GOP DA candidates trade campaign barbs
Consiglio, Donaldson debate includes crime, police, change
The Republican candidates running for Blair County district attorney traded campaign jabs Tuesday night while trying to garner votes for next week’s showdown.
In the 12 years that Richard Consiglio has been district attorney, the county has averaged 2,635 new criminal cases annually, challenger Robert Donaldson told about 80 attending the event hosted by the Central Pennsylvania Council of Republican Women.
“That means we haven’t seen a decrease in crime,” Donaldson said. “That’s why I want to be district attorney, to attack that number.”
But making the numbers go down, Consiglio countered, doesn’t make Blair County a safer community.
“Who don’t we arrest?” Consiglio asked rhetorically.
During the nearly 90-minute event held at the Altoona Grand Hotel, the candidates took turns answering questions from a panel and addressed their abilities to supervise the county’s office that prosecutes those facing criminal charges.
Donaldson said that he has worked in 46 of the state’s 67 counties, the state Attorney General’s Office and managed three multimillion dollar companies during his career.
“It should be a seamless transition,” Donaldson predicted if he is elected.
Consiglio disagreed and told the audience: “My opponent has zero experience to be a DA.”
Consiglio, meanwhile, has been a prosecutor for 29 years, serving 17 as an assistant district attorney before becoming district attorney. It’s a job that sometimes generates middle-of-the-night calls, he said, from on-the-scene police officers seeking advice on evidence collection.
“This is not a job for on-the-job training,” Consiglio said.
But it is a job and an office in need of change, Donaldson countered, to address an ineffective system that could be improved in ways that result in a faster resolution of criminal cases, at a lesser cost to the county.
“We need someone to go into the DA’s office and make changes. … We need to streamline the system,” Donaldson said.
Consiglio said the DA’s office is only one part of the system influencing how fast a case moves through the court system. The court administration office and the judges are part of the system too, Consiglio said without placing any blame.
As for role of local police, Consiglio said his office has a good working relationship with them.
“That’s why every police department in this county supports me,” Consiglio said. “They trust me, and they want me and not my opponent in the DA’s office.”
Consiglio also criticized Donaldson for a campaign focused on cutting cases and costs.
“He has never said my top priority is for the victims,” Consiglio said.
“My idea is to reduce the number of victims,” Donaldson said.
Mirror Staff Writer Kay Stephens is at 946-7456.