Cry Baby Nick
by Lowman S. Henry
Dauphin County's cry-baby commissioner Nick DiFrancesco is at it again.
This time he is whining over the City of Harrisburg's budget. He claims the city's financial difficulties could cause the county financial problems.
Let's call this for what it is: Nick can no longer keep up the charade that the county was in bad financial shape when he took office and use me and John Payne as his whipping boys. So, he needs someone else to blame for his inadequacies and Harrisburg's defeated Mayor Stephen R. Reed and the city are next in line.
DiFrancesco claims the county is in solid shape with a $50 million surplus which he constantly pats himself on the back for creating.
Let's puncture that myth. The county's surplus has not happened BECAUSE of the management skills of the current board of commissioners, it has happen IN SPITE of their ineptitude.
Rewind the tape to the Haste/DiFrancesco initial campaign for office and their fraudulent claims they inherited a deficit when in fact the county had an $8 million surplus, but Haste's wish list budget called for a sharp hike in spending. So he pronounced a it a budget deficit.
Building on that lie they raised taxes not once, but twice robbing Dauphin County taxpayers of nearly 50% more in taxes.
Had there been an actual deficit that would have merely balanced the budget. Instead, it produced a $50 million surplus. That proves there was no budget deficit and all the commissioners did was spin a political lie to allow themselves to build a reserve for future overspending.
Now, because of Haste and DiFrancesco's failure to properly oversee the city incinerator project, which they should have done as the county is the third guarantor on the bonds, the botched project threatens to tank the finances of both the city and the county.
As usual, Haste and DiFrancesco refuse to acknowledge their own complicity in the debacle preferring instead to blame somebody else. The city is destined for that role.
Instead of concentrating on the problem, DiFrancesco has been campaigning around the state on county time running for Lt. Governor in a futile effort to leave county government before the house of cards he has built comes crashing down upon him.
As the Republican State Committee ponders its endorsement for that office they should look closely at the trail of lies, mismanagement, and incompetence that DiFrancesco has left in his wake.
The fact is Nick DiFrancesco's entire political career is built upon a foundation of lies and half-truths. He mismanaged the county nursing home, allowing vendors to rob the county blind and then sold it off for a fraction of its worth and, in an Orwellian move, claimed it was a brilliant fiscal move.
The fact of the matter is this: Dauphin County is a disaster, rife with political cronyism (one lobbyist has even pulled down nearly $600,000 for almost no work, another key employee has multiple felonies and remains employed.) When all of this comes tumbling out of the closet Haste and DiFrancesco will be finished.
And, with Stephen Reed floating hints he may run for commissioner the Republican Party cannot afford to go into the upcoming county elections with this disgraced, flawed and incompetent administration leading the ticket.
The only chance the GOP has at holding control of the court house is for it to nominate two NEW new candidates for county commissioner.
DiFrancesco doesn't deserve a promotion to Lt. Governor, rather he should be retired from public office and allow new commissioners to step forth who will run the county in an efficient, professional manner rather than whine and cry and seek to blame everybody else for their own shortcomings.