Council - Regular Meeting

Do you have an iPhone or an Android that you have? And you don't have any issues with your council email?

We could walk through that after.

I'll show you how I set it up. No, I don't have it set up on this phone. I had it set up on this phone, and I was having issues with it. I deleted it to re-add it.

Mine reads as a Gmail account, so that might be the problem. So I set it up through a Gmail account.

Well, that's how I had mine set up, through Gmail as an exchange.

Interesting.

But it's still not working. We'll talk about it. Excellent.

Hey, Artie, we're about to start.

We're about to start the meeting right now.

Council, am I ready?

Are you guys ready to drop?

Good evening, everyone. I'll ask that everyone rise for the Pledge of the Flag.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

The clerk will call the roll.

Mr. Raymond. Mr. Callahan. Present. Mr. Cologne. Present. Ms. Daniels.

Here.

Ms. Kwiatek.

Present.

Ms. Laird. Present. Ms. Leone.

Present. Moving on to the approval of the minutes. Are there any comments on the minutes from council members? All right. minutes stand approved we're going to move on to public comments we've got a bit of a full house um tonight so i'll just as a reminder we have a five limit five minute time limit for our public comment um so that we can get through everyone as they come and a reminder that public comment is more of a chance to come and address council i'm happy to stay after the meeting if you would like to engage in a dialogue I'm happy to hang out, but for the purpose of public comment, it's just the address council. So we will start with public comment on things not being voted on. The first person I have signed up is Larry Kirk.

Good evening, council members. I am here to thank you for closing the new Bethlehem landfill. today that stuff got picked up thank you so very very much and i drew the short straw to come down here because i wanted to thank you all took us seven months but yeah you did it it got cleaned up today y'all sent a crew over here there and stuff and picked it up that's why john and mark and mike ain't here mike asked me to thank the code officer who wrote it william santiago if i said that name right Please, if you all see him, I don't know if he's in here. I don't know him. But thank you so much. He took care of that for me. And now so far, the problem's resolved. And now I get to do my impersonation. If it happens again, we'll be back.

Thank you so much, Larry. All right. Next, I have Sue Greathouse.

hello my name is sue greathouse thank you for having me and is that better oh there we can hear you um my name is sue greathouse thank you for having me i'm i'm just have a real quick thing i already talked with council member de leon i just have um my neighbors we have a weed prop problem um my neighbor's weeds are out of control there's some poisonous plants I have pets they're poisonous to pets so I'm just wondering if that could a code officer could come out and make sure that it's enforced and I think that is going to be addressed so thank you thank you Sue next I have Jessica Unger

Good evening members of city council. My name is Jessica Unger and my husband Michael is here with me tonight. He was in the Air Force. He and I purchased our home at 246 10th Avenue in January of 2022. I'm here tonight because I want to explain why the curbing issue affecting my property is not something homeowners on our street created and why many of us feel we are now being held responsible for damage connected to utility work that has gone unresolved for years. When we purchased our home in 2022, the curb in front of our property was flagged during the approval process for our VA loan. Because a VA loan is federally backed, property conditions are reviewed carefully. The issue was serious enough that our loan approval was at risk. At that time, I had to contact the engineering department directly to obtain written confirmation that the existing curbing was acceptable. Without that letter, my husband and I would likely not have been able to secure our VA loan or purchase our home. So from the very beginning, we understood the curbing was older, but we were also told it was acceptable. Then in December of 2022, UGI began extensive gas utility work on our street. The digging, excavation, and heavy equipment caused visible damage to already aging curbing throughout the neighborhood. The work continued into 2023, and residents were repeatedly assured that both the damaged asphalt and curbing would be repaired once the project was completed. Those repairs have still not happened. To make matters more frustrating, UGI returned and dug up our street again in late 2024, creating even more disruption and additional wear to the roadway and surrounding infrastructure. Now, homeowners are being told the curbing needs to be replaced despite years of utility excavation and repeated promises that the damage caused by that work would be addressed. i want to be very clear residents did not create the situation on 10th avenue many of us purchased homes with existing curbing that the city previously deemed acceptable and then utility work accelerated deterioration that homeowners had no control over it does not feel fair for residents to now potentially carry the financial burden of infrastructure damage connected to large scale utility projects that were permitted to proceed, especially when repair commitments were made and never fulfilled. I understand infrastructure maintenance is important. I understand curbing eventually needs replacement, but accountability also matters. If utility companies damage public streets, curbs, and sidewalks during major excavation projects, there needs to be follow through on restoration promises before the responsibility shifts onto homeowners. I'm asking council to advocate for residents, hold UGI accountable for the commitments that were made, and consider the timeline and circumstances before requiring homeowners to absorb these costs. this issue affects not just appearances but property values financing neighborhood safety and trust between residents and the city i have that letter from the engineering department that we had to secure in order to purchase our home I have the email when I received it and then I have the letter. So that's yours to have. I also have the, you can have at a later date, the appraisal for our home that, you know, revealed the curbing, whatever you need. I have all this information, but we would not have been able to buy our home if we had not received this letter and were told at the time that the curbing was acceptable. That's all I have for you. So thank you for your time tonight and thank you for listening. Have a wonderful evening.

up i'll make sure council gets it thank you so much thank you the next person that i have signed up is stephanie zabo

good evening council my name is stephanie zabo and i'm speaking tonight on behalf of several residents regarding a demand by public works for the homeowners to replace curbing on 10th avenue we are choosing to speak publicly tonight not only for the benefit of our neighbors but for all bethlehem residents and interested parties because this issue raises broader concerns about accountability consistency and code enforcement and how homeowners are treated by the very city government funded by our tax dollars As my neighbor stated, UGI began work on our street in December of 2022 and had to tear the street up again in 2024. During this time, we were reliant on both verbal and written representations from UGI and their subcontractor, Skoda Contracting, that the company would be responsible for repair of damage to all homeowner property to include yards, sidewalks, and curbing. Since they first dug, all of us have had to throw out sections of curbing that UGI destroyed. Yet now, almost four full years later, we are being threatened with citations and being told we are financially responsible for repairs to the curbing under threats of fines and or imprisonment. What is especially concerning is the inconsistency in enforcement. There are numerous streets in Bethlehem where paving projects were completed without requiring homeowners to replace or repair curbing. The emailed statement, which you are all copied on from the public works director, is simply untrue. We have pictures of the curbing. We have them tonight and lack thereof on Spring Street between 8th and 11th, where the paving was done in 2025. We are struggling to understand why 10th Avenue is being held to higher standard than our neighbors. And only now after four years have passed since UGI damaged the curbing and failed to repair the same. We would also like to point out that city inspectors have been on our street as recently as this year in relation to sidewalk permits, construction permits, and certificate of occupancy inspections. If the condition of the curbing was noticed as early as 2019, as the public works director stated, why was no corrective action required at that time? We would be remiss if we did not point out that this delay has created unnecessary financial hardship. As council is undoubtedly aware, thanks to the administration, costs for materials, labor, and fuel have risen dramatically over the past several years. We are now being asked to absorb expenses that could have been addressed earlier and should have been addressed through the utility company during their gas line replacement project. We do share the desire to resolve this matter cooperatively, and we are asking the city to work with residents and UGI toward a fair solution rather than shifting the burden entirely onto homeowners. We do not have collective amnesia. We were reliant on UGI's representations. We urge city council and the mayor's office to fully investigate the timeline of this issue. We are not asking for special treatment. We are demanding accountability, fairness, and consistent application of city code enforcement before allowing public works to unilaterally act against us. we are paying close attention to how this matter is handled we will remember in 2027 2028 and 2029 we hope the mayor and council choose to stand with the residents and pursue a fair resolution rather than stay the course of action chosen by public works thank you for your time i have photos all right thank you i'll make sure that council gets all this

Thank you so much, Stephanie. Next, I have Alex Miller.

Good evening, Council. Alex Miller, 810 Monocacy Street. I'm here tonight to speak about police, though not to bash former personnel or reality TV, which the mayor's office seemed to think was a productive use of his effort and attention. Rather, I'd like to return our focus to a critical civil liberties issue, the threat of automated AI-powered surveillance technology, and more specifically, the city's continued choice to purchase services from flock safety. I and so many others are frustrated that rooms full of elected adults can look at the growing mountain of evidence that Flock is, at best, irresponsible and negligent, and continue to say little or nothing as the surveillance industrial complex continues to grow. I am grateful that some outlets continue to shine light on Flock's comedy of errors. Municipalities ought to be informed about the vendors with which they choose to do business. So I want to highlight a few updates since my last comment on this issue. In Dunwoody, Georgia, 404 Media recently reported the revelation that sales employees at Flock access sensitive cameras in the town to demonstrate the company's surveillance technology to police departments around the country. The cameras accessed have included those in a children's gymnastics room, a playground, a school, a Jewish community center, and a public pool. Last week, 404 Media also reported that the city of Dayton, Ohio has covered its flock ALPR cameras with black trash bags because police there are unsure whether the cameras are still active. And the city also doesn't seem to know whether it is allowed to take the cameras on lease down. In several municipalities, Flock has delayed removal of its leased cameras and in some cases has kept the cameras turned on against the city's wishes. Evanston, Illinois, which interestingly has a population of around 80,000, just like Bethlehem, experienced this last fall and also elected to cover the cameras with trash bags. An Electronic Frontier Foundation analysis of millions of searches of ALPR data by police has uncovered a troubling pattern. In the absence of a warrant requirement to search ALPR databases, law enforcement agencies have moved beyond specific investigations to use these surveillance networks for virtually any whim. Despite City Hall's refusal to release, to me, even redacted audit reports of the trove of data you're collecting on your citizens with this technology, several thousand of your department searches are available for review because your officers' searches frequently check systems across the country and end up in those departments' released logs. You can visit haveibeenflocked.com and you'll find dozens of Bethlehem Police Department searches run with the all too vague justification of investigation, invest, investigatino, a spelling error, and several searches related to traffic infractions and littering. Is this the right solution? Is this what we should reasonably expect to endure when we leave our homes? One possible explanation for this government's apparent complacency can be found in Your Data Will Be Used Against You, the latest book from author and George Washington University law professor Andrew Guthrie Ferguson. Quote, much of the allure of smart surveillance is that it gives police chiefs a way to answer an otherwise unanswerable question. What are you going to do about crime? The truth is that many pro-carceral forces in society would rather prevent short-term property losses than invest via tax or charitable contributions in long-term structural solutions to poverty and therefore crime. It gets worse. Wired last week reported that the FBI Directorate of Intelligence has begun to publish procurement documents to find a vendor or vendors that can provide national access to near real-time access to US license plate readers. Any guesses at who the favorite vendor might be for this project? After all, the Department of Homeland Security has been beta testing similar surveillance capabilities on vulnerable populations for some time. Its work with Palantir is well documented. They're synthesizing financial, geographic, and biometric data to follow and arrest immigrants for torture and subsequent deportation. Many of us are privileged with respect to surveillance because our existence isn't criminalized right now. Supporters of this technology say that if you're innocent, what do you have to hide? But to quote Ferguson again, what is being innocent? The moment the state decides that something you did is a crime and you are now the criminal, suddenly you may not feel so safe under the watchful eye of a multibillion dollar industry mediated by a government that may or may not be democratically elected. With these threats looming, with artificial intelligence IPOs on the horizon, with AI infrastructure becoming an ever more salient issue for local leaders, it's clear that we're approaching a tipping point at which government bodies can no longer refuse to act. This project cost around $85,000 per year in grant funding. The invoice, dated May 2024, is certainly coming to expire soon. And it's about time to assess this unfortunate experiment. Know that you're not alone, that other municipalities like yours are rethinking their relationships. Ithaca, Bloomington, Indiana, Mountain View, California, the home to Google, is also reassessing. I hope you'll do the same.

Thank you very much, Alex. The next person I have signed up to speak is Diana Rodriguez.

Hello. My name is Diana Rodriguez. I'm here today to talk about growth, specifically the kind that gives back very little compared to what it demands in return. And this kind of growth is actually moving faster than our ability to regulate it. And it's only forms profit-driven over development, warehouses, and now data centers. They all have one thing in common. It is hungry, and it is hungry for our natural resources, our green spaces, our water, our tree canopy. And unless we set clear legal boundaries, we too will be consumed by this growth. So today, I urge the city council to make a list of the natural resources you are not willing to sacrifice any longer for short-term economic incentive. No matter how strong the pressure is, I know it's very strong, and please make ordinances to protect these resources. And I know we all become very fussy when it comes to regulating private property, But regulating what people do in private property is not a foreign concept to Bethlehem. Pursuant to the optional third-class city charter law, we regulate what people do in their properties all the time. We tell them how high their buildings can be, how close to other things, their setbacks, their buffers. And we do this not because we have a problem with private property, because we understand that without legal boundaries, a person's unlimited freedom becomes another person's loss. So I don't know why, when it comes to natural features, we don't feel like we can have the same level of regulation for the safety, the welfare, and the health of this population. And I'm just making the examples of trees here because they're dear to my heart. And also, we can all relate. We see them all the time. but I think we're giving way too much for the little we're getting in return. According to the American Forestry Equity Score Analysis, Bethlehem's existing tree canopy provides 1.79 million in annual ecosystem services. It prevents 29.5 million gallons of stormwater runoff every year, and it removes the pollution equivalent of 3,800 acres per year, which we desperately need in an area which is among the worst air quality and asthma rates in the US. So the regulation of these natural fissures is not just about keeping a nice, cute landscape. This is about saving millions of dollars in infrastructure and protecting public health. We already know what happens when we don't regulate. All you have to do is look at the south side. We already know, we learned from the climate action plan, that that is the hardest, most polluted, higher asthma rates for our children in this city. And then after all of that, this is now a pattern that is spreading all through Bethlehem. It's already on the west side. And then we also made room for warehouses. And what's coming now? Data centers. We need to have regulations. It's coming. Please, let's protect what we have there. Let's don't take it for granted. And yes, the pressure is real. We do need housing. We need tax incentive. And a lot of this growth comes with a lot of promises, but they also come with a lot of demands. All of this overdevelopment in all of its forms requires more firefighters, more police, more water and electricity consumption, higher utility bills, a less affordable life for this population, more pollution, more sick people, more medical bills. And at the end, to pay for all of it, how do we pay for it? Now we need more tax money to be able to pay for more. And how do we do that? We keep inviting more of the same. How long can we keep up with this cycle for? so yes it's a difficult task it's a task for brave people but we already have cities like lancaster and westchester who already enacted meaningful tree ordinances we have cities right here in the lehigh valley already working in ordinances to protect natural features from data centers and when they come to us we need to be ready you know it's just a matter of time and they're going to put a lot of pressures in all of you your job is extremely difficult And if we have legal boundaries in place, we're going to be able to protect what really matters for us to stay here long term. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Diana. The last person I have to sign up before I open it up to the general is Harry Faber.

Hello, Harry Faber, 321 Georgia Avenue. Firstly, I would like to state how deeply I miss the Mayor Slick Willy. It's been far too long since I've seen him present at a public comment. Secondly, I would like to commend the speakers who went before me, specifically Alex Miller. Thank you for bringing forward such an important issue. Security and surveillance for the wealthy should never come before the freedom and liberty of the working class. AI is not being used to cure diseases or help distribute necessities to the masses. It's being used for military violence, hyper surveillance and propaganda. Also, Diana, that was terrific. Thank you. Next, I would like to share with you what is known as the parable of the river. One day, a group of villagers was working in the fields by a river. Suddenly, someone noticed a baby floating downstream. A woman rushed out and rescued the baby, brought it to shore and cared for it. During the next several days, more babies were found floating downstream. Soon the whole village was involved in the many tasks of rescuing work, pulling these poor children out of the stream, ensuring they were properly fed, clothed, and housed, and integrating them into the life of the village. While not all the babies, now very numerous, could be saved, the villagers felt they were doing well to save as many as they did. Before long, however, the village became exhausted with all this rescue work. Some villagers suggested they go upstream to discover how all these babies were getting into the river in the first place. Had a mysterious illness stricken these poor children? Had the shoreline been made unsafe by an earthquake? Was some hateful person throwing them in deliberately? Was an even more exhausted village upstream abandoning them out of hopelessness? A huge controversy erupted in the village. One group argued that every possible hand was needed to save the babies since they were barely keeping up with the current flow. The other group argued that if they found out how these babies were getting into the water further upstream, they could repair the situation up there that would save all the babies and eliminate the need for the costly rescue operations downstream. Don't you see, someone cried, if we find out how they're getting in the river, we can stop the problem and no babies will drown. By going upstream, we can eliminate the cause of the problem. But it's too risky, said the village elders. It might fail. It's not for us to change the system. And besides, how would we occupy ourselves if we no longer had to do this? What does going upstream look like in this context? It means looking at the systems of private property, more specifically private ownership over the means of production, the profit motive, the growth imperative, Increasing wealth inequality and the dismantling of welfare, also known as structural adjustment policies. The systems known as capitalism, colonialism, imperialism, patriarchy, and white supremacy. I want to tell a joke really quick. I've been inspired by... The man behind me, you know, let's bring some humor in. I am getting a master's in economics right now. It's called Degrowth, Ecology, Economics, and Policy. And there's this fun joke that I've learned. Two economists are walking in the woods, Economist A and Economist B. Economist A sees a pile of dog poop on the ground and says to Economist B, I'll pay you $100 if you eat that dog poop. Economist B says, hell yeah, I'll take $100, I'll eat it. He eats the dog poop. They keep on walking. Economist B spots some more dog poop on the ground and says to Economist A, I'll pay you $100 if you eat that said dog poop. Economist A obliges. He takes the $100 and eats the dog poop. Now, if both economists do their taxes properly, GDP went up $200 and all the economists did was eat dog poop. Let that sit in. The policies that we use, the measurements that we use, such as GDP growth, impact the things that we are doing and moving towards in society. If we are trying to focus on growing GDP, what does that actually mean? It means we're just trying to focus on shifting money from hand to hand. We're not targeting increasing the flourishing of human life. We're not targeting the... just welfare or quality of life. It doesn't do any of that. GDP growth does not have any real correlation with quality of life improvement. It doesn't have any correlation with distributing the means of subsistence to the most marginalized and needy in society. And yeah, I'm going to save the rest for my next comment. Thank you.

