Posts tagged ‘justin taylor’

Mayor Justin Taylor has responded to the issue of getting county loan money for development in a lengthy press release, which you’ll find below.

Taylor isn’t getting free money here for development.  Taylor applied for a loan which he would have to pay back.  This doesn’t strike me as some kind of dubious and sinister behavior.  Actually, development in Carbondale is only a good thing and I don’t think the Times’ contention that he either acts as a developer or Mayor is fair.  This isn’t a money for nothing (and chicks for free) situation.  Maybe I’m too idealistic sometimes, but my initial thought on this project was that Mayor Taylor is spearheading growth on all fronts, both public and private.  With regular arts showcases, wine festivals, Pioneer Days, and the coming Brewfest, Carbondale has been on the up and up.  When I worked on John Moran’s campaign for State Rep in the 114^th, I spent a lot of time in Carbondale and really came to love the city.  It has a poor reputation in the Downvalley, but I’m telling you, Carbondale is doing well and Mayor Taylor has a lot to do with it.  That’s why I’m excited about his potential Commissioner run.

In the following release from Taylor, he outlines what he’s done in his capacity as Mayor of Carbondale.  Taylor mortgaged the family home to put up the down payment for this project.  That’s a huge commitment.  Here’s the money quote, “I don’t think any elected official, who is committed to their community, should be chastised for starting a business in an honest effort to create jobs and build a future.”  Indeed.  If there were backroom deals, if there is financial gain at the expense of Lackawannans, then I would have a problem.  This is a federal stimulus loan, so it isn’t coming directly from Lackawanna County coffers.  As a loan, Taylor will have to pay it back.  He’s been open about the process from the beginning.  He got verbal approval from the County before being denied.

In any case, here is Taylor in his own words:

After the recent passing of my grandparents, Marie & Sam Lapera, I decided the time was right to honor their memory by investing in the community that they loved so much, and of course, the city where I now have the privilege of serving as Mayor.  Thus, “Lapera-Taylor Development, LLC” was born.

I write today to take a stand on an issue that recently came up surrounding a $2.3 million development project that Lapera-Taylor Development is undertaking in downtown Carbondale.  I’d like to further take this opportunity to tell you why I chose to financially invest in the community in which I am also an elected leader.

As the Mayor of Carbondale, I support economic growth throughout the City on a daily basis!  Some days my focus is on the neighborhoods through residential tax abatements or home rehabilitation grants, while others it may be on installing thousands of dollars in trees, new sidewalks and Victorian lighting to help solidify our Main Street corridor.  Regardless of where my particular focus and support may be on a specific day, I understand the importance of revitalizing core communities, like Carbondale.  That’s why I know my development project at the former J.J. Newberry building will most certainly help with Carbondale’s renaissance!

In addition, I’ve gained a solid understanding of commercial real estate through my career path, especially during my time as the Director of Economic Development in Susquehanna County.  There, I focused on small-business start-ups and putting large-scale construction / renovation projects together.  It was my job to match willing developers with stable business tenants – who would retain and create family-sustaining employment.  There is no doubt that the Newberry building project would also accomplish both of those goals!

After reviewing several building options in the downtown with a potential tenant, including the building in question, and having no luck finding a suitable space or a willing owner / developer to renovate for this client, it was at that point that I very honestly and openly approached the tenant’s management with the possibility of me attempting to put together a turn-key package for them.  In addition, I fully disclosed this new private venture and the potential client with the members of Carbondale City Council – who appreciated my ambition to attempt a large project in downtown.

I began by putting my skills to work on my own time, outside the normal business day – doing extensive research on construction costs, talking with other property owners to secure parking, and talking with different banks.  At the time, I never imagined that the project would balloon into a $2.3 million development, but I understood that if the community lost this particular tenant – with over 300 full-time / part-time / fee-for-service employees, the results could be devastating.

One of the most significant hurdles for me to overcome was the financing of the project. As many new start-up and small businesses know, today’s banking climate is prohibitive for growing your business, which in turn is stifling our economy.  A $2.3 million dollar project now requires a 25% down payment by a developer ($575,000 in cash).  In order to get this project funded, I like many other small business owners had to personally guarantee the financing through family assets, including home-equity loans on my residence and collateralizing stocks and CD’s previously held by my grandparents.  So, I’ve taken a huge financial risk to fulfill my passion for growing a strong, more vibrant downtown in the city that my family and I love to call “home.”

