YORK COUNTY'S CANDIDATE FOR STATE OFFICE

YORK SUNDAY NEWS - OCTOBER 6, 1996 - YORK, PA

SPRING GROVE BOARD MEMBER RUNS FOR TREASURER
Spring Grove Area School Board member Dean Snyder gets off the campaignbus in York. Snyder is running for state treasurer on the ConstitutionParty ticket.
By J.P. Kurish - Dispatch/Sunday News

If there is a call out there for a pro-life and pro-gun state treasurerto come along, Dean L. Snyder, who arrived in York by bus last week, heardit.

Snyder, a retired Air Force recruiter, didn't need to take a bus to getto York County. He lives here.

But, last Tuesday, the retired Air Force recruiter hopped on a plane toPittsburgh to catch a bus to York.

It's all part of a statewide campaign tour for the Constitution Party, asmall ultra-conservative organization that takes in not only pro-lifers,but also sundry others on the far right of the political spectrum,including zealous gun owners, fervent tax-cutters and staunch defenders ofthe letter of the Constitution.

Snyder, now a member of the Spring Grove School Board, is on the ballotacross the state as the party's candidate for state treasurer, perhaps themost pedestrian of all the elected offices up for grabs this year.

PARTY CALLS: Even though there are other races on the ballot this year -like a seat in the U.S. Congress, or one in the state House ofRepresentatives - where someone with Snyder's passionate political viewscould act on his agenda, treasurer is where party officials told him to be.

Snyder said he volunteered himself to run for an office, any office.

"When they came back to me and said `state treasurer,' I said `huh?'" herecalled.

Party officials, Snyder said, were encouraged by his work with a wholealphabet of acronymed taxpayer groups, including the Taxpayer Alliance ofPennsylvania (TAP), Southcentral Taxpayers Allied Regionally (STAR), andthe York County Taxpayers Council (YCTC).

Still, he's not sure why they picked state treasurer, a job that mostlyinvolves steering the state's money into investments and overseeing anumber of fiduciary and retirement boards. It's not exactly the kind ofwork for a fiery conservative who gives his school board colleagues fits,and vows to govern with "biblical principles."

But Snyder is adjusting, and now says he's comfortable with the party's decision.

"The more I understand the office, the more I understand they're right,"he said.

Much of that understanding came from one page of a book describing theduties of state treasurer.

Snyder said he's not sure what book the page came from, but it hashelped him put together a platform to run against Republican Barbara Hafer(now state Auditor General), and Democrat Mina Baker Knoll (daughter of thecurrent state treasurer). Also on the ballot are Libertarian John D.Samularo, and Michael S. Klein of the Reform Party.

Knoll is a certified public accountant, and Hafer has years ofexperience as the auditor general, but Snyder doesn't think thatdisqualifies him.

"There are 400 employees in the office of the state treasurer who can dothe accounting work," he said. "Part of my role is to seek wise counsel andto follow it. The treasurer is meant to be more of a leadership ormanagement role."

VARIED PLATFORM: Snyder's platform planks are widely varied andsometimes only loosely connected to the job at hand. They include,according to his campaign literature: "accurate accounting...teacher unionopposition...brainstorming...prevailing wage reform, 10th amendment enforcement."

Cutting the costs of education has been a main theme for years. He waselected to the Spring Grove School Board as a member of the controversialSpring Grove Area Concerned Taxpayers Association.

He is a well-known enemy of teacher's unions and has given equal fire toadministrators.

Some of this, he said, can be adopted to the job of state treasurer.

He is vowing to put an end to the practice of padding school employeeretirement income by granting last-month raises to retiring employees.

STATE'S MONEY WOULD STAY: And he also says that he will only investPennsylvania's money in Pennsylvania, if he can be certain that it willreturn the same yield.

"I would be very surprised if we can't find comparable yields inPennsylvania," he said.

It is, he acknowledges, a big jump from running for school board torunning for a statewide office.

"It's difficult," he said. "You have to go out and make the contactsthat you already have."

Snyder has a fax list of 80 daily newspapers now, and a mailing list of400 or 500 people.

The campaign has "a little bit in the kitty," and is - with the bus trip- starting to make its move. But money, especially for an ardent taxcutter, is a secondary concern.

"I would be happy to say at the end of the day that I did it with a lotless," he said.

Contributed by Jesse C. Wagner II