Mr. Faber, I'm just going to take a moment to remind you that pursuant to rule 3D, council rule 3D, public comment is not to be extended for personal insults, name calling. Yes.

That is the genesis. Welcome to comment on his absence. Just for future.

Thank you.

Yeah. No, probably an old pro at this. We'll keep going at it. So that was everyone who signed up, but I will turn to the member or the community members in the room. So a reminder, we're public comment on things not being voted on this evening. Everyone in the left has spoken. Does anyone in the broad center want to make public comment? So I saw Bill Shire first, and then I'll go back row by row.

Bill Shrier, 1898 Eaton Avenue. I'm going to follow Harry's parable with an imaginary conversation. It's between a citizen, we'll call him John Doe. Well, maybe he might be dead, but we'll call him Joe Blow. And his mayor, we'll call him Mr. Mayor. Joe goes to the mayor's open door policy on the first Mondays of the month from 9 to 9.05 in the morning. And says, Mr. Mayor, I have a question about this bill I got from the city repeatedly. It says on here, Quarterly stormwater user fee, $15. That's $60 a year. Mr. Mayor, could you educate me as to the nature and how this comes about? Well, Joe, and I can call you Joe. We've been friends for a long time. He says, Joe, when it rains, water falls down. And some gets absorbed by your property, but some runs off of your property into the gutters. And we have to do something, otherwise there would be flooding in low-lying areas. And so we have to build and maintain the storm drains and maybe treat the water a bit. And so that's why we have this fee. Well, Mr. Mayor, as an economist, I'm used to the term user fee, but it's usually a charge for something I have done. I haven't done anything. The water just comes down and runs away. I mean, now, if I put a pail out and collected the water and then dumped it in the street, well, you could say that was a user fee. But I haven't done anything. It just happens. Well, Joe, that's true. I can't disagree with that. And he says, well, now, look, Joe, we've been friends a long time. I'm going to tell you a few things that got to be private. You understand? And Joe says, OK, Mr. Mayor. The mayor says, now, Joe, stop calling me Mr. Mayor. So here's the thing, Joe. if you have to pay that fee because you own that property. And Joe says, yeah, okay. I own the property and I pay a property tax and, but I haven't done anything. It just happens. Well, Joe, that's true. So, but well here, I'm going to be honest with you, Joe. uh we can't call it a tax because people don't like taxes and we so we call it a fee by the way this is part one of two um that's why we have the sewer charge the water charge and the recycle charge Well, Mr. Mayor, it wouldn't have to be a new tax. Just fold it into the property tax. After all, it's happening because I own property. And so it's a tax on my property, really, isn't it, Mr. Mayor? Well, yeah, Joe, I'm going to be honest with you. It is the tax because you own the property. And Joe says, well, so it's a tax on property, but not a property tax. Yeah, well, Joe, I guess you could say that. Well, quickly, Mr. Mayor, because we're running out of time. Why not fold it into the property tax? Well, Joe, there's something in Washington called you don't touch Social Security because it's the third rail of politics. Touch it and you're dead. oh so in municipal finances remember this could happen anywhere in the country you raise property taxes you may not be dead but you would be wounded your opponent would say he raised property taxes inefficiency spending things that money on things that aren't worth it throw the bum out So that's why we can't put it into the property tax. But you have to raise property taxes every year for rising salaries, things you have to buy. Well, that's true, Joe. And so what's next? Streetlight fee, traffic light fee, paved road fee.

We look forward to the parts.

Yes, I'm almost done.

All right.

And I'm being succinct. Are you? Well, Jill, you're quite right. We could go on and on like that, but by then I'll be retired. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Shah. The next hand I saw was Mr. Caratola. Mr. Caratola.

Hi, I'm Artie Caratola, 813 Laufer Street in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. A while back, December of 2023, I was written up by the press, encouraged by three members of city council and the mayor that I made anti-Semitic statements. That killed my chances of ever being any kind of elected official. The Jews totally hate me because I had the audacity to state that in Bethlehem we should live by the one rule that Jesus Christ placed, that we should be an example for everybody to cause the little ones not to sin. That was considered anti-Semitic. Then I made some other jokes. that were made by Adam Sandler, if you check on the records. Those jokes were made by a Jewish guy who says in one of his songs, I'll punch out anybody who says anti-Semitic statements. because I made some of those jokes, I was considered totally anti-Semitic. So anyway, I heard that in some countries, if you make a statement that may insult the Jews, the Jewish race, in any way, shape, or form, you will be fined and serve up to eight months in jail. When is this going to hit the United States? If it does, so much for freedom of speech. But if it does, we have the right in the city of Bethlehem to oppose that law. any laws of this nature but if it does it should be applied to every race the afro-americans hispanics italians germans irish every race that makes any people make any comments against any race at all not just the jewish race heck my books have been pulled off the library shelf because the person who's the director is jewish I can't be written up positively into the newspapers because in the morning call that's owned by Jewish people. The heads of ArtsQuest are Jewish. You try to tell me that we don't have kings and queens in Allentown, Bethlehem, and Easton that are Jewish? We protested, no kings. What's wrong with this picture? It should be applied to every race, even the people from Iran. We are given so much propaganda that they're evil. If they were evil, they would be putting bombs in every... waste paper basket in every major building in new york city and blow up the whole city they're not evil we're led to believe this like we're led to believe that we should kill mice if they're in our house i get humane traps and i'll bring them out in the wilderness and if they're too small i'll raise them and i have in cages not cages actually they're hamster critter castles that i paid over a hundred dollars for three of them each one over a hundred dollars and i'm raising those i raise those little guys they're like my family the thing is the jewish people are you know i want to make a statement now i want to say i'm not saying this this was quoted by adolf hitler The Jews are very intelligent and they know how to control people and make them work for them. They know how to make small businesses grow into large corporations. They can control and make money and are extremely dangerous to the safety and well-being of Germany and the rest of the world. Well, if the Jewish people have the gift, and they do, of knowledge and wisdom that God gave them, if you want to win a case, you get a Jewish attorney. You want to get proper surgery done, you get a Jewish surgeon.

Honestly, it's free speech, and I really wish I could. Pardon? I have consulted with an attorney. I paused your time, and I'm not speaking to you right now. I promise you this is a very difficult thing.

You've got to get closer to the mic. I can't hear you.

I'm not talking to you, so it's okay. Oh. It is very difficult, but because of the nature, I do have to allow it.

I have to say, if you want proper peace in the world, you need to have Jewish attorneys guide the leaders in Israel to negotiate with their brothers and sisters in the Middle East so there is peace in the world and unity. I thank you for interrupting me. God bless you.

does anyone else in the broad center want to make public comment i saw your hand i you were first on the rose back so terry terry would you mind coming up do you mind coming up terry i saw terry steve

Yeah, two meetings ago, I guess it was, we were here and I brought a petition in. Thank you very much. Sorry, two weeks ago. Anyway, either way, I brought a petition in with 75% of our neighborhood signed this petition to have possible speed bumps, look at the speed limits, blinking stop signs at our intersections. And within two days, thank you again, there was a speed limit, a blinking speed sign put up. It has slowed the traffic down tremendously on our street. I hope it stays there forever because I know if they take it down, people forget about it and just go again. But it's really been nice. I do want to emphasize that we're still waiting on the blinking stop signs, and hopefully we'll get those. And also, I saw a post on Facebook where Bethlehem Police, I believe, put the post in about – the speed limit the speed sign being put up and all the comments that came back but they did say in there that we did it the right way so i encourage all these people who say put one up on my street put one up on my street get out there talk to your people get backing behind you and then present it i mean look what happened to us within two days we had it so thank you thank you terry mr antalex

Stephen and Alex. This is becoming a very interesting evening. I'm glad I came. for something real. The city of Bethlehem's periodic publication entitled Summer Spring 2026, which is free, mailed to me, announced on page 10 the Linden Street two-way conversion. This needs to be examined very carefully since the article does not mention a Center Street project of equal magnitude. According to the article, during World War II, daily traffic to and from the Bethlehem steel plants needed to be expedited, consequently the changing of Linden and Center Streets into one-way patterns. Current traffic on a two-way portion of southbound Center Street as it approaches Elizabeth Avenue must turn left or right since Center Street becomes one way to this approaching traffic. The most logical choice is a left turn to Linden since it is one way and favorably in their direction. A right turn in Linden then to New or Main Street would be the other choice, but they are both two-way and both have very busy intersections with Broad Street. Hence, Linden Street becomes the popular choice. Here's the key. What happens when Linden becomes two-way? Drivers' headaches begin and immediately begin to multiply because of the high-speed retail presence on the west side of Linden. Many drivers who currently double park to pick up parcels will force traffic to halt since passing the double parked car would be prevented by oncoming traffic. Do you get the point? Gipps Street. Eastbound from Linden becomes Pembroke Road, a busy artery to Steffco Boulevard and the Misty Trail Bridge. Traffic southbound Linden, wishing to make a left turn onto Gap during the green light, can in difficult time because of oncoming traffic. Consider that. The major headache that will become blended in the street if it becomes two-way. The problem with the present plan may become clearer if one asks themselves this question. If the initial changes were done as a pair, why is not the current solution also done as a pair? That's simple logic. In other words, include Center Street along with Linden. What does that do? Traffic, which is now southbound on Center Street, would not be required to make a left or right hand turn at Elizabeth Avenue as they do now, but continue straight onto center directly to the Fahey Bridge. What a marvelous idea. Doesn't it just sound marvelous? Who dropped the ball? And city council is complicit in a sense that they seem to have missed this and approved the changing of Linden without addressing or looking at the problem on Center Street. So, well, let's hope people are more responsible to the citizens.

Thank you, Mr. Antalex. The last, yes, sir.

Michael Pipestone. I live at 1130 West Market Street in Bethlehem. I'll start by apologizing for speaking out of turn before. I'm willing to forfeit some time on the clock for my outburst. I will, if it is my time to speak, just note that I'm a medical physician and I think there's only one race and it's the human race. And I would request that the Council consider, with its Council, the possibility that allowing people to come up and spout Nazi propaganda while being recorded on YouTube is tantamount to amplifying that message. But that is Council's prerogative to review and I would just hope that we might do better. to speak on things that I'm thankful for and try to change and shift the direction of my comments. I want to say that I very much appreciate the speakers from my little section over here that I heard as I came in late. I'm very thankful that council And the architecture and the systems within our city have changed. The orientation of stop signs at, I believe, 12th and Market have so far improved the safety of that intersection in my neighborhood. I want to lift up my neighborhood bakery from Leno. at about 7th and Spring. This is a woman owned bakery where she's operating out of the sort of basement level of a home. She provides a living wage to her workers by selling a unique baked good to the community, in addition to takeaway items like loaves of bread and buns that people can walk home with, not just fancy pastries and coffee. That kind of store, I think, is what we should be promoting in our community. It's owned by the community. It's a benefit to the community. It lives in this community. We don't need data centers to be sustainable. We don't need to have private equity come in and buy up all of our homes to give people a nice place to live. I very much appreciate what the last gentleman in the prearranged speaking had said, that GDP does not make improved quality of life. I see that every day in my clinic where every other patient that I see has trauma from the effects of poverty and systemic inequities that damage their relationships to their neighbors and their family such that people are hurting each other because they are so desperate. I know we can do better and i've seen better happen, and I very much hope to participate with you all in that process and again my thanks for the support that you've given us to improve our Community and the ways that you have Thank you, thank you.

Does anyone else in the broad Center want to make public comments.

Sir.

Hi, my name is Kwame, and I have a list of questions to ask. Number one, what made you want to run for city council?

I'm going to put a pin in this. Is this for Boy Scouts? Yes. Last week, I'm sorry, we're time out from public comment. Yeah, if you can wait till after, I'm more than happy to answer all the questions for his badge. Just wait till after, and we'll do all that. Yeah, no worries at all. Thank you for coming, Kwame. I appreciate it.

I know, I know, I know.

It's really great. Hey, what a soothing bomb, right? What a soothing bomb. Thank you, Michael. Thank you, Kwame, because sometimes we need that in the world that we're currently living in, don't we? Anyone else in the Broad Center want to make public comment? Anyone to the right want to make public comment? All right. That's going to conclude public comment on things not being voted on. We're going to move on to public comments on things being voted on. So any ordinances or resolutions being voted on this evening, the only person I have signed up right now is Mr. Faber.

Thank you. I brought up the parable of the river earlier in relation to the proposed drug task force. There's an incredibly long history of police departments and so-called elite task force doing the opposite of their intended purpose. One can look at the Miami River cops of the 1980s. The Miami Police Department formed an elite unit to combat the massive influx of cocaine, only for the unit to become a crime syndicate. Members routinely intercept drug shipments, stole the narcotics in cash, and resold the cocaine themselves. 19 officers were ultimately convicted of crimes ranging from racketeering to murder. Another example is the Baltimore Gun Trace Task Force of the 2010s. Originally hailed as an elite squad targeting illegal guns and drugs, the GTTF was exposed as a racketeering ring that operated similarly to a street gang. Its officers frequently planted drugs and firearms, robbed drug dealers, and sold the stolen narcotics back onto the streets of Baltimore. Eight officers were convicted, forcing local prosecutors to dismiss thousands of cases. The list goes on. This is not even including the mountains of evidence showing how the policing and prison industrial systems are really just a means of reinstituting slavery and forced labor into the U.S. economy. The damage done to black and brown bodies and communities by the quote-unquote war on drugs initiated during Nixon's administration is so horrific, immeasurable, and unquantifiable. Words cannot do justice to the pain and suffering caused by those racist and violent policies. If you are interested in any resources to learn more about this history, I think a great place to start is the documentary 13th on Netflix. But I also think Angela Davis's Are Prisons Obsolete is another phenomenal resource. As of 2019, according to the Vera Institute of Justice, in Northampton County, black people are incarcerated at 5.82 times the rate of white people. Black people are also living in poverty at a 2.66 times the rate of white people. The Latinx people in this county are incarcerated at 2.41 times the rate of white people and are living in poverty at 2.24 times the rate of white people. The intention and purpose of these laws and task forces is to appear on the surface as fair and neutral while simultaneously targeting the BIPOC communities. The carceral system as we know it is used to maintain the white supremacist, colonialist, and imperialist status quo. This task force, it is my hypothesis, will be no different. In the resolution, it says, quote, it is the goal of the Northampton County Drug Task Force to establish highly responsive and well-trained drug investigators who will be utilized throughout Northampton County to respond to the general drug law enforcement needs of the county, end quote. I ask, what are the general law enforcement needs of the county? What measures will be taken or have been considered to ensure this task force will not disproportionately target police and imprisoned black and brown bodies? Will these task force be going to the local universities like Lehigh where there is a surplus of illegal drugs and illegal drug usage? Trust me, I would know. I was a bouncer on at Molly's. I was a bouncer for OBT. I was a bouncer and bar back at, uh, Some other local bars which were a frequent of the Lehigh and Moravian College campus communities? Probably not. They probably will not be targeted there because, again, it's about imprisoning and removing the quote-unquote undesirables. You cannot in good conscience approve this resolution. The only thing this task force will accomplish is destabling the lives of our most marginalized.

Vote no. Thank you.

Does anyone else want to make public comment on something being voted on this evening? Turning to the center? Does anyone in the center want to make public comment on something being voted on this evening? And to the right? Does anyone want to make public? Okay. All right. Thank you so much. We're going to move on with the our agenda moving on to old business. Do any council members have old business that they would like to address? NEW BUSINESS. DO ANY COUNCIL MEMBERS HAVE NEW BUSINESS THAT THEY WOULD LIKE TO ADDRESS?

I WANT TO BE CLEAR OF THE OLD BUSINESS. SO THAT'S NOT SPEAKING ON THINGS FROM THE LAST MEETING?

NOT THINGS THAT WE VOTED ON. BUT IF THERE'S SOMETHING THAT WASN'T ADDRESSED THAT NEEDED TO BE ADDRESSED. IT'S SOMETHING THAT IF I HAD BROUGHT UP LIKE I WOULD LIKE TO SEE WATER IN THE PARKS AND I SAW WATER IN THE PARKS, THEN IT'S LIKE, OH, THAT'S SOMETHING THAT WAS PREVIOUSLY ADDRESSED. Okay. Yeah. Then that'll stay for there. Okay. Um, so moving on to new business, does any council member have any new business that they would like to address starting with councilman? Thank you.

