tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9299655.post115410445744498997..comments2024-03-19T09:16:34.855-04:00Comments on Lehigh Valley Ramblings: Northampton County's Liberty Bell - It's Not Cracked (More Than I Can Say About its Bureaucrats)Bernie O'Harehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13756311150988957401noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9299655.post-1154544361750590852006-08-02T14:46:00.000-04:002006-08-02T14:46:00.000-04:00To Anon 7:55 PM, I had one too but I ate it.To Anon 7:55 PM, I had one too but I ate it.Bernie O'Harehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13756311150988957401noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9299655.post-1154476517342570032006-08-01T19:55:00.000-04:002006-08-01T19:55:00.000-04:00I also possess an artifact, I have the piece of to...I also possess an artifact, I have the piece of toast served to Bill Clinton that some say has the image of Jesus burned into it.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9299655.post-1154459062949811512006-08-01T15:04:00.000-04:002006-08-01T15:04:00.000-04:00Bernie,Give me a break! At least I spelled "plaque...Bernie,<BR/><BR/>Give me a break! At least I spelled "plaque" correctly (the second time I used it in my post, with a "q" and not a "g."<BR/><BR/>I also possess another artifact, a color portrait of the Pennsylvania legislative chamber in Harrisburg.<BR/><BR/>The portrait includes an inscription praising 136th Legislative District Representative Robert Freeman for the $3 million dollar state taxpayers' grant for Hotel Easton renovations.<BR/><BR/>This is the $3 million dollars that Koehler and Kheel sent down the garish, yellowish-orange demolation tube that hung like the snout of some exotic primordal beast for so many months.<BR/><BR/>What K&K didn't send down the tube into dumpters for hauling away to WM/GCS, they auctioned off on the sidewalk in front of the hotel.<BR/><BR/>I'm told the crystal chandelier that hung so majestically and magnificently in the hotel lobby now graces a bar and grill in Doylestown<BR/><BR/>- whose colonial and Victorian architectural charm has been sullied by its ugly, modernist courthouse.<BR/><BR/>Maybe this Bucks County intrusion inspired Northampton County's $43-million-and-still-climbing courthouse that has destroyed the Black and Hispanic Dutchtown-Gallows Hill neighborhood of historic Downtown Easton.<BR/><BR/>Since the Northampton County Government Center lies within Downtown Easton's historic district, who bribed Brent Glass, executive director of Pennsylvania's Historical and Museum Commission in Harrisburg, to approve the architectural intrusions - or had Glass already vacated that position for a higher one at the Smithsonian Institute Inside-the-Beltway that approved a Las Vegas Sands casino on the toxic CERCLA (Comprehensive Environmental Response Liability Act)Superfund site of historic Bethlehem Steel and South Bethlehem neighborhood?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9299655.post-1154451625348124472006-08-01T13:00:00.000-04:002006-08-01T13:00:00.000-04:00Billy, when you talk about the plague, I assume yo...Billy, when you talk about the plague, I assume you mean plaque. There is a difference. Like Phil Mitman, I wouldn't want the plague either. I'm with Phil on that one. <BR/><BR/>For those of you who don't know, Billy is involved in another fight right now - a fight for his life. I feel sorry for the cancer cells that have invaded your body, Billy. And I hope you get well soon.Bernie O'Harehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13756311150988957401noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9299655.post-1154448646792882812006-08-01T12:10:00.000-04:002006-08-01T12:10:00.000-04:00I possess a historical artifact: the plague dedica...I possess a historical artifact: the plague dedicating Spruce Way pocket park to the Dutchtown-Gallows Hill once-residential neighborhood now home to the few African-American and Hispanic residents remaining, Nature's Nook, a commercial pet shop retail outlet, and parking lot for Northampton County's new, ultra-modern,$3 million Domestic Relations building, of the architecturally intrusive style fancied by the artsy-fartsy New Urbanists of Easton set - the same ones who gave us Abraham Atiyeh's U.S. General Services Administration-leased building for occupancy by the Social Security Administration and in violation of the contractual GSA off-street parking requirents (which those of the old SSA building on Ferry Street now occupied by ProJeCt Easton more than met).<BR/><BR/>Spruce Way pocket park no longer exists, fallen before the county's advancing demolotion ball, like the Easton Catholic High School and Saint Bernard Parish's convent, all three of which once adorned Dutchtown-Gallows Hill.<BR/><BR/>Spruce Way Park was paid for by Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds in 1982, when blue-blooded Brahmin Philip A. Mitman of the silk-stocking College Hill neigborhood was Easton's failed mayor the first time.<BR/><BR/>His current failed mayoralty follows those of (at least in my personal experience) Sal Panto Jr., Tom Goldmith, and Michael McFadden.<BR/><BR/>In fairness to Phil, interim, Interregnum Mayor Mike and Mike's, Tom's, and Sal's zoning officer and planning and development director Robert O'Neil had already given Northampton County the zoning and building permits it needed to destroy Dutchtown-Gallows Hill.<BR/><BR/>These Easton officials sold out the residents of Dutchtown-Gallows Hill, and, indeed, of Esston and all of the county, because of the city's desperate need for revenue - and for whatever personal bribes they might have received from the county for their services.<BR/><BR/>I tried to give the plague to Mitman in Centre Square.<BR/><BR/>But he refused to take it and told me to keep it.<BR/><BR/>And I did.<BR/><BR/>I wonder now if Mitman will dispatch Easton Police Officer David Ryan to arrest me for possession of stolen property (the plaque).<BR/><BR/>I wouldn't be surprised since he has followed Tom Goldsmith's precedents in so many other ways.<BR/><BR/>After all, Goldmith sent Ryan and another officer to my home to arrest me for having snipped off the locks and chains from the chain-link fences blocking public access to S. Green Street and the 100 block of Pine Street - in an act of civil disobedience and, to boot, a symbolic act of snipping off Goldmsith's balls and those of his clients Theodore Kheel and the trio's partner Peter Koehler.<BR/><BR/>At the June 6, 2002, meeting of Northampton County Council, described in the following day's edtion of The Express-Times from staff reports, "Givens told council that the citizenry would not stand for any more bond issues. County officials passed a $111 million issue last year, and they're weighing their options on two more: a $30 million bond for open space preservation and a $3 million for a Domestic Relations building.<BR/><BR/>"Givens declared on Thursday the start of 'the second insurrection in the Keystone State," the first being what was known as the Whiskey Rebellion" of 1795, when "about 7,000 men took up rms in Pennsylvania to protest the impostion of a tx on the [making] and sale of whiskey.<BR/><BR/>"'I'm declaring war on you,'" Givens said Thursday, garnering wild applause from the packed council gallery. 'We're fed up. We've had it with you.'"Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9299655.post-1154436393455979132006-08-01T08:46:00.000-04:002006-08-01T08:46:00.000-04:00At the current rate, it won't be long before the L...At the current rate, it won't be long before the Liberty Bell walks out the door and the county will have nothing to sell to anyone.Bernie O'Harehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13756311150988957401noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9299655.post-1154435713605537062006-08-01T08:35:00.000-04:002006-08-01T08:35:00.000-04:00Bernie, what if we could get Taco Bell to mount th...Bernie, what if we could get Taco Bell to mount the Liberty Bell symbolically above one of their restaurants? Corporations love to sponsor community based projects! What could be more symbolic in our war with illegal immigrants than to put the liberty Bell atop a Mexican Restaurant?! Let freedom ring?! Unless you are a Mexican?Chris Caseyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14444443021159003156noreply@blogger.com