Palo Alto Mayor John Deatrich is a Democrat running against Republican incumbent Tim Twardzik of Frackville for state representative for the 123rd District.
Deatrich, 52, teaches at the Berks Career and Technical Center and previously worked in his family’s auto parts and repair business.
His statements have been summarized, with quotes edited for length and clarity.
Qualifications to be a state rep
23 years in education, including teaching and reviewing schools to see if they meet state and federal standards. He also was a union president and his local unit’s chief negotiator, as well as the labor representative for the Berks County Health Consortium when school district employees moved toward being self-insured.
20 years in municipal government, also including as Palo Alto Borough Council’s finance chair and president. A major accomplishment was forming a partnership with a local coal company that has yielded the borough substantial funds. This has kept tax increases for citizens of the borough at a minimum over the years.
“You have to have good people around you, and I’m good at picking good people to help me do good things.”
Bipartisanship
“Too many bills sit stagnant. There needs to be more bipartisanship, and both parties can take credit for commonsense legislation that’s good for people. It doesn’t have to be such a score-keeping thing.”
Where he disagrees with Twardzik
Twardzik’s opposition to a bill to provide full college tuition funding to students in households making more than $90,000 combined. “That’s bad enough if you have one kid that’s in college. I have five at one time, which means we have to constantly ask for more funding, and we get rejected.”
Twardzik has voted against restrictions on data centers. “It was especially concerning when he was pushing for the data center in Butler Township. I’m not saying that he had ulterior motives, but there was a caveat – that the sale of a SEDCO (Schuylkill Economic Development Corp) property was contingent on a zoning ordinance passing.
“And he sits on the SEDCO board. So that’s a conflict of interest to me. I don’t sit on boards. I don’t have anything to gain from an ordinance passing.”
Deatrich says he, not Twardzik, has attended public meetings on hot-button issues, such as the proposed expansion of the Blythe Recycling and Demolition Site near Saint Clair, the Pottsville Police Department’s 287(g) agreement with ICE, and the immigrant detention center in Tremont Township that the federal government was planning but has since scrapped.
A state moratorium on data centers
“There should definitely be one because you have one chance to get it right, and then you have your entire life to deal with the consequences. Because these data center operators, they’re billionaires. They have the best lawyers in the world. They’re way ahead of us.
“The state should do the bulk of the work. But all the municipalities around a proposed data center, not just the one where the developer have to file permits and that would collect the money, should have a say.”
Increasing state government revenue
“A multimillion-dollar or billion-dollar corporation doing business in Pennsylvania shouldn’t be exempt from corporate taxes just because its office is outside of Pennsylvania.”
Legalizing marijuana. “The people that use it are going to do it one way or another. If we make it legal, we can sell it, we can control it, and we can pull the taxes in from it.”
Timely state budgets
“I would support not being able to give yourself a raise if you’re not balancing the budget on time.”
Term limits
“For this position I’m running for and higher, it seems the longer people are in, the less they do. So I would support term limits.”
Interacting with constituents
“I will periodically schedule town halls in firehouses throughout the region. Because these phone town halls, they’re a joke. They preview your questions, and if you have a question that’s going to make them uncomfortable or they don’t want to answer, you don’t get through.
“My social media’s all public. I respond to people, whether a comment’s positive or negative. I’ve made posts where the comments were more negative than positive, and I’m OK with that as long as everybody’s respectful.”
Campaign finance reform
“I think politicians do well for themselves discussing campaign finance, but no one offers a fix. I don’t think anyone will stop massive campaign financing because it’s an industry all to itself. TV stations, production companies, and newspapers rely on these races.”
Election security
“When they talk about elections not being secure, it’s really just fear-mongering, trying to manipulate the vote in the favor of one party to another.
“We have a system in place. To get a Real ID driver’s license, you need your Social Security card, a copy of your birth certificate, some mail to show your address. And to register to vote, you need your driver’s license and the last four digits of your Social Security number.
“When you go to vote the first time, you need to show your ID. After that, you’re voting in your neighborhood. In many places, you know the people that are at the voting station.
“And then with the mail-in ballots, they’re bar-coded. And once they get scanned through, if someone was to cast another ballot for one, it wouldn’t count.”
287(g) agreements with ICE
“I don’t support them because I don’t support ICE. I think they’re untrained and unprofessional. I believe that if you’re an illegal immigrant and break the law, if you get deported, that’s on you. But I don’t think there should be an enforcement agency that seeks you out because of the color of your skin or the kind of car you drive or where you live. That’s unconstitutional.”
If a local police officer arrests an illegal immigrant who must then be processed, the department should be paid whether they’re in a 287(g) agreement or not because the department is doing the job of a federal agency.
Whether Pennsylvania should participate in the federal private school voucher program
“No, because private and parochial schools don’t have to abide by the same rules when it comes to standardized testing. I think parents should absolutely be able to send their kids to whatever school they want, but the focus of public funding should be on public schools. Private schools should be funded privately.”
Religion in public schools
“I don’t support prayer in school or favoring one religion. I do, however, support teaching various religions in a world culture class. Freedom of religion is one of the cornerstones of this country. Having knowledge of various religions can only strengthen that core belief.”
Canary note: Opinions expressed in any Op-Ed column appearing on this site are the views of the writer and are not necessarily the opinions of Coal Region Canary.
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