Um, Mr. I'll call. Um, I'd love to talk more about 10th Avenue if you don't mind coming to a mic. I thank you for coming. You were one of the neighbors that I didn't get to meet the night that I did stop by on 10th Avenue. I spoke to a couple of folks. In some of your responses to us, you indicated that, you know, you believe that the damage existed already. And now we're learning that there's an engineer's letter that, you know, allowed the mortgage to go through in terms of the residents who are here tonight. I'm just concerned. I know that UGI does fund some of the street overlay work that comes as a consequence of their work. So I'm just wondering, you know, quite a few neighbors have told me that UGI and their subcontractor made these representations that this would be taken care of. And is it possible that UGI and their subcontractors were thinking it would be taken care of in the context of the street overlay project? And that's basically my question.

they would not be curb work would not be included with the cost sharing agreements that we have with UGI. The curb ramps would be, but not budding property curbs. They're not anticipated to be impacted by their work. And if they're impacted by their work, they're supposed to make it whole and repair those curbs. If they made promises to the residences, we would help the residents pursue UGI to make good on their promises. We have reached out to UGI to ask them to investigate whether they did impact any or some of the curbing in that area for some of those properties and if they've made promises to make restorations so that we can pursue that. I'll have to check where we are and what the response has been from UGI, if any has been received to date, I know we reached out to them and we sent them in writing a request to answer us. If the residents have any communication with them to that effect, we would love to have it so that we can pursue it.

It looks like there could be a text message, so we'll make sure that that information gets to you as well.

It would be very helpful. It would allow us to obviously validate the claims and insist that UGI follow through.

Thank you. That was that was my main question was really, you know, what kind of conversations might be taking place with UGI. So I appreciate your response to that. And, and we'll just keep keep in touch with us about it, please. Thank you.

Mike, stay here for a minute. Did you have any other questions? Before we move on?

Chief isn't here, so I'll follow up with her separately. Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't see it. Oh, hi. Sorry. I was expecting you to be over there. Could you come to the mic for just a minute? Thanks. Hello. Thank you. I just wanted to check in on the flock situation. And I am curious about when our contract is up and what the process is in deciding whether or not to renew it.

It's up this year for renewal. Okay. What is this year? To continue with it or not. Year by year, it's about $41,000. It's in the budget book. It was approved last year as part of this year's budget.

Right. Okay. When, when this year? Do you know?

Around July, I believe.

So that's soon. Soon. Okay. All right. That was my only question. Thank you.

Anything else?

Oh, I'm sorry. No.

All right. Starting at my left. Councilman Callahan.

unfortunately have about two meetings worth of stuff to bring up so buckle up um real real quick we um over the years ugi has done a lot of damage to our roads sometimes they went back and fixed it up sometimes they didn't and sometimes when they did fix it up it wasn't to our standards i think you know i mean a lot of times it's you know the The risers weren't put in for the additional pavement. So I just find it very difficult to believe that all these curbs in the same area here got damaged at the same time. And it just seems to me that someone did all this damage. So if you could just check into it, and I know you already said that you would check into it, but I would just appreciate it if you got back to us in the next month, hopefully, and that you can possibly contact whoever's contacting them and threatening them with fines or whatever. You notify them through the appropriate channels with Mr. Spirk and tell them to back off because there's an issue that's being investigated. I don't want them being pressured

uh into feeling like they're going to get punished for not doing something that they might not be responsible for that's all i'm asking we've already spoken to staff to work with the residents to try to address this issue unfortunately and we've also explained this there's certain boilerplate communications that we have to follow for enforcement purposes but we've indicated a willingness to try to accommodate as much as possible and try to work through this until in order to accomplish and what's prompting all this is a need to pave the road otherwise we wouldn't be pursuing this matter in this at this time is it is it also we we also are not saying that UGI didn't damage any curbing on 10th Avenue at all. The reference to 2019, we simply just looked at the aerial, a street view of the aerial on Google, uh for 2019 which predated any work by ugi on that street and it showed significant amount of deterioration for curving all along that street some may have additional damage may have been may have occurred that was just to indicate that there was already some deficient curving on that street and the reason it wasn't pursued is because we weren't like we also explained we don't proactively go after and look for deficiencies and notify residents to address them. We trust and rely on residents to upkeep their curving and their sidewalk in safe and good condition. We only get involved if we're doing a project that abuts that infrastructure and only if it's absolutely necessary to address that infrastructure prior to our projects being able to be completed. or someone specifically complains about a specific property then we have to get involved and try to resolve that issue for our for our ordinance that's basically it all right miss collins it can you let your department know i i would assume it's your department that's sending out the letters no no public works public works yes all right so urban sidewalk is public works all right but

their your department was the one that was sending out the letters that they have that they're being threatened by you know lawsuits or whatever yeah just just tell everybody whoever's sending them out to calm down until the the issue is resolved please i mean i'd appreciate that all right okay thank you um not sure if the the ladies here that was talking about the data centers um if both solicitors could chime in on this i i from what i understand if the state of pennsylvania and i'm against data centers coming in they're the main reason why we're having this huge electricity uh pricing increases and um i would never vote for a data center coming into the city of bethlehem but I also know that, and I hope both solicitors would correct me if I'm wrong, by state law, if the state allows a usage in the state, every city and borough and township has to somewhere allow that usage to be put somewhere in their city. Is that correct?

What I'll say is that they are specifically provided for in our zoning ordinance and permitted in the light industrial, industrial, and planned industrial districts. They are subject to the requirements of those districts. There are massing requirements. There's lot size requirements, setback requirements, and all of those things to control the impact.

But we can't make an ordinance to not allow them in the city.

Generally, you have to provide for uses. And presently, our ordinance specifically provides for the use.

Is it possible for us to come up with an ordinance to ban them in the city? Or would that be illegal? Mr. Spirk, do you know also?

You have to provide for every lawful use. Somewhere, somewhere, somewhere in the city. It can't outlaw apartments, can't outlaw anything.

That's what I thought it was. I didn't want... Are you the one that brought it up? Yeah. I apologize. I personally can tell you and assure you that if something came to me, I would never vote for a data center in this area. But I also know that we can't stop it because it's a permitted use by the state. By law, we have to allow it somewhere in the city. whether we like it or not so i just wanted to let you know that before you left um as far as mr favor's concerned i i don't know where mr reynolds is again tonight but i mean this is uh this is uh getting to the point where i don't know if you've ever had a mayor who misses more meetings And I don't know if you can send a message. I don't know if it's a health issue. I wish him well, and I understand. But if it's not a health issue, he needs to be here. I don't know why he would have ran for a second term if he doesn't want to show up to the meetings. But he's missing more meetings than he's attending. And I just wish you'd, you know, I'm sure he's going to find out tonight or tomorrow. But it's getting to the point where, I mean, he was criticizing some police officer for resigning, which he has the right to do. And I understand the frustration that he has in the police department today. leadership has in training people and spending the money to train people. And now he leaves, but you know, it's, it is the right to, you know, to go pursue some other type of, of job. And, uh, he has a job and he's not even showing up.

Real quick, I just want to point out, not to detract from your point, mayors are not legally obligated, not detracting from your point, but I just want to make sure that mayors are not legally obligated to attend in this type of structure that we have.

Right. But I also know that um i don't know if there's ever a mayor who's ever missed more meetings than mayor rannells not to try from your point i was just making sure i mean i i get we all go on vacations we all have personal things but it's like he's missing more than he's attending so i miss him too so anyways um we had a fire event at the uh at the garage is there any new um i know it wasn't a fire but it was is there any new information on that at the new walnut street garage no no additional developments other than what we discussed uh in our phone call last friday so it was just gases I said there was no fire. There was a fire department response, just to clarify.

You're correct. Thank you.

There was a fire department response because of a concern of an odor that was in the building. Right.

And there's been no changes or developments since our phone conversation.

Right. I never said it was a fire. I said specifically there wasn't a fire, but there was a fire event where the fire department had to go there because the street was shut down for a while, right? Right. That's possible. I wasn't there. So what was it again? I just want to let everybody know here. So there was an issue of an odor being reported for numerous days. And then from the businesses that are... in those storefront sidewalk businesses, somebody was complaining about an odor. So we went there to check out the odor and the odor was detected somewhere and it wasn't a hazardous odor. It wasn't life-threatening, correct?

That's correct.

Right. But it was found, it was somewhere in the water sprinkler room where the fire retardant system is. That is correct. Okay. Thank you. That's what I wanted to know. So just to clarify a couple points there, though. The maintenance representative from the parking authority was alerted to this issue somehow. I don't know how. out of an abundance of caution they notified the fire department and requested that we come and analyze the area and make sure there was no hazard so that that's how the fire department received the call right right that's all i can attest to i appreciate that i just wanted to make sure that everybody was aware because in at our next meeting um there's gonna be some people coming here to talk about their sprinkler system i've been asking for almost four months now for um to have a uh a subcommittee meeting um for our city clerk and the chairperson for that subcommittee has been putting it off putting it off putting it off putting it off and i think it's time especially after this next meeting coming up when i have some information going to be presented that we need to look into what's going on over there i would suggest attending a parking authority

public meeting. Yeah. I'm not, I'm not sure what I decision to do. It would be a vote. This is not a vote. I know what the purview is to bring it here, go there and address it directly.

That's I have, I have, I have, I went to the parking authority director and the solicitor, and I asked for some, you know, the specs that the parking authority presented. Right. And then I asked for the specs of what, what was built and, and what was installed, completely different. And when I asked for that information, you know what they told me? Go file a right to know request. That's what they told me. So I went and did it. Then they tried to charge me $750, a city councilman, for the documents. And I told him, if you think you're going to charge a city councilman that's looking into an issue, and I'll tell you what, and it snaps, we're going to get into it in depth at the next meeting. But I don't want to go into it, but the gist of it is you, all of us in here, decided, hey, we're going to get our kitchen remodeled. We asked in our quote, the parking authority asked in their quote, for granite or quartz countertops. And the contractor charged for quartz granite countertops and installed formica. And we paid for the quartz granite. The piping was changed. And there was never any documentation from the contractor asking to change the specs to a cheaper piping made in China. this odor is coming from that room now i'm not i don't know what was that where it's from are you that was one of the areas that was investigated for a complaint the riser room where the control valves are right yeah so i have some people coming at the next meeting that are going to speak on us that are experts in it and we have pictures of the of what was installed and what was and i have also the exact specs that were asked from the parking authority It wasn't, we didn't ask for it. The parking authority asked for any specific specs. So I don't want to get into it because it's going to be a long drawn out.

That's what I'm saying. Why is that coming here? Then why don't you take it to that meeting to that board?

Because I'm at a point now where they're stalling. They're stalling. For what? That's what I like to know. Why would we, why would we pay? Why would they pay? for the higher quality piping and know that the higher quality piping wasn't installed and then wash it under the rug. That's the only question. When I heard from the fire department that they were called into this room and it was the room where the sprinkler system is, it just raised, you know, cause they know that I've been going, the firemen that reported it to me, called me. I didn't even know there was an event over there. So that's why I'm bringing it up now, because I'm asking Ms. Kwiatek if we could have a committee meeting.

Yeah, I'm just not sure why it happens here, not at that board, that decision, that solicitor, that contract. We didn't do any of it, the contract, so I'm not sure why.

Why can't we have it here, transparency here? Why can't we have transparency here? That's what I don't understand. Why am I hiding this? I'd prefer it here. I'd prefer them to come here and answer questions that all of us might have. Because after the next meeting, I think it's going to be really clear from the documents that I had to file or write the no request on, it's very clear that something's amiss. And all I want to do is ask the parking authority, because some of their properties... Their structures were funded by city dollars with the backing of city dollars. Not all of them, but some of them. Yeah. So all I'm asking for, I'm asking Ms. We didn't fund any of their structures. Some of theirs are backed by city bonds. Trust me.

No, not Walnut Street.

Not Walnut Street.

Years ago, we guaranteed there was no funding. Right. Guaranteed that all the guarantees were released. Right.

But it's still under city council and a city's purview.

But it's not. And we've gone through that. We've discussed that. The parking authority is a Commonwealth agency. It is not a city agency. It's not a city department. And so they contracted with the contractor individually to for the construction of the parking garage and is their contract to enforce and if they don't want to take up the issue if they're satisfied with the construction of with the performance of the contract the substantial performance of the contract, then that's within their purview. That does not extend to the power of council to investigate and to review matters does not extend to Commonwealth agencies.

The mayor appoints the director. council votes on them. The mayor appoints the board members and council votes on them. So there is some oversight there. So all I'm asking for is a public meeting just to review what's happened and get it out in the open. That's all I'm asking for is transparency. And I'm asking for Ms. Kwiatek to arrange with our city clerk to have a committee meeting so we could find out and have these questions asked in an appropriate forum with cameras and documentation. That's all I'm asking for. I don't want to go to a parking authority meeting and be shut down by them. Because the questions, why this happened the way it is, is very suspicious to me. And I'm not saying there's anything unlawful going on. But in other areas and other cities, things like that have turned out where people were on the take. Somebody, someone, they asked for this specific piping. No substitutions. And they were not given it. And there was never a form filled out by the contractor to change the spec, which they were supposed to do. And nothing was even looked into until I started digging into it. And then I got the runaround. And I've been asking four months now to have a committee meeting on it. So I would ask that Ms. Kwiatek you know, let's have a meeting on it and let's bring the parking authority director in here and let's just ask them some some plain questions. I think I don't want to do it between the next two weeks because I want to wait till the next meeting when everything is presented to everybody and we can all see what what exactly happened. That's all I'm saying. So thank you anyways. Miss Collins, you got a minute. Ms. Collins, on the Gateway project on the south side, if I'm wrong, just help me and correct me on this. How many units are going in the Gateway? 100?

It's a two-phase project, 120 units total. Two-thirds of them are affordable and a third are market rate.

So there's 120 units?

Correct.

And how much is the total project?

You have it in front of you.

I think it was 50 million.

Sounds about right.

So the land was given to us for free, correct?

Yeah, well, first I'll just clarify. The city is not building the Gateway project. We are not putting out $50 million. So it's a, the property was purchased by Lehigh Valley Industrial Park. They decided that they were interested in, in addition to doing like the industrial type development they've done for a long time, expanding their own mission, looking at doing housing. They purchased this property in particular because it's near where the industrial park currently exists, where they've got a lot of, you know, interest in that general area. And they also have experience with challenged sites, obviously, as they've worked with sites that are on the former steel land that have had a lot of environmental challenges, which is similar to this site. So they purchased the property, they put out, you know, they were interested in finding an affordable housing developer to do the project. So they are donating the land itself. There's a nominal purchase price. There's a private developer. It's Penrose. They're a national affordable housing developer who will be doing the project. We are supporting the project, as you've probably seen in some of the materials that Sarah sent and that we've talked about previously. We are committing from the city side, both support and seeking out public grant dollars, support in their LIHTC application, for example, and then also a commitment contribution from the city that includes a combination of our annual entitlement, our HUD home dollars, the Florida affordable housing dollars and some from the civic expense affordable housing account. And the total project cost is not on the city. And it's, you know, it's a project that we're deeply involved in and we've been involved in for a very long time. But I just want to clarify that like nobody donated the land to us, for example.

Yeah, but the land, there's no charge to Penrose for the land. In fact, if I'm wrong...

There is a purchase price associated, but it's...

Very small, right?

Yeah, LVIP has done a lot to contribute to that project.

Yeah, but they also asked for and surprisingly got rezoning along 412 for those new warehouses along 412. That was rezoned.

They did not get it. They did not get any rezoning.

I'll look at it. I'm talking about the warehouses.

Did City Council see a rezoning request?

This is years ago. Years ago. They were giving... So the property along 412 there, if you're heading towards Hellertown South on the left-hand side, I thought that was zoned for just... not warehouses it was it was zoned for like strip malls or whatever but all right well i'll look i'm not familiar with the rezoning all right so anyways the land's basically for a very small amount of money the first 60 units are going to be done first the first 60 then 60 correct it's a two-phase project all right and how much money do we have right now for the first 60

how much money do we have? Yeah.

So it's 50 million total, right?

Sure.

Okay. So it's 25 million for the first 60. Is that correct?

I don't recall exactly what the full development cost is for the first.

Do we have enough money for the first?

It is fully funded.

For the first 60 units?

For the first phase, it's fully funded.

How about the second 60?

It is not yet fully funded.

How much are we lacking on that?

I don't know what the current gap is. I'd have to talk with the developer about that. can you get back to us on that is it more than 10 million or 15 so so so both phases are intended to be funded in part by the low-income housing tax credits so there's application processes associated with that They did receive an award for the first phase of low-income housing tax credits in this past round, which is a really big deal. We haven't had one in the city of Bethlehem since 2013. And I think there were only a few awarded in the region. So we were really excited to get the tax credit award. It's a 9% tax credit, which is the most competitive of the two options. So that amounts to about... $16 to $18 million of the total project cost. So for the second phase, Penrose is considering a capital stack that would include either the full 9% low-income housing tax credit award. They may consider what's called a twinning deal, where they go in for part of 9% credits and part in 4% credits. That's something that they're still working out. In either event, there is still a gap that will exist. But so part of the analysis will be what other funding sources are available. So we're considering, for example, obviously that the governor has put forward his housing action plan and is starting, you know, we're tracking very closely what kind of money is being put behind that plan and what sort of programs are opening up at the state level that might help fill that gap. And that, you know, those are the sorts of factors that will influence how the tax credit part of the deal might be structured and then what other sources they might be looking for. Okay, so it's a dynamic formula, I guess is what I would say.

So as of right now, we have the full funding for the first 60 units. We have the full funding for that. And if you can just get back to me on letting me know how short are we on the... The other 25 million for the second 60 units.

