In the interest of full transparency I confess that I never actually had a conversation with God about a political future. If I had, though, I’m fairly certain He would have said: “Bobby, stay here and lead your people back to the promised land, to the glory that Scranton once was. Do that and you’ll go down in history as Bobby Scranton.” Since God presumably is as infallible as the Pope I would have followed His direction, and I am sometimes referred to as “Bobby Scranton”, but that moniker was conferred on me in real time by Claudia’s grandmother, a Pittsburgh native, and not by God.

I believe I was eminently qualified to be Mayor of Scranton, and easily electable. I would present myself as a tall, well-dressed, scandal-free Democrat and a grandchild of Irish immigrants. I was well-connected to the influential local clergy and could obtain the endorsement of at least three bowling leagues. It also would not have hurt that I am a white man.

The citizenry would have experienced a new and improved life under my administration. I would campaign for the office of Mayor on a platform that innovatively addressed the issues people care about. That would include the following areas of concern:

Healthcare – Bring down the cost of prescriptions. One way to do this is for the city to sponsor and provide a weekly chartered plane for residents to fly to Mexico for their drugs. The lucky residents can be selected by lottery, with the proceeds from sale of the lottery tickets earmarked for payment of air travel insurance. Another approach to reducing prescription cost, and in some instances even eliminating it, would be to require that every section of the city have a Dr. Brill’s House of Pills, just as my family was blessed to have in West Scranton.

Education – Reduce the cost of education at elementary, secondary, and collegiate levels by firing all teachers who work for pay, and instead replace them with nuns who have taken a vow of poverty. They are also better disciplinarians. I recognize that for this concept to work there needs to be a substantial influx of women into the holy sisterhood. To encourage that we need to lobby the Catholic hierarchy to allow nuns to marry priests who have similarly taken a vow of poverty.

Taxation – Eliminate the city’s tax on the hard-working wage earners. Instead, we should annually tax the folks who think they are affluent enough to harbor household pets, whether they be parakeets, hamsters, goldfish, cats, dogs (especially dogs), or any other nuisance. Since this might be harsh on some folks we could allow no more than two “grandfather” exemptions for existing pets.

Infrastructure – Let’s tear down those bridges. They are too expensive to repair or replace. Who needs them anyway? Frustrated people just jump off them, so demolition will reduce the suicide rate. So what if every once in a while someone has to swim across the Lackawanna River. It’s not like crossing the Mighty Mississippi. My administration will also propose the closing to vehicular traffic of all streets that continue to be plagued by those awful potholes. We’ll convert those streets to pedestrian walkways, which has the dual benefits of offering our residents an avenue for healthy exercise and reducing automobile pollution.

Integration – I would strongly support integration at every level. There would be no divisiveness under the Tyrrell administration. All lives matter, even the Amish. The Italians, the Polish, and the Germans would be encouraged to focus on their common interests and goals rather than their differences. To foster that camaraderie I would propose that they jointly host a pot luck dinner, at least monthly, on Courthouse Square. To provide a better understanding of their respective faiths I also support a proposal that in alternate years our Jewish neighbors honor and celebrate Easter and Christmas and our Gentile residents honor and celebrate Passover and Rosh Hashanah.

Business and Employment – Bring back the Dunder Mifflin Paper Company and offer tempting tax incentives to Walmart to open four new stores within the city limits, one in each of North, East, South, and West Scranton, providing good minimum wage jobs to our citizens. Also, as a grandson of a coal miner, I support the notion that we should re-open the mines. Let’s provide that as an employment opportunity. We can send men and women with clean, healthy lungs down the mine shafts to explore what was left behind when the mines closed and what can still be extracted to help the local economy.

Alliances – My administration will strive to strengthen alliances with our neighboring suburbs, such as Moosic, Olyphant, Dickson City, Archbald, Taylor, and Old Forge, just to name a few, while at the same time being vigilant and wary of our natural rival, Wilkes-Barre. I would do what I can to disassociate any link with Wilkes-Barre. For example, our Triple AAA minor league baseball team is called the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Rail Riders. Why? Their stadium is in Scranton. They never play in Wilkes-Barre. Our airport is located in Avoca, just a stone’s throw away from the Scranton city line, but a good 15 miles from Wilkes-Barre, but for some reason it’s called the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International Airport. This nonsense will stop under my administration.

Crime and Law Enforcement – My policy would be to defund criminals, not police. But changes will have to be made in our police force. Too many officers are eating too many donuts on the job and carry so much excess weight that they can’t chase the bad guys down the back alleys. Let’s lure tough street smart guys from Jersey and put badges on them. To curtail crime I would also consider imposing a nightly curfew of 9 p.m., year-round, with the only exceptions being Christmas Eve for Midnight Mass and St. Patrick’s Day.

Tourism – We need to provide tourists with comprehensive exposure to the sights, sounds, and smells of Scranton. I would propose that the city buy double-decker buses to offer our guests a tour they’re not likely to forget, free of charge. My vision is that the buses would run on the half-hour, boarding passengers at the burial site of Tillie, our beloved elephant, on the grounds of the famous Nay Aug Zoo, and discharging them at Maroni’s Pizza House, and in that regard I should mention that on Day One of my administration I would sign an executive order giving Maroni’s a sweetheart 99-year lease at a location of their choice in our fair city.

Population Control – It is time to reverse the declining population trend of the last half century. The most productive solution would be to encourage every family to bring at least five children into the world. The city can incentivize the accomplishment of that policy objective by subsidizing the costs to the parents of clothing (including athletic shoes) they purchase for their children. If there is noncompliance more stringent measures could be considered, including ostracism of the offending family.

Image – The city needs a new, vibrant image. It is perceived by some as a dying town. One reason for this is the multitude of funeral parlors in the city’s neighborhoods. I would propose that we give a liquor license to half of the funeral homes, convert them into a happier place to congregate with neighbors, and replace those coffins with a stage for stand-up comedy and dueling pianos.

Local Government – Abolish the City Council. As a benevolent Mayor I would run the city on my own, and would do so with a well-balanced and well-nourished budget.

I think God would be proud of my agenda for the re-emergence of Scranton as a power city. At the end of my successful term as Mayor there undoubtedly would be a huge congratulatory celebration on Montage Mountain, at the foot of the spectacular ski slopes. People would come, they most definitely would come, because everyone knows there ain’t no party like a Scranton party, and at the end of the night they would throw their hats up in the air, every one of them lettered with my campaign slogan, B S F U, meaning, of course, Bobby Scranton For You.