Cognetti has made her home here in NEPA
Editor: The campaign for the Eighth Congressional District is in its early stages, but already there are clear signs that desperation has taken hold in Congressman Rob Bresnahan’s camp. Consider the recent letter “Carpetbagger Cognetti doesn’t reflect region” (Feb. 19). The letter argues having grown up on the West Coast, Cognetti is not “one of us,” whatever that means. This “othering” did not rule the day in Paige’s three prior mayoral campaigns, which she won handily, and it won’t work now. The letter concludes with the tired, “NEPA deserves someone who knows us, not someone trying to make us,” as if millionaire helicopter pilot and silver-spoon recipient Bresnahan is a NEPA Everyman.
Was Cognetti trying to remake us when she led Scranton out of 30 years of financial distress? When she took on the city’s corrupt political machines and won? When she secured over $155 million in state and federal funding? When she hired more cops to keep Scranton safe and invested in new policing equipment? When she directed $26.7 million for parks and pools and $23 million for stormwater infrastructure? How, precisely, in doing her job effectively, orchestrating these and so many other groundbreaking projects is she trying to remake us? Seems to me she’s trying and succeeding in solving the city’s long existing problems, and that’s exactly what she’ll do when she becomes our Congresswoman.
Throwing dismissive labels with Civil War origins at someone who has bled all things Scranton and Northeastern Pennsylvania, who has made a home here among our people, resides here not because she was born here but has chosen to live here is cynical in the extreme. It may work in desperate MAGA circles, but it just won’t play in Scranton.
And to turn a phrase, “If it won’t play in Scranton, it won’t play anywhere in Northeastern PA.”
Patrick Francis Joyce, Moosic