What would probably make more sense is to give you a couple like options and scenarios of how the capital stack could play out based on these factors.

So it's 50 units for 50 million for 60 units, right?

No, it's 120 units.

Yeah, I'm sorry. It's 50 million for 120 units. That comes out to $416,000 a unit. Yeah.

It's really expensive to do affordable housing. It is.

So why if Penrose specializes in affordable housing, why I'm assuming that they're charging so much because they want the profit upfront.

They're not going to keep the units deferring their developers fee for the first phase. Again, part of how the capital stack sometimes works out depending on the project.

I just think $416,000 a unit. And how much is the rent going to be on those affordable housing units?

So there's a diversity of rental types along the spectrum.

I'm talking not the market rate ones, the affordable housing.

Yeah, sure. So even on the affordable side, some of them are at very low, at 30% AMI. What is that? Others are at 60%. Others are at 80%. I have not memorized. I honestly haven't memorized. But some of the lowest rents... $400 a month? They would be. For $416,000? $416,400.

Okay.

But I will say, the numbers that we're seeing are obviously high, but they're consistent across the board. And there are a number of factors that contribute to affordable housing development being so high, including that... it's really difficult to do these sorts of projects without public funding. And if you're using public funding, you're automatically triggering either prevailing wage or Davis-Bacon, which jacks up costs significantly. If you're using federal dollars, which they are in this case and most do for home dollars, The HUD requirements around BABA, the Build America, Buy America legislation, also increased construction costs significantly. Very well-meaning, but you have to source all of your steel, all of your iron, all of your development, basically everything. Wood, any products. I mean, not any, but most of what goes into a project like that has to be...

um source in the united states which often brings higher costs um and just no i agree with you i'm not trying to play the guy i i'm just trying to zero in on all the numbers yeah the reason why i do is because it's very expensive to do housing in this day and age it is i agree it is and um So my second, so I think it's fair to say that affordable housing is a very important thing to you and the mayor's administration and all of us in city council. We've all talked about affordable housing for a long time and housing in general, right? So I had sent last week an article out to everybody, which I sent it to everybody in council, but I asked our city clerk to send it out to the mayor and yourself and administration. I was just sending it out for an informative purpose. And then I got your first response back, which I felt was like, a little bit of an attack, you know, like on the article, you know, but all I was trying to say is- No, I thought it was a very well-written article.

It was, it was. I think it was summarizing in a really good way a lot of the things that we've talked about for a long time. And that was the point I was making.

Right. So, and I appreciate you sending that information because I actually did sit down and I think I talked to President Leone and I think we all agree that we'd like to have a committee meeting to go over this. you know i appreciate that you want to go out and show and talk to the public about it but that's not it's not our job to go out to those meetings is your your job as administration to come in here and and i think if it's such an important policy of in uh in program within your own administration i think it's really important probably maybe once a year

minimum you know you guys come in and give us an update on it and so that's that's one of the things and we've never turned down a request to come to a meeting in front of council and in fact then ultimately we requested that yeah so i will interject here as it was a conversation that was had uh it was sarah's idea i thought it was a great idea i've had other conversations with other council members in the spirit of the fair hearing that's coming up it is a priority for everyone having an annual or biannual meeting regarding any affordable housing updates is a reasonable request, and I feel like it is something that we are going to do as council going forward. Yeah.

I just felt, and if this wasn't your intent, I apologize, but I felt like it was a little dismissive of my questions and also of my sending out the article to everybody just as an informative piece. And then after you replied, I replied back, and then you pawned it off on Ms. Satula to get back to me. So you don't have to respect me. I don't have to respect you, but I respect your position, and I would hope that you would respect my position as a council member to ask questions. That's all. I appreciate you sending the article.

I do think it's a very good article, and I made my point that I thought the article laid out pretty clearly things that we talk about routinely. I think that are in the plan itself. We talk about housing production a lot. A lot of what we're doing is related to housing production. And I appreciate you saying that the community meetings matter. They really do. And a number of council members do come and participate in them. I've never seen you at any of our housing related meetings ever.

Well, I would prefer they be done here on record in front of the people so we have transparency.

We post the meetings as well. We post the meeting materials. So to suggest that we're somehow not transparent and or not providing information, it's just flat wrong.

No, I just think it's important that your presentations are done here also and not just out in the public.

I think we can agree on that point that the community meetings are important and they are recorded and available and that council would like to see meetings here as well. We can move on from that.

I'd agree with that. I'd agree with that. Thank you. So the Walnut Street Garage project, right? How many units is that?

I believe it's 107.

And how many... Now, that was our land, city-owned land.

One second, Councilman Callahan. I just want to know how many points you're going to go through, because if this is better for the housing meeting, then we should have this discussion during the housing meeting.

The problem with the housing meeting, it's not going to be until October, maybe. I doubt that. I need a couple minutes. That's all.

You've had a couple, but...

I know, but there's no time limit on it either.

No, there isn't. I'm asking politely just so I can open up to the council members.

Yeah. So anyways... How many units are going into the Walnut Street Garage?

We are doing that now.

Yeah. So how many units are going into the Walnut Street Garage?

I believe it's 107.

And that was our land, right?

Not our land. It was owned by the parking authority.

Parking authority, right. But we had this.

I believe we've talked about that there's a difference between the parking authority and the city. Right, right, right. It's a starting point.

How many affordable housing units are going in there?

I believe it's currently planned as fully market rate.

Fully market rate. Isn't it? Why wouldn't we want to have some affordable housing units if it's such an important policy of yours? Why wouldn't we? I mean, the mayor controls the parking authority. He appoints the parking authority director and all the board members. Why wouldn't we, if it's such an important thing, why wouldn't we put affordable housing in there?

Yeah. So I will say one of the other things that we're working on right now, which we've talked about as well, is putting together a revolving loan fund. We're doing a lot of work with the Center for Public Enterprise, looking at our market and the incentives that would be required to really make one of these projects pencil. Because as you pointed out, it is extremely expensive to build affordable housing units. So just putting a mandate that affordable housing units be built doesn't necessarily make a lot of sense. It would be cost prohibitive in most instances to do so without a combination of supports. The Gateway Project is one example that I just talked through, the complexity of the capital stack. So we're looking at how you pair a variety of different incentives, funding sources, you know, revolving loan fund, for example, that would, would work to make it feasible to actually build the units. A lot of the work that we're doing.

Yeah. I don't want to take up much time. I have some things I want to go over. So anyways.

Okay. So you asked the question, but I'm not allowed to answer it. Well, I, I'm just, I'm just, I don't want to be hung on how this is supposed to work.

You can go as long as you want, as long as I'm not being timed anymore by, you know, by, by here. Cause I, I have some things you had sent to me. your link to the opening doors. I watched it in detail and took notes. I want to go over a couple of things. Sure. A year and a half ago, you had stated that the city of Bethlehem alone is 1,000 units short, deficient, right? Right? In rental units, correct?

Go ahead.

Good. In the link you just sent me, now you're saying we're 1,300 units short, correct? Correct. That's what was stated in the link, 1,300 units.

In the plan link?

The link that you sent to me of you and Sarah talking in public. This was the wording. We're currently, the city of Bethlehem is currently deficient 1,300 rental units.

I will have to double check when you're citing. Okay. And if you're citing, for example, when we completed the opening doors plan in 2023 and the data that we had in the MVA, we may have subsequently cited the data that is coming out of the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission where their housing production tool looks by municipality and has both current deficiency and deficiency out to 2050. I will be honest, I don't remember the exact numbers from 2023.

i'll find the exact time so you can look at it in in the video you sent me of your presentation you guys stated the 1300 units that's what you guys stated yeah so that may be the program that may be the more recent lehigh valley planning commission yeah so that that means we're 300 more in the hole than we were a year and a half ago and i would i would being educated I think it'd be an educated opinion to say that we don't, how many units do we have right now in the last three years since the opening doors? Out of the, how many ADUs do we have? One now? There's one ADU?

One pilot ADU.

Yeah, there's one. How many do you project in the next three years to be online, up and running?

There's both the ADUs that are coming out of the partnership with Lehigh University and Community Action and New Bethany. Just a number.

I'm just looking for a number.

There's two different numbers, so I'm just explaining what they are. The units that are coming out of that program specifically, I believe that their grant is funding between three and five. Three and five units. Also, point number two, We are also working on a zoning text amendment update that would open the zoning and allow for individual property owners to have more flexibility to build ADUs themselves. So those wouldn't be funded with our dollars necessarily, although we might build some incentive packages associated with those. But those would be ones that would be funded separately by property owners by opening zoning to more readily allow for ADUs.

Right, which I think...

In our plan, I believe we cited somewhere between 30 and 50. That may be possible.

Yeah, so we're up to a grand total of 80 possibly. And that's still... Those numbers that you're talking about, we have one right now in the last three years. I'm talking in the next three years before you guys are out of your administration. So what I'm saying is this. I applaud your... you and the mayor's administrations pursuing these programs. It's admirable. But I think it's pretty apparent that they are not capable of addressing the monumental housing problem presented in the city right now worth 13 where we went up from a thousand to thirteen hundred according to you what you guys said in the video from a thousand units short to thirteen hundred i'm assuming we're probably going to in the next two years or year year and a half two years we might even be more because in the presentation you you sent These are all the points that you guys said. You and Ms. Hold on. So the city has a $5 million community recovery fund. And Ms. Collins indicated that the city has no sustaining source of general fund affordable housing funding. And they strive to stretch the $5 million. Was that the $5 million investment? Didn't the city council, didn't we vote on like $5 million going towards the... that's what that is in reference to right so so council gave you five million yeah a one-time allocation of five million dollars yes yeah that's referring to so then um i i've asked many times over the last few few years of uh the status and the discussion for with the owners of martin tower uh and i'm asking for an update again on it martin tower is zoned for a thousand units At one point, there was discussion to put 1,600 units, 1,700 units, which the owner doesn't even want to do anymore. So right now, they're zoned for a little over, I think it's 1,080, which could nearly solve the total current housing shortage in the city with one project. We got 50 acres over there sitting there growing weeds. On top of that... If we gave them ALERTA, and tell me, because I'm not an expert in it, what is ALERTA for? Is it to help hard-developed land or hard-developed properties to become real and to put them on a tax roll? I'm just asking what the purpose of ALERTA is.

So ALERTA, the state authorizes the ALERTA legislation, local economic revitalization tax abatement program. And one of the criteria, like a fundamental threshold criteria, is that an area or a property be designated as distressed. I think that's the word that the, yeah, distressed property. Right. So yes, there's criteria then within the statute for the types of properties that are meant as distressed.

and that property is is designated uh blighted right in didn't the the rda or uh rda did they designated under the a hoot the affordable housing unit right tax abatement it's under a separate piece of authorizing legislation but yes the rda didn't make that assessment so we have a property over there it's the big we have no land the city has no land to build on affordable housing correct at this point

Am I allowed to go back and answer some of the other questions?

No, because I want to keep this moving. We can go over this, but I'm just asking a question, though. At this point right now, we don't have any land.

Okay, really quick. Hold on. No, wait, wait, please. I've had this discussion with you. Well, no, to be fair, you're asking a complex question.

You've asked me on other times not to bring certain things up. And I told you, I know, but I've told you, okay, but at a certain point, this needs to be addressed.

Yes, and you're addressing it now, but you're not giving her the chance to answer questions. I'm asking a very simple question.

I'm asking a simple question.

But the answers aren't simple, Brian, and you know that.

I'm asking right now, very simply, How many units, I asked you how many units we've done already in ADUs? One.

You asked me how many units in ADUs, which is one strategy of 10 in the affordable housing plan. Right. So that's one point. And- We also sent, Sarah sent a link to a spreadsheet that includes every strategy and the number of units that are planned for each of those strategies and the number of individuals and households assisted.

Right.

So if you would add to your 80 number, I would just go ahead and add the 120 gateway. I would add the 425 from the Choice Neighborhoods Project at Pembroke. I would add at least five units

when you proceed when you see those still talking when are they going to get done i'm still talking brian i know but when are they going to get done let her finish her statement like just just let her finish rattle off numbers and say they're going to be done in 10 years you've asked a question

Five to six units at the Western Gateway Project. If you want to count as well in the homelessness space, BES is going to have 85 beds. Packer Avenue will have 11. We can talk about each of these projects and their timelines. Packer Avenue, for example, we just interviewed with the firms to do design and engineering to get them started in the next couple of months. Construction by next year. Gateway shovel should be in the ground December of this year for the phase one. I will also point out just as a general matter on construction, that this is not a long timeline for building housing units. If you think about any market rate project, even the ones that you see currently under construction, 128 East third street, that project, I think 2021 that got approval. The high hotels project, originally a housing project, also 2021. Four to five years is average for any project, including ones that your brother builds. You could ask him how long it takes to build housing units. When he did 510 flats, he announced that I think in 2014, he didn't build it until 2018. This is how long construction takes. There's other projects that have received approvals up on Center Street. Sorry, Linden. What is that, Linden and Bootstown? That was a project that was approved before I arrived. I just saw that there's a backhoe up there finally, but I think that was approved 21, 2022. This is the timeline for building units. I will also add that, so you've mentioned the number of units that were short. We are also, there's continuing to be market rate production. So since 2018, I pulled some numbers. I had a feeling we were going to go here. Since 2018, our Planning and Zoning Bureau has approved 2,090 units. If you want to go back just to 2020, that number is about 1,800. If you want to go back just to 2022, since we started, 1,068 units have been submitted, approved, or under construction and built since that time. So there's also market rate production happening that is going into those unit counts.

All right. So as of right now, Tell me the units that will be breaking ground in the next three years. How many units do you think off the top? I'm not going to hold you to it, but just around a number.

The units that are specifically affordable units coming out of the housing plan. I would say certainly the 120 from the Gateway Project. I would say a portion of the Pembroke Choice, at least the first phase. I don't know what that phase will look like. We're still working through that with the Housing Authority and the developer.

Just guess a number.

If it's the numbers that you've just rattled off, I added them. It's about 726 units.

I will say all of Pembroke Choice will not be built in the next three years.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. So let's subtract 120. So 606 units. So 120 at the Gateway. Where else?

100? How many at the...

The Pembroke number is smaller. It is smaller.

How much?

It really depends. In the next three years, I'm just curious.

What do you think?

The spreadsheet has the total numbers.

I haven't broken it out by the next three years. Quite frankly, I will just say I'm not comfortable making... 100? I'll prepare that number for our... Do you think it'd be 100? 100.

100 units?

Three years at least, absolutely. 100?

All right.

At least.

Where else? Where else in the city?

Again, this is a committee.

Western Gateway will be completed in that time. How many is that? Five or six units.

Five or six?

Yep.

All right. If I add them all, probably at the top, maybe 400 units, okay? And they won't probably be done for the next three years. I would assume in the next three years, an educated guess, if we went from a thousand units a year ago to 1300 units now, which is what you or Sarah said, I'm not sure.

That's total units. That's not just affordable units built by or through the opening doors program. Then you would add in those other numbers that I just mentioned, which are market rate production.

So my, my whole point in doing this is that the, we got a property the largest property over there that is already zoned for a thousand units they could build a thousand units today yes but the numbers don't work and you know that i know that everybody on council knows that the numbers don't work because of the property had to be uh remediated of asbestos had to be it had to be knocked down and then it was it was uh designated as a blighted property so alerta to me the real and it one thing i'll say about the mayor i never ever i always thought that he would always do what is right for the city and then i read a letter from the one of the owners at the tower site mr herrick that details over maybe seven, eight pages of everything that happened between him and the mayor. And I found out that the mayor's pissed off at him because there was a threatened lawsuit years ago. Okay.

And I feel like that's, that's a sign of motive.

No, it's not.

No, it's not.

And you know this too.

Yeah.

You read the letter. So my point, my point is this, We have 50 acres over there. It's the largest undeveloped land in the city of Bethlehem for housing. It's already zoned for 1,000 units. On top of that, how much land do we have right now the city have for affordable housing? Zero, right? Correct?

We do not own any land.

How much money do we have for affordable housing right now?

We sent you the spreadsheet.

Zero. So we have zero land and zero money. Now we have a guy over here who's willing to do this project. 50 acres, 1,000 units would be a huge... We're nickel and diamond, five here, eight there, which is good. I understand it.

But the fact that we're not having... Are you counting any affordable units in that project?

No. No. I'm talking about units.

That's different math.

Well, no, the 1,300 units is not affordable housing. It's 1,300 units total. Your number is 1,300 total. This would be 1,000 units. And guess what? On top of the 1,000 units, which would make a huge dent in our lack of housing units in the city... They're willing to give $5 million of new revenue, brand new revenue that we don't have. $5 million, which could go to affordable housing. Could we use $5 million for affordable housing right now?

We could use units. That wasn't the question.

Could we use $5 million for affordable housing?

That's my answer to your question, is we could use built units.

Okay.

They're not doing that there because it's not affordable. $416,000 at the Gateway Project, you just said it's not affordable. It's very expensive. This is not a public partnership. It's a private partnership.

