County is impatient for 'to do' list

As a declared candidate for Pennsylvania's 136th legislative district, I urge Northampton County Controller Steve Barron to initiate immediately an audit of the county's books.

As a watchdog independent of the administration and council under the Home Rule Charter, elected by the taxpayers, and charged with stewardship and oversight of those taxpayers' funds, Steve comes new to the job of controller.

Coming fresh to the position from outside county government, Steve is in the best possible postition to grasp the and deal with the county's fiscal crisis.

#1 Priority on the "To Do List!" Return unused tax dollars to the people who paid it!!

I suggest that Barron begin with a review of the county audit report dated August 4, 2006, conducted by his predecessor John Schimmel.

The report reveals that much - if not most - of the county's bond proceeds for county capital-improvement projects have gone to th Alvin H. Butz Inc. and subcontractors like Bean Construction.

These construction costs incurred under non-competitively bid, de-incentivized cost-plus as opposed to cost-plus-incentive or cost-plus-fixed fee include the construction manager or general contractor for the prison, Keating Construction Inc.

Philadelphia-based Keating Construction contracted with the Atlantic City Tropicano Casino.

Early in construction, the structure collapsed and injured workers - a dozen fatally.

Speaking of non-competitive bids, I bet the bond underwriting will be given to a firm vs. being done on a competitive bid basis. This is an outrage.

Why, then, is Stoffa in any hurry to continue increasing the size of the burden (bond) he's throwing on our children? John wants lots of things he doesn't want to pay for. If I were his offspring, I'd make sure he's insured before he leaves this soil. The guy seems incredibly irresponsible and just might leave you with his bills. A $30 million parking garage from the rocket scientist who just told council to slow down given these uncertain economic times? Seriously. He worse than Reibman - and that's really bad.

Reibman's people are the ones who put Stoffa in office.

Soffa[sic]Is Irresponsible, Alburtis, PA, a previous commenter, is right: Stoffa IS WORSE than Reibman - and that's going some.

For starters, Stoffa, jumping half-cocked at the Federal Government's million-dollar offer toward the cost of touch screen voting machines, kicked in at least a miilion dollars more of taxpayer money and bought them anyway.

The machines turned out to be a pig-in-a-poke, uncertifiable as to thier accuracy by both the governments of Pennsylvania and the Federal Government.

He, ungentlemanly-like, then laid the blame for this fiasco at the feet of the county's registrar, Deborah DePaul.

This administration, Mr. Stoffa and his mediocre cabinet are in over their heads. The problem is the County Council is just as incompetent. This guy inherited a ton of money from the past administration and immediately raised taxes for more.
He has rubber stamps on Council like McHale, Angle and Dowd his Republican buddies. They have sat on there hands as well.
The taxpayer is the only loser in this mess.