PD News

Come tomorrow night it will be official. West Pittston Mayor Bill Goldsworthy, 55, will formally kickoff of his campaign for the Republican nomination for State Representative of the 120th District Monday, March 8 at 7 p.m. at the Black Diamond Post 395 American Legion, 386 Wyoming Avenue in Kingston.

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Goldsworthy

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The event is open to the public and complimentary refreshments will be served.

As Goldsworthy is unopposed on the Republican side, his real fight will be a campaign to unseat Democratic incumbent Phyllis Mundy in November. Goldsworthy said he has been approached in the past to run for the seat, but never felt the time was right. Now, he said, the time is right both personally and politically, with his children all being out of college and, in his words, with what happened with the budget in Harrisburg.

Goldsworthy said he is fed up with the mistreatment of budgets and the neglect of the people of Pennsylvania. He believes a budget submitted 101 days late is unacceptable and the people deserve better.

“This hurt so many people, besides the State employees who didn’t get a paycheck, it hurt dependant agencies that deal with our elderly, our youth and our special need individuals,” Goldsworthy said. “Nobody down there was negotiating. I have an open mind and I feel I can work with both sides of the aisle.”

Goldsworthy doesn’t like what’s happened with casino revenue. “When they passed table games, not one penny went to property tax relief.” He wants to work to ensure revenues from casino gambling are used toward lowering property tax with his ultimate goal of eliminating property tax.

Goldsworthy describes himself as, “Pro-life, pro-environment, pro-police and very proactive. I’m also a gun owner and avid hunter.”

The candidate said his has been ahead of the curve on public safety and environmental issues since he was a young man. “I started the first recycling program in West Pittston for my Eagles Scout project. When I first got on council we passed a recycling ordinance two years before it was state mandated. When I was fire chief we passed the first smoke detector ordinance in the state. As mayor I championed a kid public smoking ban and we became the fifth municipality in the state to pass one.” Goldsworthy vows that he will not accept per diems and he will not be part of any midnight budget deals.

Goldsworthy graduated from Wyoming Are High School in 1972 and received his bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Wilkes University in 1976. He and his wife, Jannet, reside in West Pittston and have four children, Brandon, Carrie, Karyn, and Aimee. He has been the Mayor of West Pittston for 13 years and serves on the Wilkes-Barre Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors and the W-B Chamber Government Committee.

Rep. Mundy has held the seat since 1990. Since then she has been reelected eight times. Democrats have 55 to 36 percent registration edge, 20,600 to 13,493, with 2,743 voters registered unaffiliated in the 120th. The district includes Courtdale, Exeter, Forty Fort, Kingston, Luzerne, Pringle, Swoyersville, West Pittston, West Wyoming and Wyoming boroughs and Exeter, Jackson and Kingston townships.