It's a publicly supported project if they get a public tax incentive.

right but they're given five million dollars of money for affordable housing how you and the mayor are not having a discussion with these developers over there when we're 13 1300 units short and we can knock a thousand now if if they broke ground today which they're not obviously not going to it'd be two years before it's done we're probably going to be another 300 in the hole I'm just saying, like, someone's got to start using their brains here. We fell 300 more units in the hole of another 300 units that we need. That's what you or Mr. Satool said. And I'll videotape it and play it here. So my point is this, and I just want to go over this and then I'm done. I don't have any more questions. The Martin Tower Lerner would generate an additional $5 million. It's all $5 million of new money that goes straight to affordable housing. In my opinion, assisting the residential portion of the Martin Tower development will have an immediate and meaningful impact that is far greater than anything the Opening Doors Program will do. The Opening Doors Program is not going to do 1,000 units. there's no way and give us five million dollars so these are the comments these are from miss satulo it is acknowledged she acknowledges in your presentation the housing crisis is caused by supply and demand imbalance there's no single solution as she said bethlehem's unit count deficiency has increased from a thousand units to 1300 units this is right off the video It is acknowledged that only high-end projects are economically viable. Market rate projects can finance 60% to 80% of the cost. Affordable projects can only finance about 30% of the cost due to low rents. These are her words, not mine. The Gateway Project could not happen without the LVIP land donation. There are 10 different funding sources. A few more still needed to be complete. The financing. These are all her words. Obtaining low-income housing tax credits can take multiple applications of multiple years. Annual allocation is limited. The Alley House Pilot Program, the ADUs. We have one pilot project in West Bethlehem, one unit. Owner agreed to rent it for 20 years, and after 20 years, as affordable. After 20 years, it's not affordable. It's a market right now. And New Bethany will manage it. How many ADUs are projected right now? How quickly could they materialize? That's my question to you, if you could get back to me on that. How many ADUs are projected in the next three years, and how quickly can they be on the market, the ADUs? As far as the ADUs are concerned, zoning ordinance would need to be amended to permit the ADUs. And if we are doing that, what is the status of amending the zoning? And does the administration expect any pushback from the neighborhoods like we did the last time when there was 400 people out at the church on Center Street? I'm not even going to get in the revolving loan program because I don't waste anybody's time right now. Below-market construction loans provide a short-term benefit while the cost of affordable housing is long-term. What happens if the project cannot be refinanced to pay off the revolving loan portion? In Allentown, Josh Siegel commented, Allentown has 4,700 units on the drawing board. Easton The downtowns of Valentine and Easton, 600 plus units that are going to be breaking ground in the next year will benefit for the growth of their cities while Bethlehem languishes our stores and restaurants and offices languish. All I'm asking you to do is this. Have a discussion with the guy over there. Because the property is obviously already been zoned or has been determined to be... What was the term that... Blighted. It was a blighted property. So it's already a blighted property. We already know it's the most expensive land in Northeast Pennsylvania because of all the things that had to be done there. The knocking down of the building, the carrying costs of the building. They could not lease it. They had it on Cushman Wakefield for 10 years. That's why we all agreed. And Mr. Evans was on council at the time. And so was Mr. Reynolds. And we all voted to knock it down. Because it was going to sit there. It's not generating any money right now in taxes. And it will generate over $10 million in taxes of new revenue, of which $5 million if we got alert for that tower site, if we all got our heads together, think about what we could do we could build a thousand units over there over the next three years it's already zoned there's no zoning issues and on top of that we get five million dollars of new revenue up front and for the mayor or anybody else to to to step in that way and not and not even have the discussion with the owners over there is beyond me over a personal grudge within with the ownership and i don't want to release that's actually a motivation so i'll just call that out yeah that is and i'll release the letter so my point is nickel and diming nickel and diming is not getting you anywhere we're already 300 worse than we were a year and a half ago. And in another three years before you guys are out of office, it'll probably be another 300 to 400 units that we're behind because the bottom line, according to Mrs. Satulo is supply and demand. And if, if there's, and if, and I think you've even said this or she said it, that a lot of people want to live here in the city of Bethlehem. And the more people that want to live here with the less supply, what happens to the rental costs and the housing costs in that situation in supply and demand, Ms. Collins? What happens? Does the price go up or does it go down? Oh, that was a real question. I'm asking you, what happens in that scenario? Prices go skyrocketing.

Are you asking me how supply and demand works, Brian?

Right. Well, if... I'm asking you that if we got 1,000 units there that we could put in there, that's going to be a huge supply of new housing in the market in the city of Bethlehem. If we don't add to the housing stockpile, the more people that are going to move here, and you said it in the video, more people want to live here. And if there's not enough housing, the prices go up, and that kills the affordable housing market. crisis that increases it makes it worse and we are all here I'm in agreement I've talked to everybody here and I know you're in the same thing I know you think the same thing and so does the mayor we all want to help the affordable housing crisis but we're doing nothing to do it to help it there's a thousand you got a thousand units you can put here and get five million dollars the date alert is signed and you don't even have a discussion because of a personal vendetta I'm just telling you I know the motive.

I've heard it.

Ms. Collins, I wish you luck with it. I'm going to be very interested to see where we are in three years. And I hate to say this, but the weeds are going to keep growing over there because you won't even have a discussion with the owner about how we can work this out and negotiate. and get this thing going it doesn't pencil you you've talked about things penciling that 416 000 a unit for affordable housing at the gateway project and that was free land that's not free land over there that costs millions and millions of dollars to get it to where it is it's not one it's not like they went over and bought farmland They had to do a lot, spend millions and millions of dollars to get it where it is, with asbestos removal, the blowing up of the tower, the removal of all the remains, and then flattening out. The two medical buildings over there made sense because they're being leased. Now we got the rest of that property growing weeds and nothing's even being discussed in your department or with the administration and the mayor. And you got a thousand units sitting there and $5 million that we could have for affordable housing. And that's disgusting that we're not even having discussions with them.

out of respect for city council and everyone else i will not respond to all the things that you just said that are incorrect but if you want to talk about it at the committee meeting we can talk about martin tower in more detail at the committee meeting i i look forward to it okay so can i piggyback real quick still on new business so yes you it's not even nine o'clock yet yeah

It's late.

I've sat here. I know two on that clock. I've sat here at the one o'clock in the morning. Thank you. I just have one, a two part question and reference the gateway on fourth. The 60 units that are going to be part of the first phase, are they all affordable or is market rate going to be mixed in there as well?

There will be a mix. It's the same as the overall project mix. So it'll be two-thirds affordable and one-third will be market rate.

okay um is there any way of having that all market rate the first phase i mean all affordable i'm sorry the first phase we have we have market right um we need we need the affordable and i completely agree with that point that we need as much affordable as possible the way that these projects work you'll very rarely find a hundred percent affordable

project, at least not in this like LIHTC area where you're building capital stacks with LIHTC and public funding sources, because you do still need at least some of that market rate rental income to support the overall stack and to get the financing that you need. to make the project happen.

Okay, I got you. New Bethany, the two homes up on West 3rd Street, they look phenomenal from the outside with the work that's been done thus far. When is that expected to be completed?

The Western Gateway project. I don't actually have in my brain right now the timeline on that one.

And that's all I have.

Any other council members have new business that they would like?

Thank you, President Leone. Just a couple things following up on a few things we already heard tonight. One, I just want to draw attention to our Public Works Department. Mr. Al calls here, but to his bureau heads, his staff, because they're not here from earlier, but we heard favorable comments about the installation of a blinking speed limit light, and we also heard positive feedback about the stop sign at 12th and Market and I just think it bears mentioning thank you Mr. Alcol and to all your staff because I know you do a lot but you don't do everything so please share as I'm sure you would echo their comments to those that that are out there reviewing these intersections installing the signs and maintaining infrastructure as it relates to public comment in general President Leone I commend you because I know it's not in I don't envy the being in the center anymore. But as we hear comments that it doesn't look like anyone from the public is here anymore. But we're hearing about things that happened years ago and then are still hearing about them and still perpetuating the same message. type of i won't even call it dialogue just throwing fire from the the lectern and i know that as our solicitor reference as it relates to the first amendment it's a it's a delicate position to be in but i i think a few of us had said years ago that sympathy nor support will come from this body then. I know there's a couple new members now, and I would think the same remarks still stand as it relates to attacking not even members of council or the administration, just broad sections of our community, which I don't I wouldn't see how anyone could think that any kind of favorable response or outcome is going to come from that. The question for Solicitor Stewart as it relates to the parking authority, which we heard about, and the city, again, guaranteed bonds. I know for the South New Street garage, we're talking about another garage. In a world where any – we're talking about the parking authority, but any authority, if they engage in a contract – and the contract is not to the satisfaction of the terms, does the city even have standing to bring suit forward if there's some deficiency in delivery of the contract or executing the contract?

No, it does not. It's not a part of the contract. Again, the parking authority is a state agency, and it is the...

it and its developer or builder where the party's the contract understood and i will state which has been stated before the parking authority has a board so they have an executive director of course which has been referenced but they also have a board that is appointed by council but that doesn't give us implicit power to then oversee their actions no there are no oversight um there's no oversight authority related to those appointments understood thank you and then the last thing i'll mention and i'll i'm not going to get too long-winded as we'll save furthering these conversations we have our committee meeting whenever that is scheduled but i will just know over the last i'll say two years we've heard different comments from up here about well if we put development in that if we put a new project downtown next to the garage it's going to open the floodgates and we're going to have all this development we don't want if we have something on the avenues that's going to jeopardize the neighborhood As we talk about Martin Tower, which is such a unique property and part of this city, which is undeniable, we're talking about zone for 1,000 units, adding potentially more, advocating for more. We can't now turn a blind eye to the pushback. I mean, I live on the west side. Other members of council either live on the west side, recently have. Even if you don't, you drive by it. I would have to assume that should we start meeting about rezoning something that's going from X to X plus 20%, or even if they operate, even if they start building within their permitted use a thousand, there's going to be people in that neighborhood that are unhappy. So I think it's kind of bears mentioning. We can only say, okay, This part of town is going to have, if they have a new project, now it's going to be catastrophic. But putting on, and I will ask Ms. Collins one question, or just you could, you know, nod, or it's about 50 acres over there, Martin Tower, remind me, what's the acreage? Say again? 53, just so the microphones pick it up. And looking at even 1,000 units, let's say it's 1,500 occupants, just a simple Google search will tell you, Freemansburg Borough had an estimated population of about 2,800 people in 2020. So even with what they're zoned for, and we talked about affordable housing and the economics and this and that, but if we want to act like it's some saving grace, there's still going to be a segment of this city that's going to say, hey, spread that out rather than put... 70 percent of freemansburg borough next to my property or in my backyard or where you know my kids traverse to come home from nichemin or whatever it would be so i think it's just bears mentioning that like anything as we talk about the vast issues we talk about here. There is no magic bullet. There is no magic solution. And I think we have to, if we're going to shine a spotlight on challenges or reasons to push back in one neighborhood or one particular project, that we just have to continue to have that conversation about balancing the needs of the city and what that means for everybody. Thank you, Council President.

Thank you. Anyone to my right? Vice President Laird.

Thank you. First question would be for Solicitor Spirk. So in January, we voted on, I believe it was a lease agreement for the hotel being built over on 3rd with access to the Greenway. and a bit of that land. And we discussed that there would be like a drop-off zone there and how it was assured that that would remain accessible for public access to the Greenway and that people could be dropped off or picked up for Greenway use, not just hotel use there. At that time, you said that you and the owner could drop some sort of addendum to the lease that would put that in writing. I was out for a bit having had a child and just wanted to follow up on that. I did try to call or had the clerk's office call the office and didn't hear back yet.

Yeah, no, this is the first I'd heard the question. And I don't know. I'd have to check with my staff. That wouldn't have been something I would have necessarily been involved in. I'll check with the office paralegal. But I did not get a message from my office in that regard. I didn't know that question was coming.

Oh, okay. Thank you. Yeah, if you could just let me know. Okay, in terms of the flock cameras... So we are hearing a lot about this more and more, that particular company. And we've addressed concerns about flock system in the past with Chief Cott. She sent a memo to council assuring us that the data is owned by the city and used just for the approved purposes. um i am curious uh if i'm hoping you could send as we think about when the contract comes up for renewal uh with that company um the privacy terms that come along with it um and You know, basically the statement of work, how things are hosted, all of those details about what our agreement specifically with the company is. you know, outlines. Um, and especially, um, I guess any regulation surrounding, um, like do we grant access to the cameras for marketing purposes, things like that. If we're owning that, that was just cited as an example. Um, I haven't read that article specifically myself, but just curious, um, you know, does our contract allow for that type of use? Um, et cetera.

Okay.

Thank you. And then Ms. Collins, sorry to have you hop back up. I was trying not to jump out of line before while you were standing there though. For... Council members who may not have an understanding of some of the basics of the economics surrounding housing issues, such as there were questions about supply and demand and what that means in terms of housing. I know that there's a lot of information in the opening doors plan about the specific strategy that the city is employing. Do you have a recommendation on a primer that our council members could review before the committee meeting so that we're sure that we're not spending valuable time answering basic things that we would assume to be given?

We could send some along before the meeting. I think our plan would be to send materials specific to the opening doors work in advance of the meeting so that you also have that before we get here, but we could include in that packet like a primer or a couple primers that might be.

Sure, or even just links. Yeah, like not asking you to recreate the basics.

Yeah, no, I won't write a primer, but yeah, I could look through some materials that we have or that we utilize or that people have gotten in different settings and pick out some of the best ones and send those over.

Thank you. I recognize the questions tonight did not come from a new council member, but we do have a lot of new council members who may not be as familiar with the different specifics surrounding the strategies and economics behind it. Thank you. That was my only question for you. I just needed it on the mic. And I think

That was the extent of my questions tonight. Thank you. Thank you so much. We're going to move on to communication.

I have one more thing. Just for a point of matter, it's also important for everybody to understand that while there would be at the max 1,000 units at the Martin Tower site, when the tower was built, they had 2,500 people a day going into the tower site. I walked by it every day going to Nitchman. I lived in K1 Avenue, walked right by it. And not only was there 2,500 people coming out of the tower site, I think Mr. Evans' dad was one of them. There was also 200 people coming out of the Durkee site, the Durkee plant where the Lowe's is every day, every three shifts. And the roads, way they are now are extremely um a lot more efficient and new and wider and there's multiple turning lanes versus when the tower site was there and the dirky site was there so we have a great area to do this development it has easy access to 378 and shanesville road in 22 And I think that all of us on this council and hopefully the administration realizes that this can make a significant dent into the housing shortage in the city. And more importantly, and this is what I want, is the $5 million. that the developer would give us upfront in new revenue for affordable housing. And I told President Leon that if we ever did come up with a new LERDA for that area, I specifically want it in the LERDA that that $5 million does not go to the general fund. It goes straight to affordable housing. And there's no other use for that $5 million than putting it into the affordable housing fund to help Bethlehem build more affordable housing units. We have zero money right now and zero land. The city has zero land, zero money. We could add 1,000 units and get $5 million up front. And for us not to look into that as a serious issue to help the affordability problem in the city and help alleviate some of the pressure of the housing market is derelict on all of us if we don't look into it, no matter how much you don't like the owner or the person.

Moving on to communications. Communication 6A.

May 11th, 2026 Memorandum and Proposed Resolution from Public Works Director Michael Alcol. Mr. Alcol recommends an agreement with Herbert, Roland, and Grubick Incorporated of Clark Summit to provide design and engineering services, construction materials, correction, construction drawings, bid documents and support during construction for each of Bernie Fritz, Madison and Clearview parks upgrades. The cost is $324,925, $985. The estimated completion date is November 30th, 2027. There are no renewals. Six proposals were received from selected firm with the selected firm being the lowest and most cost effective.

Sorry about that. Resolution 10A is on the agenda. Communication 6B.

A May 13th, 2026 memorandum from City Solicitor John F. Spirk Jr. with an attached use permit agreement and resolution. Permittee is ArtsQuest and the event is the 2026 Taco Fest. The action is to ratify approval involving activities that occurred from noon to 6 p.m. on May 31st. The premises was 1st Street from Polk Street to the Eastern Terminus and Founders Way between 1st and 2nd Streets.

Resolution 10B is on the agenda. Communication 6C.

May 13th, 2026. Memorandum from City Solicitor John F. Spark Jr. with an attached use permit agreement and resolution. Permit C is the Portuguese American Club of Bethlehem and the event is the 2026 Portuguese Heritage Day Festival. Activities will be from noon until 10 p.m. on June 6th. premises will be rink street from broadhead avenue to the end of portuguese american club parking lot as shown on the exhibit map attached to the agreement resolution 10c is on the agenda communication 60. A May 13th, 2026 memorandum from City Solicitor John F. Spark Jr. with an attached use permit agreement and resolution. Permittee is Christmas City Spirits, LLC, and the joining party is the Redevelopment Authority of the City of Bethlehem. The event is the 2026 Pride Partypalooza. Activities will be from 1 to 6 p.m. on June 14th. The premises will be the Nevin Place right-of-way and West Walnut Street parcel, both adjacent to the Sunning Courtyard, as shown on the exhibit map attached to the agreement. Additional location will be the Redevelopment Authority-owned parcel, as specified in the joinder addendum to the agreement.

Resolution 10D is on the agenda, communication 6E.

On May 13th, 2026, memorandum from City Solicitor John F. Spirk, Jr. with an attached use permit agreement and resolution. Permittee is the Bethlehem Vintage Market. Sub-permittees are Sengokura LLC and Pizza Brez doing business as Wishful Thinking Brewing Company. The event is the 2026 Bethlehem Vintage Market. The action is to ratify approval involving activities that occurred from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on May 31st. The premises was the Bethlehem Rose Garden at 1001 West Union Boulevard. Resolution 10-E is on the agenda, communication 6-F. May 12th, 2026 memorandum with an attached resolution associated intergovernmental cooperative agreement from city solicitor Jonas Burke Jr. Solicitor Spark recommends an agreement titled Northeast Interceptor Capital Improvements with Bethlehem Township, the Bethlehem Township Municipal Authority, the Borough of Freemansburg, and 1600 Freemansburg Avenue, LLC.

