Matthews Coming Around?

Is King James getting soft on Republican Commissioner, Bruce Castor?

Not a chance, although he has (finally!) voted along with Castor to retain the Montgomery County firm, Maillie Falconiero & Co., to audit the county for the next four years. Of course, Hoeffel was outraged:

Hoeffel, who can usually count on Matthews' support in their unusual power-sharing arrangement, charged both Matthews and Castor with “an abuse of power.”

“This is not the way we should be awarding professional contracts, with a last-minute substitution of commissioner judgment after the row officer has had a competition and selected a professional,” said Hoeffel.

Hoeffel is referring to controller Diane Morgans selection of a Berks County firm, at a cost of over $4 grand per year more than the chosen Montgomery County firm. With our county suffering budgetary restraints, including a hiring freeze, you'd think Hoeffel would have been happy to save money on an outsourced contract.

Oh, right, the Berks County firm is a major contributor to the democratic party, aren't they, Joe?

Back to El Rey Jaime la Mierda, he still is at odds with just about everything Bruce Castor supports as good, fiscally sound, Republican governance. In a recent Times Herald story, KJ3 speaks affectionately of Castor "being freshman" Commissioner:

Matthews chalks up Castor’s caution to his being new to the job, and argues the time to spend on worthy capital projects is now.

“I expect he will express more of his own ideas in his sophomore year,” Matthews wrote in an e-mail message. “Mr. Castor is expressing reticence at the ‘scope’ of some of our policy proposals, such as our pending transportation and economic development initiatives. But there really isn’t time for reticence right now. We have over 20 townships desperately waiting for us to partner with them and improve the flow of traffic in their municipalities.”

I guess he thinks Castor will just "fall in line" after he has a year of this coalition under his belt? Not likely, says Castor.

“I am sticking to my campaign pledges on which I was elected,” Castor said, as is Hoeffel is doing the same except for the “patronage hiring” he claims the Democrat was against, too, until he got elected.

Castor has called Matthews’s actions “a stunning slap in the face to our supporters, our donors, and our voters.”

The Turd goes on to boast taxes are lower now than they were in 2002...which is essentially correct, but he attributes the lower taxes to his "partnership" with Democrat Joe Hoeffel. To quote King James:

"Coalition government works".

What he's saying, is essentially, "Republican Government doesn't work".

How is that so, Jimbo? Weren't our taxes lowered during the Matthews/Ellis administration? Are you essentially giving Joe Hoeffel credit for something your Republican partner, Tom Ellis and you put into effect over 2 years ago?

Castor is solidly sticking to his guns, not faltering from his campaign promises. He believes that the patronage hiring and subsequent infrastructure spending is over the top and that we need not adopt such a radical budget:

"[...]this is beside the point, and has characterized Matthews election campaign as pulling a “bait and switch” on voters who supported the two Republicans.

Read Keith Phucas' Times Herald article here.

On a related (budgetary) note, The Montco DUI centers will continue to be operated by the Montgomery County Sheriff's Department, as Sheriff John P. Durante expected it to. Funding will continue to come from DUI arrests, fines, and court costs, as it had been in the past.

The operation by the Sheriff's Department will free up local law enforcement officials to handle more urgent calls, rather than being bogged down with DUI-related paperwork.

Sheriff Durante threatened to file a lawsuit against the county commissioners (Hoeffel and Matthews) if they went through with their plan to suspend the program due to budgetary issues.

Kudo's to Sheriff Durante for fighting to keep this worthy law-enforcement tool.


B.