Anyone hoping for a compete U-turn from the past is unlikely to see it if Zapotosky wins a spot in the fall. Part of the reason that Zapotosky and Vicites were able to forge such a close bond is that they are so much alike, especially when it comes to political governance and opportunism.
Take a trip down memory lane to the last county commissioner election, in 2007. Zapotosky had no qualms about forging a "team" with former commissioner Sean Cavanagh, who had been Vicites' arch-nemesis for the eight years they simultaneously served in office. Zapotosky said some pretty nasty things about Vicites, but when the dust settled, and after Zapotosky had won election using a pile of Cavanagh's campaign cash, a strange thing happened.
Zapotosky and Vicites became pals and allies. Here in the patch, we play by a different set of rules. Someone says something nasty about you, you don't forget or tolerate that. You sure don't consider that person a friend.
So why would Zapotosky, the trasher, want to be friends with Vicites, a guy that he obviously had a low opinion of? And why would Vicites, the trashee, even want to be friends with Zapotosky, who had bad-mouthed Vicites and just been allies with Vicites' top political foe, Cavanagh? The answer goes back to our theory that they easily could do so because they are so much alike.
They both make decisions based on their own political well-being and influence (cross reference their board appointees and campaign contributors, and you'll see what we mean). They both take credit for work done by someone else (state and federal legislators really provide the money for nearly all projects). They both have no problem in using others to accomplish their goals, then unceremoniously casting them aside (Cavanagh and one-time Vicites strategist Martin Griglak immediately come to mind).
Their philosophical kinship is perhaps best evident in the fact that they are both products of old-school Fayette County Democratic machine politics. In real-life political science, they have attended the same classes, shared instructors and graduated with the same degree. As a result, they approach elected office with the same world view, a view that has unfortunately governed Fayette County for at least the past 40 years.
Now that Vicites is leaving power, watch the bulk of his supporters and campaign contributors gravitate to Zapotosky, even though there was noticeable overlap already. Expect some of them to reach out to Ambrosini, as well, in hopes of influencing him to make decisions in their best interest. We'll be watching to see if Ambrosini takes that bait, but we're hopeful he won't.
If Fayette County is ever going to move ahead, for all its citizens and not just a few, it needs to move away from the type of politics that Zapotosky represents.
It was a three-man primary with two winners, so it was a foregone conclusion that unless voters fell for the "getting things done" slogan, one of the Vicites-Zapotosky tandem was going to wave bye-bye to elected office.
Anyone hoping for a compete U-turn from the past is unlikely to see it if Zapotosky wins a spot in the fall. Part of the reason that Zapotosky and Vicites were able to forge such a close bond is that they are so much alike, especially when it comes to political governance and opportunism.
Take a trip down memory lane to the last county commissioner election, in 2007. Zapotosky had no qualms about forging a "team" with former commissioner Sean Cavanagh, who had been Vicites' arch-nemesis for the eight years they simultaneously served in office. Zapotosky said some pretty nasty things about Vicites, but when the dust settled, and after Zapotosky had won election using a pile of Cavanagh's campaign cash, a strange thing happened.
Zapotosky and Vicites became pals and allies. Here in the patch, we play by a different set of rules. Someone says something nasty about you, you don't forget or tolerate that. You sure don't consider that person a friend.
So why would Zapotosky, the trasher, want to be friends with Vicites, a guy that he obviously had a low opinion of? And why would Vicites, the trashee, even want to be friends with Zapotosky, who had bad-mouthed Vicites and just been allies with Vicites' top political foe, Cavanagh? The answer goes back to our theory that they easily could do so because they are so much alike.
They both make decisions based on their own political well-being and influence (cross reference their board appointees and campaign contributors, and you'll see what we mean). They both take credit for work done by someone else (state and federal legislators really provide the money for nearly all projects). They both have no problem in using others to accomplish their goals, then unceremoniously casting them aside (Cavanagh and one-time Vicites strategist Martin Griglak immediately come to mind).
Their philosophical kinship is perhaps best evident in the fact that they are both products of old-school Fayette County Democratic machine politics. In real-life political science, they have attended the same classes, shared instructors and graduated with the same degree. As a result, they approach elected office with the same world view, a view that has unfortunately governed Fayette County for at least the past 40 years.
Now that Vicites is leaving power, watch the bulk of his supporters and campaign contributors gravitate to Zapotosky, even though there was noticeable overlap already. Expect some of them to reach out to Ambrosini, as well, in hopes of influencing him to make decisions in their best interest. We'll be watching to see if Ambrosini takes that bait, but we're hopeful he won't.
If Fayette County is ever going to move ahead, for all its citizens and not just a few, it needs to move away from the type of politics that Zapotosky represents.
Thursday, May 12, 2011
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.
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.
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