I’m confident that the people of this area realize that economic development in small communities, like Carbondale, is certainly not easy.  But the redevelopment of the Newberry building on Main Street not only benefits Carbondale, but the entire upper valley.  The “trickle down” effect of increased foot traffic along the Historic Route 6 corridor spreads to local shops and businesses, as well as their local and regional suppliers.  This project will also inject thousands of dollars into governmental entities, such as the City of Carbondale, the Carbondale Area School District, Lackawanna County and the Commonwealth of PA.

Another great project slated for downtown Carbondale is the $14 million dollar “Pioneer Plaza” Hotel / Conference / Retail center on South Main Street.  This venture by Daniel Siniawa & Associates will also inject tens of thousands of dollars into government coffers through real estate taxes, sales tax, and most importantly, the wage tax from the 130+ new employees that will be hired to operate this facility.  This project is monumental in that it is the largest, commercial development on Main Street in the City’s history, and it’s the 1^st new commercial building constructed on Main Street since the 1970’s.

At a time when the business atmosphere on “Main Streets” throughout America is struggling at best, Carbondale’s Main Street is coming to life!  Our downtown will be forever changed by the infusion of over 430 additional people working on Main Street, and an average of about 50 individuals utilizing overnight accommodations on a daily basis.  These two (2) projects alone will increase the average daily foot traffic by more than 10%.  While 10% may not seem like a large number, most small cities across the county are facing double-digit daily population declines.

While working to develop both the Pioneer Plaza project and the Newberry project, many doors have been shut in the face of transforming Carbondale.  And at the same time we have been forced to change the way we think – to find the open windows that will allow us to move the City of Carbondale forward.  In my case, that entails putting my personal and financial well being on the line.  Furthermore, I don’t think any elected official, who is committed to their community, should be chastised for starting a business in an honest effort to create jobs and build a future.

Its very clear that both of these projects could have benefited greatly from the low-interest loans through Lackawanna County, however they WILL go on, and in the end, Carbondale, Lackawanna County and Northeastern Pennsylvania, as a whole, will be a better place – with a stronger quality of life and an even stronger foundation for future economic growth.

Justin M. Taylor

Rumors have abounded for some time that Carbondale Mayor Justin Taylor will be running for Commissioner next year.

Mike Washo is in.  Corey O’Brien is in.  And it looks like they’ll be running together, despite that whole awkwardness when O’Brien running against Paul Kanjorski.  See, Commissioner Washo had a family member interning for Kanjorski.  In addition, being a Commissioner kind of requires the good will of Congressmen who control funds that go to your area.  O’Brien’s ambition probably left that office uncomfortable for a little while.

Regardless, everybody shook hands and that’s the end of that.  Onto the 2011 Commissioner’s race.

Mayor Justin Taylor applied for grants for a personal development project that would be immensely beneficial to Carbondale, which has been on the rebound and seems to be keeping up the pace pretty well.  The Commissioners denied his request.

Why?

According to Taylor, “They don’t like me because they’re worried I’m going to run against them, so they don’t want to give me a loan.”  Ouch.

Whether or not Taylor runs remains to be seen.  I keep hearing he’s in, he’s out, he’s in, he’s out.  After this, it seems like he’s in.

The issue, according to Commissioner Washo, is that a public official shouldn’t get public money for private projects.  Makes sense.  Washo’s family owns a paving & plowing company which does not do work for the county.  It did before he became Commissioner, so he’s obviously applying his philosophy to his stance on the Taylor building.

The opposing contention from Taylor seems to be that he isn’t seeking money from Carbondale – he’s going outside his sphere of influence.

While I understand the worry of public money going to a public official for a private development project, Taylor isn’t soliciting his own city, he’s going to another government.  This project would be helpful to a city that’s been hammered for decades.  Is there another way?  I don’t know.  But I’m not convinced that this is black and white.

Either way, the 2011 election is gearing up!

Today, Borys took at look at Carbondale Mayor Justin Taylor’s impressive take at his annual golf outing.  $30,000 is a lot of money and, boy, that puts him in a great spot for that “higher office” that Borys keeps mentioning.

