2010 Ward Leader Elections

[33rdwardgop.com]

Huh......jeesh, my head hurts And David, you have no need to explain yourself or your actions. Most people are well aware of your integrity and honesty and that your more concerned with a better Philadelphia then the sheep that are only concerned about lining their own pockets while kissing whatever ass they need to as long as it fits their agenda and wallets. The clock is ticking, maybe not as fast as we'd like but it will still be worth the wait.

It's easy to say what you would have done but the fact is he could have done it and put it to a vote. The vote was on a new chairman not if those leaders should be seated so it's a simple question for him is he on Vito/Meehan's side or Al's side by not voting he does not take a stand and does not put his neck and future campaign on the line. So now he can say after this all plays out and end oh by the way i would have voted for you well thats not gonna fly every leader in the room including Al's guys know it and talked about it.

[33rdwardgop.com]

I've been somewhat out of the loop, so did you run for ward leader this time? I mean why run for a term you have no intention of serving out.

Let me restate that as of right now i am the ward leader and i was elected again but like i said it is not fun any more and i am starting to get turned off by all this i have lost friends in this battle that i thought i could trust and then come to find out thet were trying to replace me and it didnt work. I can do everything i do as ward leader and committee person with out being either and be happy and have less headaches. But i say involved because i love politics but that love only goes so far before i say f it i bet NOTHING out of this. I have been asked plenty of time to switch parties but i just can not do it i know one day the voters will wake up a see what the D's have done to this great city. Dont get me wrong there are some good D's but change is needed. The R's need to stop the infighting and get rid of the fake R's.

[WWDaze]

The R's need to stop the infighting and get rid of the fake R's.

And they'll never get rid of the "fakes" as long as the current regime is in control. I'm sure your aware of all the lifelong D's they changed over and recruited to run for committe person spots to save their asses, right? I'd be willing to bet a good majority of them have already switched back to D or have the changeover ready to go as soon as the conflicts are resolved. The Bradys, Krajewskis, Tarts, Driscolls etc are laughing at you guys every day. I have no axe to grind with you, but as long as you continue to defend them it's obvious we'll never see eye to eye. It's only a matter of time before they run out of Meehans, Canusos, Fenertys and Dudas. The sooner the better. And if you think they'll ever support you in any future endeavors your sadly mistaken, it's about them......NEVER YOU.

[33rdwardgop.com]

I'm sure your aware of all the lifelong D's they changed over and recruited to run for committe person spots to save their asses, right? I'd be willing to bet a good majority of them have already switched back to D or have the changeover ready to go as soon as the conflicts are resolved. I have no axe to grind with you, but as long as you continue to defend them it's obvious we'll never see eye to eye.

Dont think for a minute the other side didnt do that as well the two people they ran in my ward didnt even show up a my meeting and most likely wont be around long. Al's hands are not clean i would have more respect for him if he and his crew were not getting paid for all this from the state committee and at one time he ran the RCC and helped people get those jobs at the PPA before he seen the light. And his partner Joe has been living off state committee funds for years.Oh and Mike C. was on the board of the PPA and got people jobs as well i guess he cleaned his hands to.NOT.

[raider.adam]

Your license may not say you're a ward leader but it does say who you are. Hopefully the Party maintains a list of elected ward leaders. Then you combine the two and ta da you can tell if person X is a ward leader. I mean we're not talking about social security here, you're keeping track of what, like 40 people? And you need a special document to tell you person X isn't a cunning imposteur trying to abuse the mighty position of ward leader?

i just don't understand how the process of identifying if someone IS or IS NOT a ward leader would have to be complicated by some form.

Monday night was the election of ward leaders. The dispute isn't the identity of people. RCC was disputing the ward elections themselves. There is more detail to it, but that is the nickel summary.

[33rdwardgop.com]

Monday night was the election of ward leaders. The dispute isn't the identity of people. RCC was disputing the ward elections themselves. There is more detail to it, but that is the nickel summary.

It is not just the RCC that is doing it Al Schmidt and Matthew Wolfe and what ever their group is call to is to. Lets just say the only one at the meeting challenging ward leaders was Matthew Wolfe. I would even go as far as say just about all of the challenges came from Mr. Wolfe. By the way i remember reading acouple weeks back that Al got turned down for a seat on the PPA board on one hand he says everything wrong with the party is the PPA and Meehan but on the other hand he seeks a job on the board of the PPA and puts Meehan on his slate for office in the RCC. Whats up with that?

[raider.adam]

It is not just the RCC that is doing it Al Schmidt and Matthew Wolfe and what ever their group is call to is to. Lets just say the only one at the meeting challenging ward leaders was Matthew Wolfe. I would even go as far as say just about all of the challenges came from Mr. Wolfe. By the way i remember reading acouple weeks back that Al got turned down for a seat on the PPA board on one hand he says everything wrong with the party is the PPA and Meehan but on the other hand he seeks a job on the board of the PPA and puts Meehan on his slate for office in the RCC. Whats up with that?

