Fred, Always A Friend of the Working Person, Derides Union

So one poor employee had missed imaging a document or two. A problem easily fixed, you say?

Not with Fearless Fred. Our intrepid Recorder of Deeds brought the person in the office and threw a hissy fit, right there.

He berated the person and threatened the person with termination.

Not so, the person replied, "I'm protected by the union."

Fearless Fred, ever one to remind people how pro-union he was during the election, and having received the AFSCME endorsement from Larry Murin, allowed as he did not need no stinkin' union and replied that he was the boss and he could do what he liked, union or no union.

Mr. Sheeler prattled on during the campaign about emulating the Lancaster County Recorder of Deeds office (including listing the Lancaster Recorder of Deeds on his advisory committee on his campaign without the Recorder's knowledge or approval) until I pointed out that the office was non-union, and, in fact, outsourced local jobs to a private firm in New York.

Well, at least, now we know his real attitude toward unions and AFSCME.

Glad he cleared it up.

Brian Mello, Second Deputy Fired; Office Officially Rudderless

Brian Mello, the only person in managment that knew what was going on in the office has been fired.

Actually this is relatively old news, but I'm just getting around to it.

Mello was fired for allegedly sexually harassing a female title searcher who is, allegedly, a person of an "alternate lifestyle." Further, since title searchers are not employees of the office, there was no legal danger to the office.

Leaving aside for a moment the cognitive dissonance created by the idea that a male can sexually harass a woman who allegedly prefers women, many of the title searchers are now up in arms because Brian was the holdover from Antoine's regime who actually could run the office.

The honeymoon is over.

Now, I have met Brian, and Brian could be a strong dose. While he could be a good office manager, it was evident to me, at least, that he needed someone over him in managment that could soften his "people skills." Since Sheeler has been an "absentee boss," in mind and managment skills, if not physically, that control was not wielded. Hence, the current situation.

Fred claimed to have the right experience. Running a county office requires more experience than just filing 57,000,000 mortgage documents; it requires actual managment skills.

Way to go, Fred.

Fred Hides While Second Deputy Manages

When last we left Fred, he had won the Recorder of Deeds office for which he had campaigned, stating that he had the "right experience." Let's see how it is panning out so far.

In a final bit of nastiness before her departure, Ellie Antoine fired her second deputy, Brian Mello. Brian far exceeded Ms. Antoine in competence so, of course, he had to go. Fred seemed so far to not comprehend Ms. Antoine's attitude, almost as if the primary campaign against her had been waged for no reason other than that I had nothing better to do. Ms. Antoine has been like this for 12 years; it has not been a secret to anyone who had spent any time at all in the county buildings.

A group of title searchers, outraged at this final action of Ellie's and even more alarmed at the prospect of a manager at the helm of the office (Fred) who did not have the faintest idea what he was doing, prevailed upon Fred to re-hire Brian. In this, Fred showed himself to be a stand-up guy that is also able to think in terms of self-preservation.

Since then, however, Fred comes into the office, closets himself in his office, and does not emerge until the close of business. Ditto, his chief deputy, a former employee of Fred's chief campaign underwriter, Sentry Abstract. Thus, while not charged by the voters to do so, Brian Mello has become essentially the acting Recorder of Deeds since neither Fred nor his flunky seem capable of running the show. Apparently the "right experience" of running a one-horse mortgage brokerage has not been sufficient to instruct Fred on the running of a county office, which requires public administrative experience.

Let's see if he can learn it on the fly, or will he leave the office to run itself?

