Mayoral race Q&A: Republican Ramos cites Dem disenchantment
By Andrew Wagaman
The primary election is just weeks away on May 18, and Allentown voters will be selecting their parties’ nominees for mayor.
This week, we’ve been holding live Q&As with the candidates on The Morning Call’s Facebook page. Each day at 11 a.m., reporter Andrew Wagaman interviewed a different candidate on why they want to lead Pennsylvania’s third-largest city through 2025.
On Friday it was
Tim Ramos’ turn.
Here are some highlights from the interview:
In the 2019 general election, Ramos, the Republican nominee, earned about 4,100 votes — less than half of Ray O’Connell’s. The margin of defeat exceeded the 24-point edge in registered voters the Democratic Party had (62%) over all other parties and independents in the city (38%). Asked Friday what has changed in the two years since, Ramos said he thinks voters have become sufficiently disenchanted with the Democratic establishment that has dominated city government for 20 years to give him a second look. Ramos says he will provide the “strong leadership,” accessibility and accountability voters crave. He also says he’s now developed enough name recognition to pull off the upset of the Democratic nominee.
In both campaigns, Ramos has cast himself as an independent thinker and pragmatic alternative, denouncing the tribal partisanship and symbolic gestures that define national politics. Yet in March, serving as the acting chair of the Lehigh County GOP, Ramos voted to censure Republican U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey for voting to indict former President Donald J. Trump at his second impeachment trial. On Friday, Ramos defended his vote, arguing it is unconstitutional to hold an impeachment trial for an ex-president, and that as a man of principle, he cares about preserving process and the rule of law.
Ramos said he supports Allentown police Chief Glenn Granitz’s efforts to rebuild a more robust community policing program. Ramos said as a youth growing up in the city’s Jordan Heights neighborhood, he appreciated that city police officers walked the streets and got to know residents on a family-by-family, business-by-business basis. Ramos pointed out that he’s called for the policy for years and is disappointed it’s taken so long to get to this point. He called for more of the de-escalation and crisis intervention training police officers are already receiving.
Ramos pointed out that the majority of residents are renters rather than homeowners, a dynamic that needs to change. He said he would offer five-year tax breaks to new homeowners and other owners who convert multi-family homes back to single-family homes. This will stabilize communities, he said, which in turn will bolster the city’s tax base. Ramos also said he would require more frequent rental inspections to fight blight and ensure negligent landlords are held more accountable.
Ramos said he believes the city’s finances have worsened under the O’Connell administration despite budget surpluses in 2018 and 2019 and a deficit of less than $1 million in 2020. The pandemic forced the administration to finally start making cuts that he’s long called for, Ramos claimed. He also lamented that the city spent $30,000 to pay for a financial management consultant whose recommendations echo his own. His administration, Ramos said, will take seriously the budgetary recommendations of everyday people.
Ramos said he will serve as a role model to city youth growing up in Hispanic and blue-collar neighborhoods like the one where he grew up. He said he will create more youth mentorship programs and work with the Allentown School District to get its finances and priorities in order so that the district can better serve city youth and make the city a more attractive place for families to live.
Interviews with other candidates were published this week: Mayor Ray O’Connell (Tuesday), Matt Tuerk (Wednesday), Julio Guridy (Thursday) and Ce-Ce Gerlach (Friday).