The higher office, as I thought everybody knew, is Commissioner.  Mike Washo is definitely running next year.  In fact, after Mike won last time, he never stopped running.  Every community event he can fit into a day, he’s there.  The man is a machine and it’s a credit to his style of politics.  Experiencing the County he represents shouldn’t stop in non-election years.  People see him, he gets to hear about his county.  His welcoming demeanor and willingness to listen only endear him to people.

Some complain that he hasn’t been friendly to the political establishment, particularly since he cut a lot of county jobs, but that won’t turn off the average voter.  I’m sure he will win without a problem.

Corey O’Brien will likely run again.  Corey isn’t involved in his community quite so much as Washo is and Corey’s run for Congress didn’t impress a lot of people.  In fact, many thought it was over-ambitious for somebody who announced halfway through his first term of elected office.  But ambition can be forgiven, without it, nobody would get ahead.  Voters, though, might look at it as greed.  In addition, he lost, which doesn’t look all that great.  Voters might look at an O’Brien run for Commissioner as a second-string pick.  He obviously didn’t want to stay there – he ran against Kanjorski – so why is he running again?  Just to have an elected office?  On top of that, there has to be tension between Washo and O’Brien as Washo is friendly with Kanjorski.  O’Brien’s run put Washo in a very, very uncomfortable position and Corey had to have known that going in.  That didn’t stop him.

That said, he’s still in a good position to win.  He’s got the name recognition.  He’s got the energy (the man is a campaigning machine).  He’s had three years to entrench himself.

But there is one person who could cause problems for Corey, and that’s Justin Taylor.  Justin is running for Commissioner and he’s been doing the Washo-style circuit for years now.  When my friend Nate Barrett announced he was running for Scranton School Board last year, Justin Taylor was there to support him at his parties, and financially.  The two knew each other, but Justin went out of his way to help Barrett.  That impressed me.

Just look at Carbondale!  There are music and art and wine and beer festivals in downtown Carbondale every time you turn around!  Justin has helped revive and encourage the growth of the culture of his town and that would bode well for the County if he were Commissioner (I’ve long felt government doesn’t do enough to promote culture and the arts).  Economically speaking, Carbondale seems on the rebound.  Blight has been cleaned up, a new hotel is coming, and freight rail has been bringing jobs to the city.

The Upvalley doesn’t have nearly enough votes to pull Justin through, so, while I’m not really devoting this post to strategy, I’ll say that he needs the Midvalley and Scranton to help him.  The former will be easier to break into, simply because of geography.  And look at what Midvalley votes did for John Blake.

Rumored to run for the position is Brian Jeffers, currently on the Scranton School Board.  He has put out feelers and would be the only candidate from the City of Scranton, which is where the bulk of county votes are (Washo grew up in Scranton, but lives in the Abingtons).  Washo, O’Brien, and Taylor are not Party darlings, and so Jeffers would then be the Party candidate.

A long while back, before the State Senate race, I’d heard that Corcoran had been considering a run for Commissioner.  I’m not sure if that’s the case, but with the lack of a City candidate, it’s still a possibility.  He has more County viability than Jeffers, but he is fresh off of coming in second-to-last.

I also heard Jim Wansacz’s name bandied about, but nothing solid or from his inner circle.  He would be a formidable candidate and his entry would definitely make this race far harder to predict.

On the Republican side, Pat O’Malley is actively considering a run.  I’m sure he would do just fine, given his ability to campaign and his strong city base.  Look for him to be the new permanent minority commissioner if he does run.

That does it for the outlook!

Corey O’Brien is optimistic about his chances to win a seat as Lackawanna County Commissioner again.  Sure, he’ll win Dunmore, but it isn’t so simple as carrying everybody who voted for him over Kanjorski in his most recent race.

I took issue with Corey’s run.  He’d announced after only serving two years as a County Commissioner.  Ambition, raging ambition, doesn’t really endear me to people.  On top of that, he often cites an openness and transparency policy that doesn’t really involve openness and transparency (like in the case of the dirty e-mails controversy).  On top of that, I dislike his aggressive and dominant governing style.  I much prefer the gentler, thoughtful approach of his senior partner, Mike Washo.