Both sides were challenging the legitimacy of ward leaders.

Again though, like I said, it was a very small summary with a lot more details involved. The main point was that it isn't an issue of not accepting a person's identity, so a driver's license wasn't relevant to what is going on.

[Illiniwek]

The R's need to stop the infighting and get rid of the fake R's.

In your opinion, is Meehan a real or fake R?

[33rdwardgop.com]

Yes i think he is a real republican. My comment was made towards three people and i will not name names but most people know who they are. But anyways now the State Committee Chairman is hearing an appeal by Kelly and Wolfe and says he will pick people to look into it and he (Gleason) will rule on it smells fishy isnt he paying the pay checks of some of these people. It is like a Judge hearing his own murder case. This is gonna back fire on Gleason.

[David Oh]

It's easy to say what you would have done but the fact is he could have done it and put it to a vote. The vote was on a new chairman not if those leaders should be seated so it's a simple question for him is he on Vito/Meehan's side or Al's side by not voting he does not take a stand and does not put his neck and future campaign on the line. So now he can say after this all plays out and end oh by the way i would have voted for you well thats not gonna fly every leader in the room including Al's guys know it and talked about it.

Matt,

Clam down. You have no reason to be worried. You and I think quit differently.

When I ran in 2007, both sides were for Councilman Jack Kelly and actively campaigned against me... Michael Meehan, Vito Canuso, Al Schmidt, Kevin Kelly and Joe DeFelice. The Northeast Republicans, except for Denny O'Brien and a couple others, were unified against me. I was cut in many divisions. Kevin and Joe put some 200 paid workers in Jack Kelly/Local 98 T-shirts at the polls on election day. Meehan, Vito and Schmidt organized a takeover of Phil Kerwick's ward, knowing that he supported me over Kelly.

Despite this, I won by 7 votes on Election Day. The next day, I learned that none of the absentee ballots had been counted. A couple weeks later, I ended up losing by 122 absentee votes. Many of them fraudulent. Neither side was concerned nor did any of them join me in investigating the fraud or filing a lawsuit against the Election Board.

I am not counting on either side to support me in 2011, should I run. I would not have done as well as I did if I did not have an effective organization of my own. The strength of an organization is proved in battle and not before. The reason only two organizations are battling now is because only two care enough to do so.

I am deep in my exploration of a run in 2011. I am not on either side in this fight between "old friends turned foes" over control of the Republican machinary. My focus is on City Council At-Large and so are my supporters. As with most things political, we will all fight... that is inevitable. But long before the end, most political people will gravitate to the likely winner.

In the meantime, I don't care if the Ward Leaders are Meehan's folks, Gleason's folks or neither... I don't care if they are for me or against me... if they were properly elected, they should be recognized. If not, they should be excluded. The issue is now in litigation where it will be decided by a court of law.

[billy ross]

I abstained from voting because I did not believe we could or should proceed until the legitamacy of excluded Ward Leaders was clarified. While there was reference made to some meeting or discussion between Vito Canuso and Al Schmidt prior to the Ward meeting, I was not aware of it unitl a few hours before the meeting and had no details about the issues or the determination process.

My abstention had to do with "process" and not "result".

I would have made a Motion to postpone the election until the evidence and process were presented to the Ward Leaders, but neither side appeared interested in doing that. Both sides were equally in favor of having a vote taken that evening. One side, so that it could win and the other side, so that it could sue.

This is a struggle for control of City Committee between two very polarized groups. BTW, there are more than two groups of Republicans in this city. On my part, I am for a better Republican Party, not just a more aggressive Republican Party. I am primarily interested in policies, programs and legislation that directly help the residents, workers, businesses and institutions of this city.
I will say, the fight has drawn in many good people and that has been good for the Party. I hope it will be good for the City.

The way the Philadelphia Republican Party has been run for the past four decades has been awful for this city. The people who have allowed the present state of affairs to come into being need to be put out to pasture, and replaced with people who want Philadelphia to be all that it can be, especially in a transparency / good government way. Right now we have pigs who feed at the trough, and it disgusts me. Not only do the Republicans not point out the glaring corruption in the Democratic Party. No, that dereliction of duty is not enough. The Republicans actually fight over the patronage spoils. It makes me want to cry sometimes.

[Matt Gabor]

Also three ward leaders did not show up including rep. o'brian . Also those numbers are wrong Wolfe at one point in the meeting while we were taking the vote for the complete slate made a motion to use the vote from the chairmans vote as the vote for the complete slate as an ofticial vote and in him making that motion agreed that the chairmans vote was legal since he made the motion to use the chairmans vote for a final vote for the slate vote.

Why are you singling out Representative O'Brien? Representative Perzel also did not show up. I don't know who the other ward leader was. According to this: http://grassrootspa.com/blogcore/pdf..._Challenge.pdf, The numbers are wrong only if you use go by the alleged illegal bylaw changes that were recently made in regards to write ins and the newly implemented Republican City Committee Certificates that were issued. Can you explain to us layman why these changes needed to be made and why the oppositions challenges weren't recognized but apparently the current leaderships were held up without explanation? Please use proper punctuation.

