The General Elections are just days away, but they already do not matter! I don’t understand how a town can be comfortable with the fact that the elections are settled in the Primaries. Our government system is based on check and balances, with each branch acting as a counter weight to the other. The same is to be said about the political parties, but in Glassport we only have one Political Party.
Now I am an independent, because I feel that our two party system is a big failure, but that is a different blog. Our government has three branches, our political system really has two, and Glassport has one. With no checks and balances, the Democratic Party of Glassport has been able to run a muck. Now before you Dem's get your panties in a up roar calling me the Rush Limbaugh of Glassport, I hate both parties and if the GOP was in control of Glassport I would still be writing this blog. This argument has nothing to do about D’s and R’s, but about a system that has failed our town and us.
Think about how people get elected in this town, are they elected by the public as a whole, no! As an independent I do not get a vote in the primaries, and that is where the elections begin and end. General elections are just a formality in this town. The most disturbing part is how candidates get elected in the primaries. Do they campaign, are there debates or forums, do we get to learn about the candidates or their positions, no! The Glassport Democratic Committee endorses candidates and year after year people go into the booth and vote those candidates in. That means we have a puppet government in Glassport. The real power and leaders of this community are the people in charge of the Glassport Democratic Committee. They pick who are endorsed and most of the time these people are elected, and so if you are an official who was endorsed by the Committee and you need that endorsement to stay in office, well then you are going to do what the committee wants so you can ensure their continued support. If that is not a puppet government, then I don’t know what is.
A prime example of this is with our current Mayor Terry DeMarco. Mr. DeMarco was thrown out of office this past May by the voters when in a stunner, they voted for the non endorsed candidate Mitch Evanovich in the primaries. I would say that this was achieved through Mr. Evanovich being well known in the community as former Post Master, and the fact that he actually campaigned and informed the voters of this position and ideas. Back to Mr. DeMarco, who is no longer going to be mayor; but due to the recent death of a councilman, which allows the Democratic Committee to then nominate someone on the ballot, Mr. DeMarco is now up for election to council. Here is the puppet government at work. The voters spoke in May that they no longer wanted Mr. DeMarco in office, but the Democratic Committee has just put him back in office by selecting him and endorsing him for council. If the voters did not want Mr. DeMarco to retain his office as Mayor, then why would they want him as a Councilman?
This is a dangerous situation that we as voters allow to happen over and over again in our community. I am not saying that there is widespread abuse by elected officials, but with no checks and balances, with no ability for other candidates to win other then Democrats, we have a local government that answers to the Democratic Committee and to them alone for the most part. We need to more forward; we need to allow the GOP and other candidates to be elected in our town. The counter balance of forces is what makes our government work best. You just have to look at communities and cities that do well, they are balanced and the community is represented equally through both parties. The city of Pittsburgh has been in control by the Dem’s for decades and the health of the city government is very poor. They have been in Act 47 for years, and their pension system is failing. Elections should not be decided in May, but in November, and we should not blindly trust the endorsement of the Democratic Committee, but demand the candidates to state their position and participate in debates. Wake up Glassport, if we continue to do nothing in our community, it will not be long before we are the next Braddock, Clairton, or Wilkinsburg. We are on the edge and only we can save our town.