Resolution 10F is on the agenda. Communication 6G.

A May 6, 2026 memorandum and proposed resolution from Joseph Vlasic, Director of Financial Services, requesting the destruction of records for his department. Mr. Vlasic has reviewed the Municipal Records Retention Act and the records listed on the exhibit accompanying the memo fall within the categories where destruction is permitted.

A resolution will be placed on June 16th council agenda. Communication 6H.

May 7th, 2026 memorandum and proposed ordinance from assistant city solicitor Matthew Deschler. Attorney Deschler recommends amending article 1731 involving inspections in a section of article 119 relating to registration, sale, and transfer of real estate to ensure consistency with article 1731.

This proposed ordinance will be placed on the June 16th agenda for first reading. Communication six, aye.

May 13th, 2026, memorandum and proposed ordinance from Assistant City Solicitor Matthew Deschler. Attorney Deschler recommends amendments that would modify the definition of hotel in the zoning ordinance so as to include transient guests and related matters specifically the amendments would have the effect of excluding short-term rentals in residential districts where hotels are prohibited along with proposed other proposed amendments

I'll accept the motion and the second to schedule a public hearing for 7 p.m. on July 7th in Town Hall to consider these zoning ordinance amendments and to forward these proposed changes to the City's Planning Commission and the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission for the recommendations. So moved. Second. Discussion on the motion? The clerk will call the roll.

Mr. Callahan? Aye. Mr. Cologne? Aye. Ms. Daniels?

Aye.

Ms. Wiatek?

Aye.

Ms. Laird? Aye. Mr. Raymond? Aye. Ms. Leon?

Aye. The motion passes 7-0. Communication 6-J.

may 14th 2026 memorandum with an attached resolution and proposed agreement from laura collins director of community and economic development ms collins recommends an agreement with the bethlehem economic development corporation to carry out the programs and or targeted activities of bedco including Administration programs and activities waive right-of-way fees and compensation for other projects as assigned in connection with the execution of city-sponsored events on an as-needed basis. Cost is not to exceed $15,000. The contract runs through December 31, 2026, and there are no renewals.

Resolution 10J is on the agenda. Communication 6K.

On April 14th, 2026, memorandum from City Solicitor John F. Spirk, Jr. with an attached resolution, agreement, and memorandum of understanding for the City and its Police Department to participate in the Northampton County Drug Task Force.

Resolution 10K is on the agenda. Communication 6L.

A May 27, 2026 memorandum from City Solicitor Johannesburg Jr. with an attached use permit agreement and resolution. Permittee is the Holy Infancy Roman Catholic Church, and the event is the 2026 Holy Infancy Cultural Celebration. Activities will be from 5 to 10 p.m. on June 19th. and noon to 10 p.m. on June 20th. Premises will be Lawford Street between Pierce and Buchanan Streets and Pierce Street between East Packer Avenue and East Fifth Street.

Resolution 10L is on the agenda. Communication 6M.

A May 27, 2026 memorandum from City Solicitor John F. Spirk, Jr. with an attached use permit agreement and resolution. Permittee is ArtsQuest and the event is the 2026 Soccer Fest. The agreement lists numerous activities that occur on various times and dates between June 11th and July 19th, depending on the outcome of play. Premises will be First Street from Polk Street to the Eastern Terminus and Founders Way between First and Second Streets and First Street from Founders Way to the Eastern Terminus.

Resolution 10M is on the agenda. Moving on to reports. The Committee of the Whole met on Tuesday, May 12th, 2026 for ethics training provided by the State Ethics Commission in accordance with Article 104. This meeting was for informational purposes only and no actions were taken. On a less formal note, I will be absent from the next two, three, maybe four meetings for health issues, and Council Vice President Colleen Laird will be chairing the meetings. I appreciate all of your patience as I recover, and I hope to be back soon. This was in no way spurred on by this evening's meetings. Mayor's report. Does the mayor have anything to report?

Yeah, of course, the last meeting was canceled due to the power outage, but just before that, it was Saturday, we wanted to report on an excellent outing we had at Friendship Park, the ribbon cutting, something you all supported, then that the administration put together with the work of a lot of people in City Hall for a number of days, weeks, and months leading up to that. And throughout the fall and in the spring, the final touches and the turnout on May 16th, for those of you that attended, were able to witness it. It was just a fantastic Bethlehem day. The weather was perfect. The splash park was in play. That time of year, that's not always the case, but it was kids of all ages were there. Even the girls were having fun and playing basketball. Everything that was... There, which was plentiful activity in that activity is also continued on that particular park. And that's why we're so excited to, as we embark on the 40 and 10. Plan to continue moving on the next parks and the next parks that we have lined up and that we're teeing up. Even someone will be talking about a little bit tonight. Once we get, um, if we get to the business of the meeting, which hopefully will come up here soon, that we did want to report on that. And the second part of it is with the parks and recreation and the summer season starting, we can report that the pools will open as scheduled on Saturday. School gets out Friday and most of the workforce are school aged kids. So they will take their jobs as lifeguards. All five pools will be open. The weather is supposed to be great, so I'm sure we'll have a great turnout at all of our five pools within the city. Thank you.

Thank you. Pass along birthday wishes to the mayor from council. Yes. We have no committee reports this evening. We have no ordinances for final passage, and we have no ordinances for new passage. So we will move on to resolutions. Resolution 10A.

Be it resolved by the council of the city of Bethlehem that the mayor and the controller and or such other city officials deemed appropriate by the city solicitor are hereby authorized to execute an agreement with Herbert, Roland, and Grubick Incorporated to provide design and engineering services for Bernie Fritz, Madison, and Clearview Parks. Resolution is sponsored by Ms. Kwiatek and Mr. Amen.

Discussion.

Yes, I have a few questions on this. Councilman Daniels. Ms. Collins, we had gone, did a little back and forth via email regarding this. And let me just preference my comments and questions with uh i am in no way i'm in no way looking to take from any park within the city uh i believe all of our parks um should be up to you know good standards as far as equipment and all of the different program that can be added uh things of that nature The reason why I'm going to question what I'm questioning is looking at the final plan, there seems to be a very large gap in what I consider EQUAL EACH PARK SOMEWHAT GETTING THE EQUIVALENT NEW RENOVATIONS. AND I UNDERSTAND SOME PARKS ARE LARGER, SOME PARKS ARE SMALLER, BUT WHEN YOU LOOK AT THE PRESENTATION, PAGES 22 THROUGH 24 OF THAT FINAL REPORT, You have a Google Earth view of each park for Clearview, Bernie Fritz, and Madison. And Clearview and Bernie Fritz, the design, the overlays for the design and the legends of what's to come, everything looks phenomenal on that. when you look at madison park it doesn't have the same sentiment it doesn't share the same potential design elements um it looks very much like an afterthought like let me let me finish and i'm not saying that's what it is but that's what it comes across as um coupling that with the potential spend for each park and you had made note in the email that i wasn't able to view before the meeting because of timing you're saying that when i question the anticipated cost range for each park based on comparable projects COMPLETED WITHIN THE LAST FIVE YEARS. YOU STATED THAT THE PLAN DOES LAY OUT COST ESTIMATE RANGES ON PAGE 162, BUT GETTING TO THE MEAT OF IT ALL, BOTH BERNIE FRITZ AND CLAIRVIEW PARKS HAVE $3 SIGNS, WHICH IS THE EQUIVALENT OF A MINIMUM OF A MILLION DOLLARS. Madison $2 signs, which is the equivalent of $250,000 to a million dollars. Now, when I look at what's taken place with Clearview, which is more closer in size to Madison than Bernie and Clearview, Clearview was 1.4, and that was pretty much a complete rehab, I believe. Am I correct in that? I mean, Friendship, Friendship Park, I'm sorry.

That was 1.4.

And that was pretty much a complete rehab? Yes. Okay. So 1.4 million for Fairview. And again, Friendship, I'm sorry. I don't know why I keep saying Fairview. $1.4 million for Fairview. And again, when you look at Madison Parks, on your plan from the final report, It's abysmal. And I'm sorry for that wording, but that's just what comes to mind, top of mind.

Can I make one clarifying point just because I think it will be helpful. And I appreciate the point. I understand the confusion. But so in the 40 and 10 plan, we do look at all 40 parks and there are recommendations for elements at each park. And you can see that throughout the plan, but certainly in some of the last pages were like by network. by, you know, northeast, south, central, west. It'll show we've done an inventory of what features currently exist and what would be recommended. And we do that for all 40 parks. Then we did, like, illustrative concept drawings for just a handful. Not because, like, they were the most special parks or they're the most important, but we just... We asked the firm to show us and help people understand, can you draw up pretty concept pictures so that we can demonstrate what does a nearby nature feature look like? What will it look like as part of your experience? What would the paths look like? And we've done that for a few parks. We happen to have done that for both Bernie Fritz and Clearview as part of the planning process. And we just didn't do Madison's pretty pictures. So it's not that Madison is getting less attention or less features. It's just that we don't, we, and, but I completely see what you're saying in the presentation that we did publicly, we showed Bernie Fritz and clear view with pretty pictures. And then Madison was just like a, like an above kind of like hand-drawn like, like little box. And that's just by virtue of the fact that that was not one of the parks that we had selected for like the illustrative pictures to demonstrate how the plan would lay out, but it's actually not a reflection of the amount of amenity or the type of care that would be put into the park. We just didn't have pretty pictures associated with it.

I'll take that into consideration. That was a big part of it. That's what got my mind running on this, to be honest with you.

Yeah, it's a fair point. I can see how it wasn't clear.

Yeah. And even with that being the case, you know, the illustration not being equal to Bernie Fritz and Clearview, what could potentially become of the park is still... not equal and not that everything is going to be apples to apples, but it's way off. So I'm just going to I'm going to try and go through this quickly because we spent a lot of time talking tonight. But just for example, Clearview, which is the largest, I think that's over nine acres. the illustration is beautiful um i noticed because i did a drive-by there there's trees already planted along the street um but the legends uh reconfigured basketball courts pickle and tennis ball courts which are already there i guess they're going to be updated the drinking fountain, a water walking loop with benches that's going to be part of it, sensory groves, extended ecological restoration, a temporary stage platform, adventure nature play, water play, probably going to update the existing pool, expand parking, existing community gardens, and a future walking loop expansion, and just updating everything else in between. when you go and bernie fritz is similar bernie fritz doesn't have as large of a play area it's not as large as a park i think it's two and a quarter acres um a shaded sports field seating area potential future sidewalk pathway improved parking lot ada sidewalk and swing seating existing memorial existing ball fields which i'm assuming will be refreshed and updated uh and then you go to madison And Madison doesn't have the legends because it wasn't part of the plan, I guess, initially. But text box were put in on the Google Earth overlay to reconfigure the slope at the fence line, which is a non-factor as far as I'm concerned. A water bottle refill station looks like it may be added. An ADA wellness loop and a potential... splash pad, a court mural for the basketball court and a refresh of the mural. So when I'm looking at that in comparison to what the other two parks are getting,

It's way off.

And I have to bring this to the attention of everybody here because within the past five years, the city has put more than $7 million into the parks and the pools on the other side of town. And the South side has gotten a little over 200,000. So that's a huge gap, huge gap. And it's just not fair. It's not equal. There's no way that Clearview and Bernie Fritz will be any less, especially Clearview, will be any less than two and a half, three million, in my opinion. um considering where friendship park came in at 1.4 in a much smaller park uh clearview will probably be upwards of two million dollars with the well maybe a million and a half because they have more of the fields that take up the bulk of the land there than the actual play areas so i would love for council, and again, I want all the parks to get attention. I just want it to be fair and equal. And as it stands from what I'm seeing right now, it's not gonna be fair and equal in both the scope of the work that's gonna be done and the dollars to be spent. So again, we're looking at a potential $5 million plus on the other side of town to 250 to 1 million for one park on the south side. $5 million on the south side could take care of Madison. Enix Park, which is, it's so sad how that park has fell into disrepair. And it was put in place by the community through petition for a very well-known and loved person of the community, an advocate for the community. And that too looks like an afterthought. McNamara is just, I don't even know why McNamara is even there. It's just, it's the South side parks need help. And I understand you may have gotten community feedback on, you know, what parks should be first and this, that, and the other, and the community should have a say in what takes place. But at the same time, I think a need needs to be injected in there as well. Where is the need? And I can go on and on as to why I feel this way. I don't want to go off the deep end, but I would love to be able to put this on hold until the next meeting. I would love for city council members to consider what I'm saying. Take a look at the 40 and 10. I'm sure you've all looked at it. but take a look at pages 22 23 and 24 that shows these overlays for these parks visit the parks do drive-bys on and i've done almost every single park at this point um and a lot of them do need refreshing or complete overhauls admittedly uh but the south side parks are in bad repair period point blank and i know a little bit of work has been done here and there to yasko um over the years the splash pad was i think that was eight nine years ago that was put in um but murals and uh you know throwing some paint on a basketball court and putting in a fountain isn't going to do it if i i just have a few thoughts if that's if that's all right i don't want to cut you off um

So one of the things I'll say, I have a couple of things, but the contract itself is for final design and engineering. And so that to me, I will, you know, it does leave open the possibility for additional input on design. I'm not just leaves open the possibility that's built into, that's built into the contract itself. And there's already planned community engagement if the contract does go through and we are able to move forward with these three parks. You know, we're planning to be out at Bernie Fritz on Bernie Fritz night, planning an event with at Clearview and planning an event at Madison with community action. And Anna Smith, I believe, is going to be helping us put that together for additional community feedback to take what is a very rudimentary approach. preliminary concepts and we would have HRG work up a better concept from that, but then also get additional community feedback. And so what's there is not set in stone. But what I will also point out about what is there, importantly, is a splash pad. And that was based specifically on feedback Everybody wants water features, but understanding that Yasco does have a pool and have a splash pad, but it is not easy to get to from that part of the south side and having a free water feature at Madison would be a big deal. But it is not a large park. There's not a lot of opportunity to do a lot more. But the splash pad feature is a pretty significant one and pretty costly. And it's something that I think we would prioritize there probably more than even the others, which there are other places that have splash pad recommended. But I think this is one that's important there. And on the cost estimates, I think your predictions are a little bit high for the other two parks. I understand where you're coming from, but I don't think the disparity in overall dollar amounts just between these three parks that you've identified is going to be that large. And I think we are very much committed to doing as much as possible, but also stretching our resources, but distributing them equitably, which is something that we talk about really throughout the entire plan. And it's part of why we did the plan, because we don't want to be making park improvement decisions just based on... how we're feeling or who we're hearing from. We want to be thoughtful and strategic. And then we made sure that in creating the plan, we were using an equity lens and an equity framework, which is why we also used like the environmental justice zones, um, and made sure that that was an important part of like how we were deciding what we were doing at different parks and how we were prioritizing. So, um, i don't i don't i just i don't think that the disparity and contributions to these parks is as as much as you might be predicting um i also will say you know the plan is a 10-year plan to address all parks and you've raised other comments about south side parks and you know all of those are part of the plan as well you know these are the first three that we're doing there's four networks identified in the parks plan, in the 1410 plan, Northeast, Central, West, and South. And you'll see in this first round, we've chosen one from Northeast, one from West, and one from South. And I think we did feel that that was important as well. In each of the networks, We're building around the concept that you have both anchor parks and then you have small community spaces. We also have regional parks. We have four of those. That's Illex Mill and Sand Island, the Rose Garden and Saucon. And those we're approaching with even more thoughtful, direct design, probably about 10, I think the plan estimates $10.7 million into the regional parks budget. in their entirety, which includes Saucon. So although we don't have a dollar amount, you can imagine for Saucon, if you just break that down by four, it's going to be a lot, right? And that is part of the plan. And that is something that we're simultaneously moving forward. We have that grant out for DCNR. We've had great conversations with our DCNR rep and he's very excited about the planning process and for Saucon as well. On that track, there's lots of additional money thought about and planned for and already in the works for another Southside Park, Saucon and our regional parks. But in thinking about what are the three that we're doing in the next year with our capital dollars, we did want to spread that out in the networks, in part because the network concept is one where we're not promising that every single park is going to feel exactly the same as every other park, but that within each network, Like within each area, you're able to find nearby you the same experiences. Like because we know that we can't create the same experience from park to park to park. We don't have the resources for that, nor would you really want to. Like some parks are for youth, more like youth playing and some are for more like nature play and some are. Some are larger, some are smaller. And so, you know, any packet of three parks that we'll get from here on out, I would never expect them to all have exactly the same features or exactly the same contribution because we are also thinking about them in terms of how they fit within to the overall network.

Understood, understood. And I appreciate that explanation. And I understand that, like I said, each park is not going to have the same experience. Madison is a very small park, as all of the parks on the south side are very small in comparison to Clearview and Bernie and other parks across the city. Again, my concern is just the equity and the spend and it doesn't even have to be Clearview or it doesn't even have to be Bernie Fritz because those are two larger parks and especially Clearview I don't, you know, looking at friendship again, if you're spending 1.4 to a million and a half at friendship, I don't see how Clearview is going to be any less than that. I mean, with the trees that you've planted thus far and the plethora of additional trees that look like would like to be planted, what was the spend on the trees that was planted so far? Do you have any idea?

