Posted: Wednesday, 11 November 2009 11:26AM
Welcome To The Doherty Zone
Steve Corbett Reporting
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
On a glorious day when yet another son of Scranton unleashed his official bid for the Pennsylvania Governor’s Mansion, Mayor Chris Doherty showed voters across the state exactly what he’s made of.
Doherty publicly, wantonly and blatantly abused his power.
At the height of the downtown noon-time lunch hour, in a city already gridlocked with cranes and trucks involved in a number of dubious construction projects, the newly re-elected mayor closed an entire block to traffic so he could announce his plan to lead the people of the Commonwealth.
Oh, he led us all right.
He led us to a detour.
Doherty ordered four city lanes normally jammed with vehicles to be blocked like frontier border crossings and manned by armed government agents in a reckless nation pondering democracy for the first time. In a way, though, Scranton is very much like a tiny wild nation yearning to be free.
Two city police cars with flashing lights prevented drivers from entering the Doherty Zone.
At least four uniformed city police officers stood guard, removed by their preppy boss from pressing duties elsewhere in this hard city that state officials have officially labeled “distressed.”
Doherty set up a stage inside a teeny-tiny park at a new retail development that is not finished and has no tenants. Then he smiled his aging boyish smile and kicked off his self-absorbed pep rally that inconvenienced the people he is well-paid to serve, in the process ignoring blaring car horns and at least one yell of “open the street” from taxpayers forced into a long detour around the ammunition plant to get back to their rightful place in the Electric City.
Sitting at the red light at the top of the hill by the Coney Island Texas wiener shop that’s newly re-opened after a fire and a chili sauce spraying contest with the mayor, I yelled out the window to a cop manning the barricade.
“When’s the street going to open?”
“When he’s done,” the cop said in a flat monotone that lacked even a trace of that well-known Scranton personality. The cop’s attitude might have had something to do with his not having received a raise during the eight years of Doherty leadership.
Firefighters who responded to the hot dog fire also have not received a raise during the mayor’s tenure.
Unions representing both groups are still battling the mayor for anything that even resembles a fair contract. But Doherty didn’t mention his anti-labor position during his announcement about saving Pennsylvania.
Nor did the 51-year-old lace curtain Irish-Catholic ask for a moment of silence for Brenda Williams, the mentally-ill black Air Force veteran who died at the trigger fingers of Scranton cops. Doherty, of course, ordered a task force, appointed his public safety director to head the body and forgot about naming an African-American to the group.
When I mentioned the omission to him, he said he would consider doing so. But since Doherty no longer calls “Corbett” or returns my calls, I don’t know if he kept his word.
Doherty also didn’t mention the two women police officers who have named him in a federal discrimination suit after being called “overtime whores” by Doherty’s personal choice for police chief.
I wonder if failed city council candidate Doug Miller was in attendance at yesterday’s rally.
One day before last week’s election, the 19-year-old Republican told the world on “Corbett” that the mayor was supporting his election and had instructed his Democratic campaign team to help the young GOP wunderkind.
But Doherty refused to publicly confirm that he had turned his back on three members of his own political party who were running for council jobs. Such partisan treason ought to explode on the campaign trail when Doherty is asking for money from die-hard Democrats in political power houses like Philly and Pittsburgh.
But maybe Doherty can get the gay vote.
Philadelphia Daily News columnist John Baer writes in today’s column that Doherty supports gay marriage.
“I believe all people deserve the right to be happy,” Baer quotes Doherty as saying with a straight face.
Or maybe Doherty can pull the pro-choice vote.
After Scranton’s zealous anti-abortion crowd thought Doherty was on their side for all these years, he recently came out with an essay that stunned longtime watchers of Scranton politics.
Doherty’s biggest problem is that people in his hometown have no idea what he really stands for. All we in Scranton who love the city know is that a week after winning re-election to another four-year term, Doherty announced that he wants to move to Harrisburg and live in a mansion.
If he succeeds, citizens throughout the Commonwealth should prepare for a major detour of their own. Doherty is ready, willing and able to take Pennsylvania voters for a long and bumpy ride.
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