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Friday, September 27, 1996 Page: 3A
Presidential endorsement angers police group
Local chapter of Fraternal
Order of Police did not want to endorse for president and did not like it
when the national organization and Luzerne
County’s DA came out for President Clinton.
By RENITA FENNICK
Times Leader Staff Writer
WILKES-BARRE — The local Fraternal Order of Police, incensed about the
national organization’s endorsement of President Clinton, has taken its
concerns to the state chapter.
FOP Lodge 36 Wyoming Valley voted at its Sept. 19 meeting to discuss with
the state lodge any possible endorsement of a presidential candidate, said
lodge secretary Bill Howatt.
Some of the lodge’s 352 members also worry that a recent public endorsement
by Luzerne County District Attorney Peter Paul Olszewski Jr. and some
Wilkes-Barre police officers give the impression that the local FOP endorses
Clinton.
“We didn’t endorse anyone,” said Howatt, the Hanover Township Police Chief.
“Some are pleased with the Clinton endorsement but many others are not. I
can’t believe the reaction from the membership.”
But Francis Bascelli can.
Since the national FOP announced Sept. 16 that it was endorsing Clinton,
Bascelli, the president of the state FOP, has been inundated with complaints.
“No single issue has caused more dissension among police officers as the
endorsement of Clinton,” said Bascelli, of Folsom, Delaware County. “I’m
hearing about it everywhere I go.”
The 550 delegates who attended the state FOP convention in Mount Pocono
last month unanimously voted to direct the Pennsylvania trustee to the
national organization not to vote to endorse any candidate, Bascelli said. At
least 11 of the organization’s 39 trustees abstained from the voting, Bascelli
said.
“Some wanted to endorse Clinton and some wanted to endorse Dole but we all
agreed not to endorse any presidential candidate.”
Mark Koch, a Hazleton Police Department corporal and president of FOP Lodge
18, said a few members disagree with the national endorsement but not enough
to force the lodge to take official action.
A letter sent to Bascelli by the Wyoming Valley lodge states that the
“membership is very unhappy with local statements made regarding Clinton’s
endorsement as well as the national FOP endorsement,” Howatt said.
Howatt said the public endorsement by Olszewski and the others is
misleading.
“It’s his (Olszewski’s) choice to endorse anyone he wants but I just want
to clear the air, it’s not the local FOP,” Howatt said.
Olszewski said he made it clear that he was speaking on his own behalf.
“It was my endorsement of President Clinton and the endorsement by the
others who were there,” he said on Thursday.
The others who spoke at the endorsement outside Wilkes-Barre police
headquarters included Mayor Tom McGroarty, Deputy Chief Bill Barrett and Pat
Kwetkauskie cq of the Domestic Violence Center.
But Bascelli is more critical of Olszewski.
“He’s not law enforcement, he’s a politician,” Bascelli said. “He doesn’t
speak for police officers and he doesn’t speak for my membership.”
Bascelli said FOP members throughout the state chose not to endorse
Clinton’s re-election bid because they oppose his position on gun control, are
unhappy with some of his federal court appointments and believe his program to
put more officers on the streets is “the biggest farce there is.”
As of July, U.S. Department of Justice figures indicate that 12,355
additional officers were patrolling the nation’s streets. Statistics show that
19,149 officers were hired but 6,794 of those already were on duty.
When the crime bill was signed into law in 1994, the plan called for $8.8
billion to be spent to add 100,000 police officers.