I'm not sure.

I know. because it goes all the way down, I mean, completely around, what is this, Pinehurst Road. They were planted up onto Abington, the entire length of the park. So, you know.

Roughly 500 to 1,000 a tree probably is what it cost.

Okay. So on the small end, maybe 5,000. On the larger end, maybe 10,000 spent on trees alone. And that's just the start because there seems like there could be another 20 trees to be planted, if not more. So the reason why I would like to put a halt on this, and I know we won't have final figures until the actual design concept is completed. But at any rate, these two parks, Bernie Fritz and Clearview, are going to be well above the spend at Madison. Madison isn't getting a complete overhaul. It's not getting a complete renovation. It's more of a refresh outside of the splash pad and the water fountain where potentially, and I know, you know, once the community meetings happen, but Madison is a small park, so you can only do so much. unless you do tear it all the way up and redo things, the basketball court, which could actually need a refresh, a redoing actually. I would like to see either Clearview or Bernie Fritz, and I hate to say this, possibly done away with in a more equitable park. And it could be on the other side of town as well. I'm not saying we have to put everything on the south side, put into the mix. I just, I have a problem with millions of dollars being spent in this situation i just do i would like for us to take a deeper look at the whole park layout and what three parks could potentially get redone next year and i know that's a big ask um coming in here at the 11th hour But I think if we think of all of our communities, I want all of the parks, you know, over the next 10 years to be well renovated and taken care of. But, you know, Madison might get $250,000. 500 I don't know what do we know what the cost of the splash pad at Friendship Park ran? Because that would be 80 or something like that.

Oh, I thought it was more like 250.

Maybe that was just the equipment and the work on top of it.

I'm sorry. So 250. Okay. So with that and a water fountain, the basketball court being painted, a new mural, new play equipment, depending on the play equipment that could go anywhere from 10, $15,000 on up to the tens of thousands of dollars. So I'll put it on the high end at 400,000. And that's still well above, I mean, well below what Bernie and Claire view. WOULD GET. I WANT IT TO BE EQUAL, GUYS. THAT'S WHAT I'M LOOKING FOR. I NEED MORE EQUALITY.

PROCEDURALLY YOU COULD MAKE A MOTION TO POSTPONE THIS.

I WOULD ASK THAT YOU NOT MAKE THAT BECAUSE ONCE THERE'S A MOTION ON THE FLOOR COUNCIL MEMBERS CANNOT SPEAK ANYMORE. SO IF YOU DO WANT TO MAKE A MOTION I WOULD ASK THAT WE HOLD OFF ON MAKING ANY MOTIONS UNTIL EVERY COUNCIL MEMBER HAS AN OPPORTUNITY TO SPEAK. THAT'S TRUE.

making that procedural place because this is this is what's been taking place historically with the park upgrades um can i i i have some questions also are you gonna um if yeah if you're ready to um i'll let you know um but yeah so if we could take a look at that and again i don't want to take anything from any park we all you know The kids need the parks. The adults need the parks. Great way to release stress, get exercise in, taking the sun rays and et cetera, et cetera. I just need it done in a more equitable way. You can speak now, Hilary.

Thank you. Yeah. If I may be recognized.

May I be recognized? Thank you very much. So Ms. Collins, let's talk about Friendship Park. Can you tell me a little bit more about why Northside Alive is Northside Alive?

Sure, so starting with 2017 and creating the Northside 2027 plan, a number of community members, community partners came together and thought about this neighborhood and also looked at it. We looked at it from a HUD perspective.

That's the part that I was curious about.

Yeah, it's a neighborhood revitalization strategy area. It's a NRSA designated area. And what that means is that HUD has, based upon our application, certified that it is an area that demonstrates a sufficient level of need. And also the census tracts and the income levels, poverty levels, need in the community are such that HUD designates it as needing additional supports through our HUD programs. And so we've committed as a city to carrying out the Northside Alive plan essentially to support improvements around economic revitalization, housing stock. neighborhood quality of life and those sorts of factors. Because if what you're getting at probably is that just because Friendship Park is in the north side does not mean that it is in an area that is particularly affluent or it is a neighborhood in the city that has census tracts that are low to moderate income.

That was my point, and one of the factors in us being able to get some funding for it and things like that. I mean, it was also a contributing factor in the funding model of that. The other thing that I wanted to ask about is what we're actually voting on tonight. This is actually the design process. Now, there are some suggested designs. There are some proposed designs. And those designs that are in the 40 in 10 plan are really meant to be illustrative of this network concept, the idea of different amenities for different places so that you get this whole experience in your community. in your area um the way the mayor described it um the idea is design one year build the next year and i would imagine that that next year when you're starting to build you're also identifying the next three parks to design so it's going to be three three three three three three for about 10 years 40. Something like that.

That's the goal, yes.

That's the goal, right. And so we're actually probably going to see a lot more activity beyond these three parks, you know, going forward. And, you know, I don't disagree that it was unfortunate that the two parks... on the north side had more sort of mapped out prettier pictures and Madison did not. But my understanding is that community engagement is a big piece of the design process. And that's the way that we will get a park that meets the needs of the community around Madison, right? So there is going to be this night, there's going to be... And a lot of that happened at Friendship also. I was there for those nights where people were able to look at the boards and look at the ideas and take the little dots and say, I like this, I like this. And there were like a million dots on the splash park. I'll never forget that. It was just like every dot was on the splash park. I was like, well, that's got to happen, you know. So what we're looking to vote on here is actually what moves forward the chance for the community engagement where we really get to, on the ground, see what people who live there and use this park would like to see in their park.

Yeah, that's true. Yes. Okay. And if Mr. Alko wants to talk more about the design process.

Yeah, I mean, as Laura said, what's presented in the 4010 was looking at the whole park system, at all the parks. As you can imagine, not a lot of... time was devoted to each park, but the idea was to provide illustrative concept for each of the parks. But as we move on from that phase to now doing the actual preliminary design and final design, we'll get another cut at exactly and specifically in detail what is the most feasible and possible amenities that could be introduced or upgraded at each of the parks so in other words we're going to get another cut at with feedback from the community as as to what gets designed and then eventually constructed and what we're asking for tonight is a contract for the first three parks only so that we can do that preliminary design during which we'll have an opportunity that community can provide input on the specific details of what's going to happen at each of those parks. And the other thing I say, and I think that's understood and everybody knows is there's feasible amenities that differ from park to park. I mean, we didn't, the idea is to maximize what can happen at each park, including obviously Madison. Fortunately or unfortunately, there's going to be some parks that you can do more if that's the right thing to do, if that's what the community wants to do, if that fits into the overall objective of the plan and others, maybe not as much. And we may have to pursue some other, you know, The other challenge, like Madison Park, there's no other opportunities, lands that we could do something else for the community there. And it's not because of a lack of desire to do so. There was a focus to try to do that.

And I don't have it in my hands, and I know that Ms. Daniels did, but the mention of sort of grading by the fence or something like that, did that have to do with, like, flooding or, like, do we know? No, that's okay. Or was it to increase usable space?

Maybe to create more space opportunity for something or to address a deficiency or structural concern. I DON'T REMEMBER SPECIFICALLY. OKAY. THAT'S ALL RIGHT. OMNI DID THAT AND INTRODUCED THAT. THE PROJECT ENGINEER WILL PROBABLY KNOW OFF THE TOP OF THE HEAD, BUT I DON'T HAVE THAT LONG IN DETAIL. OKAY. ALL RIGHT.

ACCORDING TO THE PLAN, I WAS JUST, THAT'S OKAY.

Reconfigure slope, fence at hillside. So if we reconfigured the slope, we would potentially be regrading and making more usable land. Is that what reconfiguring the slope would do? And so, okay. So that could actually be a way to get some more space, but that's the kind of thing that will happen in this process when we...

Correct. That's the thing. That's what would be looked at in more detail and... And sometimes when you delve into it, and you do the grading plan, you might discover more opportunities or more obstacles that may alter the concept that's envisioned before the final design.

Okay, thank you very much. Now I'm done. Thank you.

Thank you, President Leone. I just want to clarify as we talk about what we're voting on and potential actions council could take. This resolution is to award the contract to the firm. HRG. Yeah, HRG. Thank you, Mr. Alcol. which responded based on parameters that were put out in an RFP for these particular parks. So council's desire to have different parks included or taken out or anything like that, I think that point is moot to postpone, because that's outside the scope of what, that changes, that wouldn't be this resolution. If Ms. Collins or Mr. Alcott disagree with me, feel free to chime in, but I think postponing it At the end of the day, it's either this or it's not this. There's no adding a new park, taking out a park because these firms responded to the scope of what was given to them, which impacts the price.

These are the first three parks that we're tackling.

Yeah, understood. But I just want to make that point for the floor that it's either this or not this. There's no coming back in two weeks and changing language in here. Because this is just confirming the responses that the firms gave. Thank you. Are you done? I'm done with my point.

And procedurally, just so we all remember, council members have two times to talk and a third. I'm just pointing that out because if you have a lot of things to say, I want you to be able to say all of them.

Well, I want to be able to speak on what they're saying.

Do you want to hear what everybody else has to say first? We can do that. Does any other council member have anything to say regarding this? Vice President Laird?

Thank you. So, i i do know that um i'm just gonna preface this by saying that the this project has uh been near and dear to my heart as everybody's worked on it um since i was on the steering committee and um you know it's it's great to see it coming to life i do want to be sensitive to equity. And I think that in our steering committee meetings and whatnot, that was, I think, the largest steering committee meeting that I've, or steering committee I've served on with just how many people were at the table. I do hope that in the future, as we're working on presentations, I think it is a valid point that making sure that the equity that we're seeking to develop and employ throughout the community is represented in what we're showing could help, even in this situation, help avoid miscommunication or misunderstanding. So as we're selecting what gets the pretty pictures, even if it is just the pretty pictures, that's a quiet show of equity.

I will say we do have pretty pictures for a Southside Park. It's McNamara Park. It's just not one of the first three that we're doing.

Understood. So likely in a future year, you'll get one pretty picture for a Southside Park.

Right.

Understood. So now my questions would be, For, I see the estimated completion date is November 30th of 27. So is that for the

um they're deliverable to us or for our approval and acceptance of the deliverable how like what on this contract you mean or construction of construction i believe it's the end of each year is the completion of the design work under this contract so this could be prepared and ready to bid and bid and construction commence next spring which is spring of 27th and complete in the fall

No, you're correct. The firm's contract exists through the end because part of their service is construction.

Okay. So my question would be taking off the, I was involved in helping make the plan and putting on the parks and rec committee hat. Will the, can the, Not a question. I would like the committee to have the chance to review the plan as it's being put together. We can talk about where that would fall in the process, whether it's reviewing and commenting on it or because I understand we're not operational. But the Parks and Rec Committee exists for oversight of how the dollars are spent. Right. So in some capacity or another. So can we make sure to schedule a committee meeting to at the very least review and comment on the plan that's put together for all three of the parks?

Is that going to be preliminary designs prepared for each of the parks? Yes. That's when the concept is firmed up and that's when that's really what's going to go in each As we discussed before, there's going to be community input into those designs. In addition to that, we want to have a committee meeting to review them. Is that what we're talking about?

I'm saying to see what they're handing over. Just like with the plan, we reviewed the whole 40 and 10 plan on committee. so i'm i would anticipate and hope that the community feedback would happen before that i would hope you know that maybe there's some focus groups uh that are happening there's the evening that we've talked about etc i'm asking for the deliverable from the consultant because And I don't think that it should be for every set of three. That would be unsustainable. This is the first one we're looking at. And so my hope is that the committee could see, okay, we're setting forth on 10 years of this cycle and rhythm and looking at sets of three at a time.

Is your thought that it would be just an informational presentation or as like part of the engagement process? Because I think that would matter in terms of like timing and how it were structured.

I think I could see both having a place, but I think because we are not an operational body, we're a legislative body and budget oversight body, I think informational with the ability to comment, as we do in any meeting, would be what I would be seeking. I'm also curious.

Well, I will also say, I mean, the point at which the I think this is correct, the point at which the final design is finished as a deliverable. it then becomes the document that we put out for bid. And then there is a construction contract, which then you do see.

Right, we see the construction contract. Yes, I'm aware of that. I'm saying the deliverable for this phase, just to have eyes on it. Is there a concern that I'm missing?

ALL RIGHT PERSONALLY I'M JUST TRYING UM IT WOULD JUST MATTER IN TERMS OF WHAT LEVEL OF FEEDBACK YOU WANT TO GIVE BECAUSE IF IF THEY GET TO THE POINT WHERE THEY PRODUCE THE DELIVERABLE AND IT COMES TO COUNCIL AND YOU SAY WE HATE IT FIX IT THAT THAT COMPLETE THEN THAT'S NOT BUILT INTO A FEEDBACK OR OPPORTUNITY FOR FEEDBACK OR REVIEW PROBABLY SHOULD OCCUR AT THE COMPLETION OF THE PRELIMINARY DESIGN SURE OKAY ONCE THE PRELIMINARY DESIGN IS DONE

that is the design it's called no flawed that that is a fixed that's what's going to happen those are the features being reduced but they just haven't been finalized but all the details have been worked out to make sure they're feasible that's instructable that's what's going to happen barring some feedback so that would be the opportunity to change it afterwards sounds great yeah i don't know enough about the details of the the planning cycle to say it should be so i will And we're going to have community input into that phase. So I don't know if it'd be more efficient to incorporate that into that or have an additional meeting once that's completed to bring before a committee or...

yeah so uh i am comfortable saying that we can work out when the parks and rec committee can be engaged and whether that i think because of the nature of it being a committee it needs to be a meeting not just we show up at the community things which i i do you know i go to them anyway but um At the point where that happens, I will trust your input on where it's most appropriate. I'm not trying to slow things down at all. Like literally no intent to do that. Here's my other question with the RFP that went out. The... um were there budget guidelines set for each of the three parks for them to or is it just like it was that part of the rfp that went out to say budget for construction yeah like did you tell them to design to certain budget points we we told them to they're going to be designing based on the concept with the additional input that we're talking about Okay, so they weren't told to spend X amount on this park. So there is an opportunity.

And at the conclusion of the preliminary design, they're supposed to provide opinion, you know, cost on opinion, opinion cost.

So if the community feedback and needs reflected through the design process show that there should be more investment in a smaller park, you know, cost per square foot, basically, That's possible or cost per acre. I don't know how you do it for outdoors, but yeah. Okay. So there, there is a possibility for, you know, equitable, even beyond equal spending. on these, these three parks, right. To bring it up.

If we, we know that if it's feasible, there's no dollar amount budgets locked in for any individual park.

Okay. Thank you. Um, so I would like to continue the conversation, you know, on where we could make sure that, uh, the parks and rec committee gets, um, some additional insights, uh, as part of the process. Thank you.

ANY OTHER COUNCILMEMBER WANTED TO MAKE COMMENT BEFORE WE TAKE SECOND BITES AT THE END? NO? COUNCILMAN DANOS.

SO LET ME ASK THIS. COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT, WHEN I QUESTIONED HOW THE DECISION-MAKING PROCESS TOOK PLACE, THE RESPONSE WAS COMMUNITY FEEDBACK THROUGH SURVEYS, PUBLIC MEETINGS, FOCUS GROUPS, POP-UP EVENTS THAT HELPED IDENTIFY PRIORITIES AND DESIRED IMPROVEMENTS.

guess this all took place last year or the year before i don't i don't know um yeah earlier this year a bit of last year it's been over the past two years i can't remember what month it is right now but yes uh close to this year mostly last year there's been like small level conversations at places like public and green space uh committee and some of the pop-up meetings that happen at cathedral and the artist loft. So it's been mainly through, there were city, the city ran ones that they used with Omni's, but it was also presented at some of the community action meetings.

The community meetings at Cathedral?

There were, yeah, we've had some discussion. So it wasn't a concerted effort from the city to be there, but there was, Corey has come to some of those meetings and presented.

Okay, so that's what I mean, a concerted effort as far as the community meetings are concerned. On the south side, we do have our community meetings. I'm sure there was something at NACAC on the south side. but what took place on the North side, North side alive has a coordinator from what I understand based on the job description I got, um, meeting with the residents and businesses as part of that was that person involved to this capacity, as far as the parks were concerned.

She participated in the parks plan. Yes.

Okay. Yeah. And that's fine. But we don't have that same type of coordinator, so to speak, on the south side. Now, what I mean by that, we have community action that I know. But as far as that person is concerned, was she actively engaging outside of or facilitating these public meetings, these community meetings.

I don't believe Selena. I don't think in any other capacity.

No, she didn't, but she did in the same capacity that Anna did. And I'm only chiming in here because it's important context. That Northside Alive used to exist, not completely, but that role existed under community action. The director of community action at the time there were some things and it kind of fractured. So the North side component of it was taken out of community action at that time. That was a couple of years ago. And that was put over here so that North side alive, the friendship park could get the, the, attention that it deserved because Southside has had community action. And so the role that Selena kind of fills over on the North side is the role that Anna fills on the South side. So the input that she would have had on the parks over there would have been the same input that Anna had on the parks on the South side. So they kind of work in tandem, even though one is umbrella under the city, it was because of a split at community action and not necessarily because the city is took Northside alive as like, this is ours. It was more like community action was like, take this so that that's I think that that's the most um that's the simplest explanation for the the split with the north side alive not being under Community Action anymore because it's not it's Community Action Bethlehem not Community Action South Bethlehem but it's acted as South Bethlehem because I actually had a brief conversation with Anna about that last week um I just wanted to clear that piece up and as far as Friendship Park is concerned you mentioned a HUD-based application that took place for that

Yeah, so it's a neighborhood revitalization strategy area. It's specific for the Northside 2027 neighborhood area.