[Matt Gabor]

Let me restate that as of right now i am the ward leader and i was elected again but like i said it is not fun any more and i am starting to get turned off by all this i have lost friends in this battle that i thought i could trust and then come to find out thet were trying to replace me and it didnt work. I can do everything i do as ward leader and committee person with out being either and be happy and have less headaches. But i say involved because i love politics but that love only goes so far before i say f it i bet NOTHING out of this. I have been asked plenty of time to switch parties but i just can not do it i know one day the voters will wake up a see what the D's have done to this great city. Dont get me wrong there are some good D's but change is needed. The R's need to stop the infighting and get rid of the fake R's.

So that means you should be on the side of Kevin and Matt because officials of a political party should be in it to win elections. The sitting leadership hasn't won anything and they should be held accountable. I'm not saying the sitting leadership are Democrats but they seem to be fake somethings.

And they'll never get rid of the "fakes" as long as the current regime is in control. I'm sure your aware of all the lifelong D's they changed over and recruited to run for committe person spots to save their asses, right? I'd be willing to bet a good majority of them have already switched back to D or have the changeover ready to go as soon as the conflicts are resolved. The Bradys, Krajewskis, Tarts, Driscolls etc are laughing at you guys every day. I have no axe to grind with you, but as long as you continue to defend them it's obvious we'll never see eye to eye. It's only a matter of time before they run out of Meehans, Canusos, Fenertys and Dudas. The sooner the better. And if you think they'll ever support you in any future endeavors your sadly mistaken, it's about them......NEVER YOU.

[Illiniwek]

Yes i think he is a real republican.

Is Pia Varma a real R?

[raider.adam]

Why are you singling out Representative O'Brien? Representative Perzel also did not show up.

Who voted for the 64th ward?

[canalbluedog]

Just a view from across the isle, but it seems to me that the Republican Party in Philadelphia can win when it fields a decent candidate for Mayor that can draw a ticket that has local roots and strength and a cogent message.
Lately, national candidates or candidates from Pittsburgh seem dominate the identity and message of both parties in southeast Pa and low turnout and the lack of locally relevant message makes the party leaders seem even more impotent.
The scheming by Gleason and the "rump" crowd smells like not a fight about leadership values or principal but patronage and personality. I have yet to hear what they will bring to the party other than they are not the local incumbent leadership.

[33rdwardgop.com]

First rep. obrian was not there and did not send his ward chairman to my understanding. There was not vote cast for his ward. Rep perzel sent his ward chairman to cast his wards vote. As for the question about Pia being a republican i dont know her all that well but sure she is a republican but as a republican running for office she made some minor mistakes. I was in the ward leaders meeting that pick her to run we could of went another way there were two others wanting to run. As for the other two wards at this moment i dont remember what wards they were only that they were either downtown wards or ward in downtown or south philly.

[Matt Gabor]

First rep. obrian was not there and did not send his ward chairman to my understanding. There was not vote cast for his ward. Rep perzel sent his ward chairman to cast his wards vote. As for the question about Pia being a republican i dont know her all that well but sure she is a republican but as a republican running for office she made some minor mistakes. I was in the ward leaders meeting that pick her to run we could of went another way there were two others wanting to run. As for the other two wards at this moment i dont remember what wards they were only that they were either downtown wards or ward in downtown or south philly.

This is pretty interesting. According to the minutes of the February 16th, 2010 meeting regarding the bylaw change, Representative O'Brien sent a proxy and that proxy was denied entry and consequently a vote on the said change. This is contrary to the rule Rule XI of the bylaws. Are you able to explain why Representative O'Brien's proxy was denied entry for that meeting?

I just find it interesting that proxies were permitted entry to the City Committee Executive meeting on Wednesday and not on the February 16th, 2010 meeting.

[Illiniwek]

As for the question about Pia being a republican i dont know her all that well but sure she is a republican but as a republican running for office she made some minor mistakes. I was in the ward leaders meeting that pick her to run we could of went another way there were two others wanting to run. As for the other two wards at this moment i dont remember what wards they were only that they were either downtown wards or ward in downtown or south philly.

So Meehan knocked Varma off the ballot in order to replace her with a stronger candidate?

Who?

[33rdwardgop.com]

I never said that that is what you are saying as far as i know Brady was behind the Pia Challenge. Also i never said that we had a meeting to replace Pia. Let me reword it again for you. I am one of many ward leaders that get together before the primary and talk to people that want to run so with that said all the ward leaders meet to talk to all the people running for the Brady seat to come to an agreement on who the republican party would support in the election should the be a primary fight in the republican party at this meeting there were two people that wanted to run with the RCC support. But there was another person that wanted to run who was not there at the time and the caucus chairman supported that person along with just about every leaders there. That person was Pia. She won the vote and if i am not mistaken she showed up way after the vote was taken but i might be wrong she might not of showed up at all to that pre primary meeting.We did our job for her we got the petitions done but she did not.