Meet the Candidate: Vic Mazziotti

The seeds of Vic Mazziotti’s candidacy for at-large Lehigh County commissioner were sown on Oct. 27 when commissioners voted down a proposal that would have meant no tax increase this year.

Mazziotti, 64, of Allentown, said he was disappointed in fellow Republican Dean Browning for voting with Democratic commissioners to kill the plan that would have sent the budget back to County Executive Don Cunningham for serious cuts.

“I’ve been around budgets long enough to know there’s always something to cut and everyone has to share the sacrifice,” said Mazziotti, who recently retired as Northampton County’s fiscal affairs director.  He said he was especially moved by a woman in the audience that night who said she was living on Social Security and the 16 percent tax increase would mean she’d have to cut back on food or utilities.

The county’s tax hike meant a homeowner with the average county property assessment of about $60,000 would pay $714 a year, up from $615, or a $99 increase. For many taxpayers, that’s on top of tax increases from their school districts or municipalities, Mazziotti said. “You can die a death of a thousand cuts,” he said.

For Northampton County’s 2011 budget “we managed to close about a $12 million gap last year without having a tax increase,” he said. That included only funding Gracedale, the county’s nursing home, for half a year due to the proposed sale.

Asked if he was running to unseat Browning, Mazziotti said, “A number of us are running with the thought that he needs to be replaced.”

Reached for comment, Browning said, “I voted against sending the budget back because it was a last minute gimmick without any realistic plan to cut spending by the 20 percent needed to produce a budget with no tax increase.”

“I’d ask Vic, ‘Do you normally present budgets in Northampton County that have $19 million in fat that can be cut?’” Browning said. “Of course he doesn’t.”

Mazziotti, who is married and has two grown children and four grandchildren, argued that Lehigh County should be able to prioritize spending so it can “live within its means.”

Before going to work for Northampton County five years ago, Mazziotti worked for SunGard, a software and information technology services company.

In 1994, he ran as the Patriot Party candidate for the 15th Congressional District against then-incumbent Democrat Paul McHale and Republican challenger Jim Yeager. The Patriot Party grew out of  Ross Perot’s run for president in 1992 and later became the Reform Party. Mazziotti received about 5 percent of the vote in 1994 with McHale winning re-election to the Lehigh Valley seat by a slim margin.

Eight years ago, Mazziotti ran for Allentown city controller as a Republican and lost with 47 percent of the vote.

This year, he’s running in the May 17 Primary Election in a field of eight Republicans for four at-large commissioners seats. Four Democrats are also running in an uncontested race.

 If elected in November, Mazziotti said he’d apply his fiscally conservative principals first to himself by declining to enroll in the county pension offered to commissioners. 

Lehigh County is negotiating contracts with four unions this year – prison guards, courthouse workers, Cedarbrook nursing home staff and human services workers. Given the weak economy and budget crunch, Mazziotti said he would favor a “zero percent increase for county workers  for several years…until we see some growth in the economy.”

He’s skeptical of other new spending as well. He said the proposed bi-county public health department doesn’t make sense right now. “This isn’t a time to be extending the capabilities of the county government,” he said. “I’m not going to raise taxes to create a new department, which is what we’d have to do.”

In April, the county commissioners approved a $2.8 million contract for software and hardware for a proposed regional crime data center. Mazziotti did not say he would have voted against it, but said the municipalities that stand to benefit from the integration of data and crime analysis should have been asked to help pay for it. “If the police departments of the county believed this was a legitimate use of taxpayers money” they should help fund the operating costs, he said.

Return to Meet the GOP Candidates

Here are the candidate profiles:

Dean Browning

Norma Cusick

Vic Mazziotti

David C. Najarian

Brad Osborne

Scott Ott

Lisa Scheller

Mike Welsh