You can hear the song and lyrics at the web site.

http://www.standardspeaker.com/index.ph ... 3&Itemid=2

NEW ONLINE: Junedale man's song pays tribute to mayor

Friday, 18 August 2006
By KENT JACKSON
knt.jackson@standardspeaker.com

Since Hazleton Mayor Louis Barletta gained national notice for his stance against illegal immigration, he received boxes of cards, letters, e-mails – and one song.

LISTEN TO KORMONICK'S SONG

Joseph D. Kormonick, a former member of Country Junction band, wrote “The Ballad of Mayor Barletta,” set it to an old tune of his, and recorded it on a compact disc.

“My whole idea was to give it as a little, personal gift to the mayor. Maybe it will cheer him up,” said Kormonick, who never met Barletta and didn’t vote for him, either.

He lives in Junedale, about one mile south of the city limits.
Kormonick recorded the CD at the home of his 86-year-old friend Al Hostrich in the Hazle Township village of Hollywood.
The homemade case shows a photograph of Kormonick strumming his new red, white, and blue guitar, and a smaller picture of the mayor on the cover.

Kormonick left the CD with the mayor’s secretary, Cherie Homa.
Later, she told him that she liked the song, which runs less than 2 minutes, and the mayor did too.

The song starts with Kormonick’s guitar playing and a welcome to legal immigrants.

“But if you’re here illegally,” Kormonick sings, “with evil on your mind, a one-way ticket out of town is all you’re going to find.”
A refrain played after both verses says Barletta had the courage to explain his plan nationwide.
“Those are my views exactly. I have nothing against Hispanic people. I was probably one of the first people in this area singing in Spanish,” Kormonick said of songs by Jose Feliciano and Freddy Fender the he covered with Country Junction.

Barletta encouraged city council to make Hazleton one of the first places in the nation to pass a law related to immigration after illegal immigrants were arrested for a murder, firing a gun at a playground, and drug offenses. He said Hazleton welcomes legal immigrants, but serving illegal immigrants puts financial strain on the city’s police, hospital, and other agencies.

This week, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, and private attorneys sued the city to overturn the law, which fines landlords for renting to illegal immigrants, punishes businesses that hire them, and makes English the official language of city government.

“I really believed in the cause,” Kormonick said. “I just don’t write unless I really believe in something or I’m moved by it.”
He also wrote ballads after the explosions of the space shuttle Challenger in 1986 and Columbia in 2003.