"John Fielding for Recorder of Deeds" becomes "FredWatch"

"Are you kidding me?
Posted 11/17/07

In the week and a half or so that has passed since election day, I have been inundated with phone calls offering congratulations, help and advice. I am particularly grateful to the many County officials and employees who have contacted me to assist in my transition into this position. I will be meeting with many of them in the coming weeks. Unfortunately, however, the one person who should be at the forefront of the transition process, Ellie Antoine, has refused to offer anything. She has not reached out at all, and my e-mail and phone calls to her remain ignored. Of course, she is really under no obligation to do so, but I will be blunt here . . . it is an injustice to the Berks County citizens that she serves, it speaks volumes as to why her office has been fraught with problems, and it is simply unprofessional. Further, she is the only one of the County officials who has refused to work with, or at the very least, meet with the newly elected. I have been contacted by nervous members of her staff who report that the office is like a “hornets’ nest,” with wild rumors promulgated by Mrs. Antoine that I intend to dismiss everyone. One staff member even warned me that I would probably be escorted from the office by the Sheriff if I stopped by to meet everyone. Are you kidding me?! Since Mrs. Antoine refuses to give me the opportunity to meet with her and her staff, my only hope is that the staff’s fears in this regard might be put at ease through this blog."

There are times when we can all do less than our best. There are times when we can be downright stupid. But there are moments when some among us are so breathtakingly silly and naive as to earn a permanent place in our hearts and minds.

While a blog is not all that permanent, Fred Sheeler's comments on his website as quoted above regarding Ellie Antoine are so ridiculous as to require us to establish a permanent memorialization for them, here, on a new site that we have designated as "FredWatch."

After all, Fred Sheeler touted himself as having the "right" experience for the County Recorder of Deeds office. Part of that "right" experience would be, one would think, preparation for the idea that Ellie Antoine is not a nice person and would not have cooperated with either of us. Evidently, the only difference is that I had planned to manage around the non-cooperation; Mr. Sheeler"s "right" experience is apparently more limited.

Well, here's to the next four years. Stay tuned for the "Fred Follies."

Mr. Sheeler Finally Wakes Up

I suppose it had to happen some time. Mr. Sheeler, on his website, has finally awakened to the fact that Ellie Antoine is not a nice person. Well, welcome to the ball game. Better late than never, I suppose.

I suppose that in among all the cheap shots that Mr. Sheeler and his allies were taking at me because I ran for Recorder of Deeds right after I ran for Coroner it never occurred to them that I might have run against Ellie because it was time for someone from my party to recognize the obvious about her and try to do something about it.

Oh, no. Unlike Mr. Sheeler, I was just driven by the ambition to become a county row officer, and my running had nothing to do with the incompetence and poor attitude of Ms. Antoine.

So, now Mr. Sheeler whines on his website that she is not a nice person and will not cooperate with him. Gee, nice time to wake up and smell the coffee.

If Mr. Sheeler had learned anything about the history of the officeholders in that office rather than trying to gain quick employment in a row office after the mortgage market went in the tank, he might have considered that Ellie got no cooperation from Linda Hilgendorf Frey when Ellie took over, including Frey closing all of the office accounts down so that Ellie had to rebuild from scratch.

So Ellie's lack of cooperation should have come as a surprise to no one. Should she be a better sport about the whole thing? Sure. But, unlike Mr. Sheeler, I wasn't going to hold my breath waiting for it and then whine about the lack of cooperation on a website that hardly anyone reads.

A true manager studies the office and plans for this sort of thing. If this an indication of Mr. Sheeler's managerial and political acuity, we are in for a long four years.

Thank You to My Supporters and Final Thoughts

I would like to take this opportunity to thank my supporters for the hard race that you helped me run. We could not have accomplished the closeness of this election without you.

My opponent, once again, demonstrated his inability to resist smearing me one last time on his website, all the while portraying himself as the poor innocent.

He once again brought up a civil lawsuit which I have explained. He had other matters that were supplied to him by the lunatic fringe of the Democratic Party that would have backfired had he used them.

He won no votes at the Farm Bureau because the folks there were already partisans of one candidate or another, and it was held in his home precinct. I beat him to the punch in my closing so he had delete his little smear job from his closing.

