Former Lebanon city mayoral candidate hosts spoken word event at Allen Theatre

Former Lebanon city mayoral candidate Scott Church held a spoken-word event Tuesday, April 22, at the Allen Theatre to provide his political insights during a program titled “Become the Government.”

Church, who was removed from the GOP primary ballot in March following a court challenge from incumbent candidate Sherry Capello for petition deficiencies, said during a 25-minute presentation to a sparse crowd at the Annville theater that when he decided to run in January some people thought it was a joke.

“I’ll go on the radio and tell people that I’m running for mayor and it’ll be funny and everybody will think it’s a…,” Church said, without finishing the thought. “And then nobody thought it was funny because the entire city is so desperate to fix things that even somebody like me is going to be like a bright point in some spectrum of hope.” 

Church said that desperation has caused people to have hope that he will seek office anyway.

“People will start to take it seriously and people will start to say, ‘Hey, no, no, no, this is actually a good idea. We should make this work and can we make this work and how do we keep him on the ballot even though he’s too (expletive) stupid to keep up with his own paperwork,’” he said.

After the event ended, Church told LebTown he’s going to run on the Libertarian ticket for the office of mayor. 

However, having filed a petition as a Republican candidate disqualifies him from running under the banner of another party for this election cycle, according to Sean Drasher, director of the Lebanon County elections/voter registration office. Drasher added, however, that Church can stage a write-in campaign.

Church noted that he’s still playing the part he decided in January, when he announced his mayoral campaign “to become the government.”

“Because when you decide to do something like that, you throw yourself into this whole other vicious pit of garbage and look, man, we all have our own special little vicious pits of garbage that we run around in, like my photography community is a vicious pit of garbage, all right?” he said. “But it’s my vicious pit of garbage and I love it. These are my people but then I decided to do this and now suddenly I’ve been like this whole other realm and I’ll tell you what, man, it’s (expletive) deep.”

Part of the deepness is the imbalance in Lebanon County between the two parties, Church said. Registered Republican voters hold a more than a 2-1 edge over registered Democrats

“Back when I registered to vote, back when I was in the Navy, back in the early ’90s, the only thing I had in my head was being able to vote in primaries because around here, there’s really nothing to vote for in primaries if you’re not a Republican, is there?” he said. “So if you’re actually going to run for something in this city, if you really want to make a change you have to make the change in May before you even get to November. And in an off-year election, in an oddball election, there is only this small amount of time to make that work and the people that run that are really entrenched.”

Church said that those people are “absolutely wonderful people” who will “smile right in your face” but who also “want to keep their jobs.”

“They’re wonderful people that don’t want to have to figure out what they have to do next year because they can’t do this anymore and that creates like this stranglehold – especially when power is so easily given,” he said. “Well, that power is kept just as easily and there needs to be the idea of chaos. You need to at least believe that chaos can happen or else you just lose touch with everything that you’re trying to do.”

Church said leaders who lose sight of the possibility of chaos lose the people who voted them into office.

“All that really does is just disconnect people from you. All that really does is just cut you off from the people that you’re trying to help. All that really does is separate you from the people that are voting for you. When nobody feels connected, nobody wants to be here at all,” said Church.

He said that’s evident when young people move from the area, never to return.

“The reality is that the brilliant students at our schools. … once they leave for college, they’re gone. And it’s hard to get them to come back because we’re not giving them anything to do here,” Church said. “We’re not giving them any reason to come back. We’re not giving them a home that feels like home. And there’s so much else to do everywhere else. There’s just so much else to do everywhere else. So much so that places like this (Allen Theatre) have trouble making things work. Places like my place, when I had it, we had a lot of trouble making things work because there really just isn’t an audience for it.”

A lack of social amenities leads to people feeling and being disconnected, he argued.

“Your whole world’s on your phone or on your television in front of you, and you don’t really have to bother dealing with anything at all. … So it’s so easy to stay and remain disconnected.”

Church said having conducted a campaign helped him to reconnect with people.

“I like speaking to people. I like when people speak to me. There’s been a lot of pleasure in this campaign because I’ve actually been able to truly reconnect. To truly … meet people and encourage people … and really try to push to make sure that, you know, there’s some sort of connection,” he said. “I’ve met so many really wonderful people and it’s actually been really a lot of fun.”

Church said he is still positive about the idea of change in the community.

“I’m actually really sure that there are good things coming. I know that things are going to work and we’re going to laugh at the idea that it could ever have been questioned in the first place.”

Church told attendees that while we may feel angry about the “really bad things” that are happening, they also need to realize that they can’t fix everything. Instead, he encouraged everyone to pick the things where you can “truly affect change.”

“(Things) you can truly make better. At least be able to figure out the steps, at least be able to figure out the idea of this turns into this, turns into this, and then better. And if there’s a bunch of people working that way, things do get done,” he said. “The idea is not to become the government, the idea is to not need the government. The idea is to not have to ask the government for anything, because every time you do, it just gets more complicated.”