PACKARD APOLOGIZES
Today, the Citizen Voice's Michael Buffer reported that Luzerne County Election Board Chair, Jeremy Packard has apologized for his "Gimpy people" remark. Here's Buffer's story:
H. Jeremy Packard, chairman of Luzerne County's board of elections, issued a statement Thursday apologizing for sarcastically calling voters with disabilities "gimpy." "I very much regret that my sarcastic words were taken out of context in a media spotlight that may have caused discomfort," Packard said. "I apologize wholeheartedly for whatever emotional distress they may have caused."
Packard used the term "gimpy" at the May 7 meeting of the county elections board, after Director of Elections Marisa Crispell noted a Wilkes-Barre polling place for the May 21 primary election was not accessible to voters with disabilities. Packard referred to setting up "a little tent with one machine" for voters with disabilities and then said, "a lot of gimpy people walking around back there, all right."
Packard was not at Monday's meeting of the elections board when Bob Caruso, a Democratic committeeman from Wilkes-Barre Township, blasted him for using a slur against voters with disabilities.
Packard did not return messages seeking comment Tuesday and Wednesday. Packard noted he has been "out of town and not in direct communication with the Wyoming Valley" in an email issued Thursday, and he tried to explain his use of the term "gimpy" "I did use the term, but sarcastically, in a very specific context of a comment to the bureau director," he wrote. "It was in reference to the impossibility of making one of our polling places handicapped accessible, and the difficulty of finding any replacement venue for that specific voting precinct. A suggestion was made that if we couldn't get another venue, we could set up a tent with a voting machine just outside that voting place. My comment was that if we had to do that so be it, 'gimpy old folks would be provided a place to vote.'
But this was in the CONTEXT THAT WE REALLY SHOULD DO BETTER."