I voted for him over Kanjorski because Kanjo took a boatload of money from industries that I blame for the destruction of the working class: insurance, banking, and finance.  He’s supposed to oversee them, and, sorry, you don’t take money from somebody then slap them in the face.  It’s a trust issue.  So I voted for Corey O’Brien.

This time around, I know who I’m voting for in the Commissioner’s race already and, sadly, it isn’t Corey.  I’ll be voting for Mike Washo and Justin Taylor.  The only other solidly-rumored candidate who is in the mix is Brian Jeffers, Scranton School Boarder.  On the Republican side we hear Pat O’Malley, also on the Scranton School Board.  But that’s just an FYI.

I’ll spend more time on Mike & Justin and my reasons for supporting them at a much later date, but my point is that votes for Corey in his Congressional race will not translate to votes for Corey in the Commissioner’s race.  Maybe I’m an isolated case, but I suspect not.  Many are unhappy with Corey’s style of governance and insatiable ambition.

We shall see.

Carbondale has been a contentious place of late and further problems between Mayor Justin Taylor and Council have erupted. In the last incident, Mayor Taylor was right in utilizing a social networking tool for political purposes, as it reaches more people more quickly than conventional means.

This time, Councilman Joe Marzzacco called a grant the city received a total waste. What was the grant, you ask? It hired an analyst to look at crime data to come up with patterns. Hmm… Free money to help fight crime. That’s a waste? That’s also a new low (rivaling Ken Smith’s pandering in Dunmore). Having a position paid for via a grant, at no cost to the city, when that position will help identify trends in crime is a good thing. I have no idea how anybody could say it’s a waste. Except in Councilman Marzzacco’s case, it’s just another way to go after Justin Taylor and it looks petty.

The word has gotten around that Joe Corcoran is considering a run for County Commissioner, staging a comeback after 8 years.

Corcoran’s name was bandied about as a possible challenger to Bob Mellow, but with Kathleen Kane in, then out, and the possibility of Chris Phillips issuing a challenge (thought we haven’t heard anything about this recently), Corcoran obviously decided against it.  But it does bespeak an interest in getting back into the game.  Now that he’s back in Scranton (he was working in Harrisburg until recently), it only makes sense.

We even got some of his talking points.  Lackawanna has tried 8 years of the new and two sets of administrations, and how is the County now?  It’s a pretty good answer, considering that Lackawanna County isn’t doing all that great, and people will remember that it wasn’t this bad when he was in office.  Corcoran can talk about the slander and libel from the Times that buried his candidacy when he ran last time, and he can cite everything that the Cordaro-Munchak administration did to drag the County down with epic debt.  People will respond well to this.

For Washo-O’Brien, people aren’t happy about layoffs and reduction in County services.  They haven’t gotten good press.  Corcoran has been far enough removed from press (good or bad) that when he returns to the scene, people will remember him without the negatives (which were manufactured by the Times anyway).

On the issue of who he would run with, all that was said was “an Upvalley candidate” which is the old school formula for a Commissioner race: one City and one Upvalley, to represent the breadth of Lackawanna County.  Of course, the only viable Upvalley candidate is Mayor Justin Taylor.

2011 is already shaping up!

The conflict between Justin Taylor and Carbondale’s City Council highlights an interesting issue arising in politics: The value of social networking in pushing a political agenda.

Social networking is a political reality, and Justin Taylor’s use of it as a tool to disseminate information is very pragmatic. Many voters and citizens do not seek news out, whereas utilities such as Facebook and Twitter make spreading information quick and easy.
The idea that a Councilperson could scold Mayor Justin Taylor for using Facebook to inform people of the goings on of the city is irresponsible, not the other way around.

His comment reads, “Some council members are plotting to terminate me as city administrator, or make the position part time, because I asked them to give up their 100 percent paid health insurance for themselves and their families! Please attend to show your support! Continue the progress!”

Taylor’s accusation is accurate: Council is not happy with him because they, oddly enough, get health care and he asked that they voluntarily refuse it. While that’s nice that Carbondale provides that for its Council Members, since being on Council is a part-time job, it shouldn’t be a necessity. They should amend their home rule charter and save the depressed city money.

The “written warning” from Councilman Eric Farrell over this Facebook posting is childish and, worse, out of touch with mainstream society. Mayor Justin Taylor should continue to use Facebook to inform people of the goings-on of his city, despite the games played by Carbondale’s Council.