However, in his attempt to actually engage me in debate in the blogosphere, he has managed to admit he has only closed 419 mortgages in the last five years. That is about seven a month. Well, at least that explains why no one has ever seen him in the courthouse. I have never accused him of being a “sub-prime lender”; a mortgage broker is not a lender, but a salesman. As such, Mr. Sheeler has engaged in such practices as blackballing real estate appraisers who do not inflate appraisals to yield enough equity to make one of his deals work. A mortgage broker closes the deal, sells it off to someone else to administer, takes the money and runs. And uses it to finance political campaigns for public office when the mortgage market goes in the tank. Mr. Sheeler spent approximately $1.71 to buy each one of his votes, while I spent $0.28 per vote. Well, there is no denying that the "checkbook express" beat the "shoeleather express."

This time.

Nevertheless, despite there being plenty of negative items on both sides to mine during this campaign, both Recorder candidates managed to refrain from the negativity of the other campaigns for the most part in the vast public media. What goes on in blogs is not significant in Berks County since the blogs seem to be populated by the same dozen or so liberal techno-geeks who energize each other through constant positive reinforcement.

So, I wish Fred Sheeler luck. He will need it. We will be watching.

The Choice is Clear

Back in January when I got into this race, I had to ask myself: “why am I the best candidate for this office?” Clearly the people wanted a change. Everybody seemed to know that there were problems in the recorder of deed’s office. I had known about them for about 11 years. I was able to confirm the problems by taking frequent trips to the office; so many, in fact, that incumbent Ellie Antoine herself pulled me into her office in 1999 to find out what I had against her. In my characteristic diplomatic tone, I replied that she treated her people like dirt and was incompetent at managing the office. Other than that, I said, I have no trouble with the way you've been running things.

Eight years later, here I am.

My opponent has been in the race since February. He had no plan. Instead, he promised to assemble a team and consult with it about a plan. He included at least one person on his "team" that didn't even know he was on it until I told him. Despite his "assembling" and "meeting" and taking "field trips," he only managed a plan 11 days after he took a copy of mine off a table at the Pennsylvania Constables candidates' forum on September 12, 2007. The plan didn't jump start his campaign.

When his plan did not catch fire, and led by Sentry Abstract, he spent about $46,000 as of October 22, 2007 to "buy" the election, including $40,000 of his own money gotten by selling sub prime mortgages to poor people. At that point, he had more in the bank than I had raised and spent for the entire campaign. He has outspent me by 500%, but it hasn't worked. I got a comfortable pair of shoes and my old 1988 Chevy Silverado gas hog, and went out door to door, meeting the people. If my opponent knocked on his own door, it was a lot. I guess some people use special interests to help them buy offices; other people just work to achieve office.

But, to paraphrase the Beatles, money can't buy you love, and my opponent's wild spending has not gotten the job done either. So he has resorted to public cheap shots.

Even though I have a plan (which is now my opponent's plan, too), developing a plan alone does not qualify someone to run a county office in Berks County. You have to be experienced in the "ways" of the courthouse to sell the plan. My opponent has rarely been in the county offices; no one even remembers him being here. I have experience in controlling costs and controlling taxes; my opponent has none. I have experience in public finance; my opponent has none. I have knowledge of what it takes to manage public agencies; my opponent has none. For 23 years, my opponent has written and filed the same narrow class of documents; I have a wide knowledge of document filing. And while you don't have to be an attorney to know the law, it helps. My opponent claims the office is adminstrative and that a law degree is not required. Well, knowledge of the law defining the limits of administration is; if that were not so, Ellie Antoine would not have been sued. Being a lawyer is not necessary to know the law, but reading the law is. My opponent and his supporters betray never having even read the law.

So who is better qualified to propose and sell a plan of action in county government? Somebody with government service experience. That would be me. Selling a plan in the county requires a vigorous advocate, not a milquetoast.

There are people who watch things happen, those who make things happen, and those who wonder what happened. The Recorder of Deeds office cries out for someone who can make things happen.

The Montgomery County and Lancaster County Recorders of Deeds know I can make things happen—they’ve endorsed me.

The Homebuilders Association knows I can make things happen—it has endorsed me.

The voters in the spring chose me because I can make things happen— when I beat the incumbent.

What I’m asking now is for your vote and support and help on November 6.

So together we can make things happen in the Recorder of Deeds office.

So we can finish what was started in the spring,

A season of new beginnings.