Ed Pawlowski

Edwin Everett Pawlowski is an American politician who served as the 41st Mayor of Allentown, Pennsylvania.

Pawlowski attended school in Chicago and Addison, Illinois, where he earned his high school diploma in 1983.

Following his high school graduation, he enrolled at Moody Bible Institute, in Chicago, where he received his bachelor's degree.

He went on to earn a master's degree in urban planning and public policy from the University of Illinois at Chicago.

After his years at Moody Bible Institute, Pawlowski worked as a community organizer in Chicago's Southwest Side, focusing on helping residents find quality, affordable housing and improving their quality of life.

Pawlowski then enrolled at the University of Illinois at Chicago to pursue his master's degree in urban planning and public policy.

He was then hired to be the executive director of Windows of Opportunity, the non-profit subsidiary of the Chicago Housing Authority, where he supervised the development of special programs and self-sufficiency projects designed to help Chicago's public housing residents, which at the time numbered more than 100,000.

In 1996, he became executive director of Lehigh Housing Development Corporation, a regional community development corporation later known as Alliance for Building Communities.

He was eventually appointed to the post of Director of Community and Economic Development for the City of Allentown by then mayor Roy Afflerbach.

Pawlowski was elected to his first term as mayor of Allentown, Pennsylvania in 2005 by popular vote.

He held the office from 2006 until his resignation in 2018, following his election to a fourth term in 2017.

He resigned after being convicted on 47 federal charges related to corruption as mayor of Allentown.

Pawlowski was the first candidate for mayor to win every precinct in a competitive election, a distinction he maintained through his 2009 re-election bid.

Pawlowski and the majority of Allentown City Council advocated throughout 2012 and 2013 for the lease of the city's publicly owned water and sewer systems to cover soaring pension costs for high-ranking police officers negotiated under the previous administration.

The proposal to lease the city's water and sewer systems for 50 years came under significant public scrutiny, especially considering successful legal action by surrounding municipalities that left the city with considerable budget shortfalls involving Allentown's Neighborhood Improvement Zone.

Several meetings were held with the public in relation to the lease of water systems, the first being in July 2012.

The final vote on whether the water lease would be approved and who would be permitted to purchase it relied on Allentown City Council.

Residents expressed concerns over the safety of water systems in private hands, evidence from prior sales in other cities that suggested rates would skyrocket if the systems were handed over to a private or public firm, the importance of water staying a public asset, and several ethical concerns regarding the transparency of the process.

Several residents also argued why the systems needed to be leased, considering that, if the lease succeeded, profits from the water and sewer systems would go into private coffers instead of public funds.

Additionally, the Mayor's administration spent an undisclosed amount of public funds on hiring Public Finance Management (PFM) to research the situation and sell the public on the idea of leasing water and sewer systems.

The amount spent to hire PFM was later discovered to have totaled $500,000.

A conflict of interest was also purported when it was announced that PFM would negotiate the request for proposals for the water lease, thereby giving the firm a stake in the success of the water lease proposal.

As a result of the controversy, a concerned citizens group later referred to as Save Allentown's Water was formed.

Also, groups including but not limited to Food and Water Watch, Water Posse, and the Lehigh Valley Industrial Workers of the World all helped to oppose water privatization in the beginning.

In October 2012, resident Elijah LoPinto submitted a petition to force Allentown City Council to discuss making the water lease a ballot question, but the council refused to discuss the petition or ballot question.

Save Allentown's Water and Food and Water Watch compiled a petition to make the water lease a referendum.

The petitioners gathered over 4,000 signatures from registered voters in Allentown, double the required 2,000.

In the May 21, 2013 primary election, Pawlowski, running for a third consecutive term as mayor on the Democratic ticket, not only won the Democratic nomination but also the Republican nomination through a grassroots write-in campaign initiated by a number of local Republican activists and businessmen.

Pawlowski is the first mayor in the history of the City of Allentown to earn both the Republican and Democratic nominations for mayor and as such Pawlowski ran on a cross-filed ticket in the general election.

Despite the signatures being deemed valid, the petition was disqualified in February 2013 for not meeting requirements under the Pennsylvania Election Code and State Constitution.

He was a candidate for Pennsylvania governor in 2014, but dropped out of the race in February after, he said, "it became clear that he was not going to be able to raise the necessary money."

Pawlowski was born to small business owners in Chicago.

The family owned and operated a popular Polish restaurant on the city's North Side.

On April 17, 2015, Pawlowski announced that he would run for the U.S. Senate in 2016, but he suspended his campaign the following July.

On April 17, 2015, Pawlowski announced his intentions to run for the U.S. Senate as the Democratic candidate, running for the seat held by incumbent Senator Pat Toomey.

Pawlowski went on a brief announcement tour and picked up numerous endorsements along the way.

The Metropolitan Regional Council of Carpenters and the International Union of Operating Engineers, Local 542, both in Philadelphia, announced their support of Pawlowski, as did the Lehigh Valley Building Trades Council.

Pawlowski was also endorsed by fellow mayors Bob Donchez of Bethlehem, Sal Panto of Easton, and Vaughn Spencer of Reading.

Pennsylvania State Representatives Michael Schlossberg, Peter Schweyer, Dan McNeill, and Thomas Caltagirone; and Adrian Shanker, chairman of the LGBT Caucus of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party endorsed his candidacy.

Pawlowski suspended his campaign four days after the Federal Bureau of Investigation conducted a search in Allentown City Hall and questioned officials in connection with a grand jury investigation.