Okay, so the Northside in its entirety.

Yeah, so the Northside 2027 or the Northside Alive area, it's if you start at Broad and you go north to Elizabeth and you start at Main and go – what direction is that? East. Okay. basically a little past Linden.

That mirrors Southside's NPP. As you're familiar because of your conversation with Anna, not all of South Bethlehem is within an NPP, but there is a corridor that is within the NPP. The NPP corridor gets concerted additional funding from community action. That's the version on the south side. The north side version is that north side, a live track, and they qualify because of income, socioeconomic status, they qualify for the same types of incentives that the south side tomorrow.

Okay. And I need to discuss that a little bit further with you outside of this. Yeah, yeah.

Let's have more conversation.

Believe me, I understand that the South Side isn't the only part of town that has pockets of lower income residents. The South Side is fortunately the more predominant side of town that's affected like that. But Friendship Park, and again, every other park deserves it. I just have a hard time understanding how we can spend whatever the spend is going to be three, four or $5 million versus a half a million dollars. Um, I have a hard time understanding that. And it's, again, it's, I think we're going to struggle though.

If we go park by park everywhere along the way, because every park is different and has different features and has different possibilities. But when looking at the plan as a whole and, and, and not the presentation, but the actual plan, like the plan document, when you're looking at each park within each network, like that, I think is the framework by which you're going to see how the equity plays out. Like you, frankly, you can't pick out two parks and one on the North side and one on the South side and say, this is getting more than that one. And therefore the South side's not getting its fair share because it's just, it's not, it's not, it's not how the plan is set up. The plan is set up to look at the networks and create equity within and as between the networks.

How many parks do we have on the South Side, not including South Side?

So in the plan, also, we break things down by regional park, anchor park, and community parks. So we have one regional park on the south side, which is Saucon. We have anchor parks. One, two, three. We actually have five of our 12 anchor parks are south side parks. And then one, two, three, four. 9 of the 42 community parks. So 951 15 out of 40.

And outside of Saucon, what would be the largest park on the South side?

As a linear park, it would be the Greenway as a linear park.

Including the Greenway.

Yosko.

Yeah. Yosko would be the largest park.

Okay. I think per usable square footage. But I think if you look at all, it'd probably be the disc park up on the mountain. Because that's massive. South Mountain. South Mountain.

That park's pretty huge.

Mainly nature.

I guess... Yeah, South Mountain is another great area.

It's over the hill.

When I'm thinking of parks, I guess I'm just thinking of the neighborhood parks. I'm not thinking about the greenways and South Mountain. I'm thinking about the parks that our children go. I don't have kids, but the kids go to on a daily basis.

I think if we viewed it that way, and I'm sorry, I'm getting into a conversation.

I'm just saying just for this purpose.

I agree with you. I think if we viewed it that way, then we would need to break up the city through the three regions and not necessarily north side and south side. I think that it would be the north side corridor, the west end, and the south side. Because geographically, that's how it is. We're about one third of Bethlehem, not one half. So I think if you probably looked at it at how many parks were per square foot. And I'm realizing that we're just having a conversation. It is probably better to do this after. So whatever questions you have or whatever comments you have, because I would like to continue this conversation.

I mean, I put it... I'm sorry, I'm freezing. I'm literally shivering.

It is a little cold in here, yeah. And I will say... In looking at what we were doing this round, we wanted to be geographically diverse, and then also we wanted to see what makes a big impact early on, right? And so if you look at the anchor parks and the south side anchor parks you have, we identified the Skate Plaza, Madison, the Greenway, South Mountain Park, and Yasko.

And as you've pointed out, like... Madison and Yasko are the only two I would...

that you would think about, right? And Yasco already has a pool and a splash pad. And understanding that water features are an extremely important part of this conversation, I think Madison jumped out immediately as the park that makes the most sense and one where there can be impact here in ways that the other anchor parks on the south side aren't actually positioned necessarily for that, in part because Yasco already has the pool and the splash pad.

Okay, so let's say this. It's been suggested that there's nothing that I can do to halt this for this evening. Is that the case? Everyone would have to vote for it.

Yeah, it's either a yes or a no, because if it's a table, it would be tabling back to the same resolution. Changing the resolution changes the fundamental contract itself. So it is... either a yes or a no to this specific contract this week or a yes or a no to this specific contract in two weeks. The terms of the contract cannot change. Yeah, we wouldn't be able to change the terms of the contract. So it's a supporter or a not.

Okay, understood. I'm not going to push that point any longer then. I am going to state, though... I want Madison Park to be phenomenal. It's got to blow it up. It can't be what I'm seeing in the plan. And again, I'm just... We'll have further discussions outside of this forum where I can give you a little bit more insight into how this runs. But I just, you know, it's all about equity for me. That's all it is.

Yeah. And we're always available as well and happy to set up a meeting and talk through this plan or others in great detail.

okay all right thank you for your time everyone councilman yeah i'll i'll try to be brief i i was hearing councilman daniels and and and whomever that might be able to answer i was hearing a lot of numbers and certainly non-concrete numbers i'm just curious from councilman were there specific numbers that you were referring to because i've just been looking at like the the appendices the presentations etc and i'm not seeing any numbers regarding those three parks Were those numbers you were estimating or that numbers that the administration has put forward in terms of what they're estimating to spend on those parks?

Yeah. So the plan itself, it just lists out for each park, like we use like a generic, like a range. So like if something had $1 sign, it was like a dollar to $250,000. If it had $2 amounts, $2 signs, it was $250,000 to a million. If it had $3 signs, it was more than a million.

Understood. Yeah.

but we don't have specific dollar amounts associated with the concepts and the like the very preliminary ideas for each of the parks we don't have specific dollar amounts associated yeah that is what would come out of this design and engineering process that the contract would kick start so the other numbers like 1.4 is the real number at friendship park that's like the all-in completed cost and i think the other numbers we were talking about were were estimates based on the concepts and those other i'm just careful to speculate in terms of like construction costs doing you know plenty of projects that i've been a part of like it's it's very hard to do that and so and i'm with you in terms of equity like you

You have someone right beside you on this side of the table. I'm with you. I do think we need to have a conversation then whether we're talking about equality or equity. Those are two incredibly different things. And if we were going to discuss equality, we're not comparing apples to apples on a two and a half acre plot versus a half of an acre plot. And so to the conversation that we have in terms of what are these investments look like when we do have concrete dollars that if we're spending... half a million dollars, I'm not talking about any park, if we're spending half a million dollars on a half acre park, and a million and a half dollars on a two and a half acre park, like, there is then the next step of how conversation of what does equity look like in terms of the cost per acreage. And I know you used a different term, but I'm just throwing it out there because that's I'm not smart enough to know what you know, to have a conversation about equity and the impact that specific area, each specific area can still have a great an equitable amount of impact despite the fact that it wasn't an equal investment. I hear your point and I'm right there with you. I do think there's a nuanced conversation in terms of whether we're talking about equality, whether we're talking about equity, or even if we take the next step and talk about justice and what all three of those things look like as we have conversations around this work that we're doing, and it's all critical. I would say next steps after we take this vote, and I don't want to assume how this vote's going to go, but regardless, I hate to be the utopian world person here and new to council, but I do feel hearing these conversations and the amount of conversation that's happening here, and even education that's happening here, that it's just like... I feel there's such a disconnect in the conversation from what is happening in community meetings, maybe the administration, and maybe in council, that there are things happening in so many different pockets. And I just think that it's incumbent upon all of us, from sitting council members, that's my responsibility first and foremost, as my identity, as a sitting council member, but also members of the administration and community members to engage with this information. to make sure we're educating ourselves and having these discussions to make sure they're fully informed and that we're using our offices to gather this information. And so I can only speak from my experience that a lot of questions that I've had and making sure the education is taking place, like I've had the luxury of, know wasting you know eric's time on several occasions and and mike's and laura's and and i appreciate those opportunities and the votes always go you know are going to go how they go but like i know that's always open and so i think there needs to be an intentional reach out and i'm not saying it's I'm not saying it's the administration, I'm not saying it's community, but I think moving forward, there does need to be an intentional reach out on what the plan looks like in terms of a design process to Vice President Laird's point, what part of that design process, I don't know what that looks like, but I think getting materials on a Friday and thinking we're gonna make an educated vote on this, It does a disservice to the community, to us, and to the administration to not have a more comprehensive conversation between folks that I think are all coming from this from a place of good and believing they're doing the best for their community and like-minded or great minds can disagree, reasonable minds can disagree, but I think it's incumbent upon us to have those productive conversations and make sure we're engaging with one another in a proactive, productive, and positive way because we owe that to our community.

Right. Thank you, Justin. And so I would like to call the roll. I looked over there three times. I didn't say that. Go ahead.

No, I just want to say that what what councilman amman was saying is that i think it's incumbent upon the administration to come to council and present things to us not just on this issue but on everything we're the ones voting on it it's not our job to go out and do additional research if we want to we can but you guys are the ones that need to come here and get four votes from us you can't do anything without four votes so come here and educate all of us on what you want to get done That's what I'm talking about with the Martin Tower site or with the parks or whatever we're getting into. It's not our job to go out to all these other meetings and sub-meetings and community outreach meetings.

In this instance, we had a committee meeting on the parks plan specifically, which you walked into at the very last minute.

Right. I know. I'm not talking about that. I'm not talking about this meeting because I know you did that. But what I'm saying is you need to come here on a regular basis and inform our council. We're the voters.

So when do you have to show up then? Not to the community meeting or the city council committee?

Point of order, chair. This is a conversation on an impending vote and my conversation was very much about this. I feel like we should be speaking about this. the broad topic yep what is on the table ms cowles i don't know what you're referring to but i was uh i looked over again just a call of order review call of order that point of order that like we were talking about a specific vote right now and the conversation is surrounding the vote not that this stuff doesn't matter but a call to order about the vote that's impending okay

All right, I think I'm going to, the only thing before we call this vote, I think there's just a general desire to have more committee meetings, more conversations in general, and we will proceed with that as the parks chair. The only other thing I will say, Director Collins, might be helpful is, especially when it comes to the parks in general, we're looking at Southside Parks, it's gonna be a conversation You have two Southside residents who are probably going to come from the same place on this. And there are things that exist in the Southside that do not feel like they are for the Southside. ArtsQuest is one of them. The Greenway is one of them. And that is not a lack of city effort. That is not that the city didn't plan those things well. It's just that they are destinations. So they don't tend to feel like Southside Park. So when we talk about Southside investment, even though if you look at the past 10 years between the acquisition of the Greenway, the construction of the Greenway, the skate park, there has been a ton of money invested in South Bethlehem. it's not going to feel that way to Southside residents. So as we're continuing to have these conversations, when we're talking about the lens of equity, more specifically justice, the lived experience is what's going to matter. So I think that that is an important component going forward to consider that when we're having conversations. So I would like to call the votes on this. So if the clerk will call the roll.

Mr. Callahan. I was out to the bathroom when, what are we voting?

We're voting on the parks.

Was there, yeah, but she didn't propose anything.

No, she didn't. Okay, aye. Aye. 10A resolution. And he said aye, so we can go on to.

Mr. Cologne. Aye. Ms. Daniels. Aye. Ms. Kwiatek. Aye. Ms. Laird.

Aye.

Mr. Raymond. Aye. Ms. Leon.

Aye, passes 7-0. I'll accept a motion on a second to group 10B through 10E and 10L and 10M.

uh well moved yeah second okay so we've got a motion in a second any discussion on the motion the clerk will call the role on the mr callahan all right mr cologne um ms daniels aye ms kwiatek aye ms layard aye mr raymond aye and ms leon

Aye. Passes 6-0. The clerk will read the resolutions and call the roll. I apologize.

10B. Be it resolved by the Council of the City of Bethlehem that the Mayor and Comptroller and or such other City Officials is deemed appropriate by the City Solicitor or hereby authorized to ratify execution of a Use Permit Agreement with ArtsQuest for the 2026 Taco Fest. 10C, be it resolved by the council of the city of Bethlehem that the mayor and controller and or such other city officials deemed appropriate by the city solicitor are hereby authorized to execute a use permit agreement with Portuguese American Club of Bethlehem for the 2026 Portuguese Heritage Day Festival. 10D. Be it resolved by the Council of the City of Bethlehem that the mayor and controller and or such other city officials deemed appropriate by the city solicitor are hereby authorized to execute a use permit agreement with Christmas City Spirits LLC and Joining Party Redevelopment Authority of the City of Bethlehem for the 2026 Pride Party Palooza. 10E, be it resolved by the council of the city of Bethlehem that the mayor and controller and or such other city officials is deemed appropriate by the city solicitor hereby authorized to ratify execution of a use permit agreement with Bethlehem Vintage Market for the 2026 Bethlehem Village Market. vintage market 10l be resolved by the council of the city of bethlehem that the mayor and controller and or such other city officials is deemed appropriate by the city solicitor or hereby authorized to execute a use permit agreement with holy infancy roman catholic church for the 2026 holy infancy cultural celebration and 10m be resolved by the council of the city of bethlehem that the mayor and controller and or such other city officials is deemed appropriate by the city solicitor are hereby authorized to execute a use permit agreement with ArtsQuest for the 2026 Soccer Fest. Resolutions are sponsored by Ms. Kwiatek and Mr. Amen.

All right, since none of them were identified to pull out for conversation, then the clerk, you can call the roll on the resolutions.

Mr. Callahan? Aye. Mr. Cologne? Ms. Daniels?

Aye.

Ms. Kwiatk. Aye. Ms. Laird. Aye. Mr. Raymond. Aye. Ms. Leon.

Aye. Passes 6-0-10-F.

Be resolved by the council of the city of Bethlehem that the mayor and controller and or such other city officials deemed appropriate by the city solicitor are hereby authorized to execute an agreement titled Intergovernmental Cooperation Agreement Northeast Interceptor Capital Improvements. The resolution is sponsored by Ms. Kwiatek and Mr. Raymond.

Discussion? The clerk will call the roll.

Mr. Callahan? Aye. Mr. Cologne? Aye. Ms. Daniels? Aye. Ms. Kujatek?

Aye.

Ms. Laird?

Aye. Mr. Raymond?

Aye. Ms. Leon?

Aye. Passes six, zero. I will accept the motion in a second to consider resolutions 10G through 10I as a group.

So moved.

Second. All right, any discussion? All right, the clerk will call the roll on the motion.

Mr. Callahan? Aye. Mr. Cologne? Aye. Ms. Samuels? Aye. Ms. Kluetek?

Aye.

Ms. Laird? Aye. Mr. Raymond? Aye. Ms. Leon?

Aye. Passes 7-0. The clerk will read the resolutions and then proceed to calling the roll.

Certificates for appropriateness under the provisions of the Act of the Pennsylvania Legislature, Bethlehem Resolution are hereby granted for 10G, 56 East Market Street to repaint the main house yellow and the trim white to restore the building to its original colors. 10H. 91 and 97 West Broad Street to paint the rear of the buildings to match surrounding buildings and 10I 36 East Wall Street to install a federal style brass light on the front facing facade of the building. Resolutions are sponsored by Ms. Kwiatek and Mr. Raymond.

You can proceed to call the roll.

Mr. Callahan. Aye. Mr. Colon. Aye. Ms. Daniels. Aye. Ms. Kwiatek. Aye. Ms. Laird. Aye. Mr. Raymond. Aye. Ms. Leon.

I passes seven zero. Okay. All right. 10 J.

Resolved by the council of the city of Bethlehem, the mayor and controller and or such other city officials is deemed appropriate by the city solicitor are hereby authorized to execute an agreement with bed. Co carry out programs and activities as assigned in connection with the execution of city sponsored events. Resolution is sponsored by his queer tech and Mr. Raymond.

Discussion? Clerk will call the roll.

Mr. Callahan? Aye. Mr. Cologne? Aye. Ms. Daniels? Aye. Ms. Kujatek?

Aye.

Ms. Laird?

Aye.

Mr. Raymond? Aye. Ms. Leon?

Aye. Passes 7-0. Resolution 10-K.

by the council of the city of Bethlehem that the mayor and controller and or such other city officials deemed appropriate by the city solicitor are hereby authorized to execute an intergovernmental agreement involving the North Hampton County Drug Task Force. Resolution is sponsored by Ms. Kwiatk and Mr. Raymond.

Discussion? Council Vice President Laird.

So I am Wondering here, is this is, if I'm recalling correctly, an agreement that we are basically renewing? Is that correct?

Yes, it's a renewal. It's a renewal. Deputy Chief Mikesell, I believe that this is a renewal.

Yeah, we've been part of the task force for years. This comes up with new district attorney. So it's a new district attorney. You know, he's been in office for a while. It took a while for this just to come forward. So there's nothing new in here. We have part-time officers on the drug task force. We have for decades. This just allows us to get paid for overtime for work that takes place outside the city.

Um, is there any change in the structure with the current, um, like federal or, uh, you know, administrations or anything that trickles down in terms of how things are enforced or anything like that? Nope. Right now.

Okay.

Thank you. Any other discussion? The clerk will call the roll.

Mr. Callahan. Mr. Colon. Hi. Ms. Daniels.

Hi.

Ms. Kwiatek.

Nay.

Miss Laird.

Aye.