Slawomir Platta Merits Your Vote
Those who saw Mr. Sławomir (Sławek) Platta in action, at the ten hours marathon, 13-14 June 2018, Jersey City Council Meeting, agree that he is our top up-and-coming Polish American political leader. He made a strong case for keeping our Katyń Monument at its present location in Exchange Place. Nevertheless, the majority of the Jersey City Council, well known for their subservience to the mayor, voted 6-3 to move Andrzej Pitynski’s Katyń Monument to an unacceptable location at the foot of York Street.
Undaunted, Sławek launched a successful petition campaign to hold a referendum on the ordinance to move the Katyń Monument. The petition succeeded. The coming referendum will give the voters a voice in planning the future of the Katyń Monument and of Exchange Place, which many Jersey City residents want to re-purpose as Freedom Square — to commemorate not only Polish heroes who were the victims of Stalinist mass murderer, but African Americans, Koreans, South Asians and others who struggled for freedom against racism and tyranny.
Every year, Exchange Place is the setting for July 4 fireworks to mark Independence Day. It will be far more fitting to commemorate Independence Day in Exchange Place re-purposed as Freedom Square for all the people, rather than in Exchange Place re-purposed to accommodate an upscale tavern for the wealthy.
A successful tort lawyer, who defends injured workers against powerful corporations, Mr. Platta could spend his leisure time seeking diversion among the wealthy. Instead, he talks truth to power outside the court room too. He does so to ensure fair play for all citizens against selfish plutocrats and their bought elected officials.
Mr. Platta’s leisure time is devoted to making the general welfare of law abiding and patriotic citizens prevail against the machinations of the greedy and selfish. This is the mark of a truly public spirited leader. His defense of the Katyń Monument as a symbol of resistance against tyranny makes him a contemporary avatar of nineteenth century Polish freedom fighters whose banner read: “FOR OUR FREEDOM AND YOURS”.
Sławek launched the struggle to stop The Exchange Place Alliance from persuading the Jersey City Council to enact an ordinance to remove Andrzej Pitynski’s Katyn Monument from Jersey City’s Exchange Place, the first step in re-purposing Exchange Place into a playground for rich tourists. While masquerading as a municipal improvement organization, The Exchange Place Alliance is, in fact, a selfish and greedy group of insiders who want to move the Katyn Monument to in order to build an upscale tavern for wealthy visitors to Jersey City where the Katyń Monument now stands. The Exchange Place Alliance includes Mack-Cali Real Estate Company executives and their factotum, Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop.
Moreover, the Mayor does not debate with those who disagree with him on the future of Pitynski’s Katyń Monument. Instead, Mayor Fulop tweeted, for all the world to see, that the Marshal of Poland’s Senate, Stanislaw Karczewski, MD, is “an a–hole, anti-Semite, and Holocaust denier.” This is an insult to Poland’s national honor. Marshal Karczewski still has NOT received an explanation, or apology, from Mayor Fulop for these false and extravagant epithets. Should a man with Fulop’s moral style continue mayor of a great American city?
By training and temperament Sławek will be a New York State Senator who puts people before profiteers. This he clearly has shown in his struggle for the Katyń Monument. This is why he well merits your vote in the Republican Primary Election, New York State Senate District 15, on September 13, 2018.
by John Czop