Northampton County Executive John Stoffa delivered his "State of the County Financial Address" yesterday morning, and you can read this interesting and unusual man's speech on the county web site.
I'll have more to say about his plans next week. For now, I just want to note that Stoffa keeps calling Lehigh County Exec Don Cunningham "Governor" for some reason, and complains "I see more of him than I do of my wife."
Today's one-liner: "The shortest way to the distinguishing excellence of any writer is through his hostile critics." Richard LeGallienne
Local Government TV
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Friday, October 12, 2007
17 comments:
You own views are appreciated, especially if they differ from mine. But remember, commenting is a privilege, not a right. I will delete personal attacks or off-topic remarks at my discretion. Comments that play into the tribalism that has consumed this nation will be declined. So will comments alleging voter fraud unless backed up by concrete evidence. If you attack someone personally, I expect you to identify yourself. I will delete criticisms of my comment policy, vulgarities, cut-and-paste jobs from other sources and any suggestion of violence towards anyone. I will also delete sweeping generalizations about mainstream parties or ideologies, i.e. identity politics. My decisions on these matters are made on a case by case basis, and may be affected by my mood that day, my access to the blog at the time the comment was made or other information that isn’t readily apparent.
Any candidate who promises to immediately remove the Rendell/Democrat Toll Booths from I-80 gets my vote.
ReplyDeleteI fear Daaahn Cunningham is likely another Rendell party-line toady when it comes to taxing and tolling.
Prove me wrong Daaahn.
Anon 11:06, Don Cunningham is the master of the TIF, or Tax Increment Financing.
ReplyDeleteThis was his fiscal weapon of choice over the LERTA, KOZ, and Swaption to rob taxpayers and their children since these incentives deprived the taxing jurisdictions - especially the schools - of the revenue needed to deliver their services to the public.
That's why Fast Eddie swept Cunningham up in a Rapture as Bethlehem's mayor and transported him to Harrisburg as his Director over all state procurement - including 61,000 slot machines.
Another purpose of this Rapture was to groom Cunningham as Jane Ervin so that he and Stoffa and Joe Long could create yet another "shadow government," a Lehigh-Northampton bi-county authority, like LANTA, the IDA, the HEA, the fraud-fraught EHA (Easton Hospital Authority) written about in yesterday's Morning Call Girl, and the illegal GPA, issuer of the illegal $113 million MOAB (not the U.S. Air Force's Massive Ordance Airblast successor to the Vietnam War's "daisy cutter" bomb, but the Mother of All Bonds in Northampton and Lehigh counties.
I'm making a copy of this commemt in case I'm censored again.
anon 12:50
ReplyDeleteSpeaking ill of the local machine, especially Stoffa and Cunningham, won't earn you a visit from the secret police, but it will put you at odds with their cheerleading squad. The guise of legitimate political disagreement put aside, Stoffa, Reibman, Cunningham, Rendell et. al. are all one head and one ass.
We are the editorial borgs. Resistance is futile. You must comply.
ReplyDeleteAmen!
ReplyDeleteI wish all elected officials would remember who they serve as Executive Stoffa reminds us!
Good Annual State of the County message is my opinion. larry@kisslinger.com
The Rendell administration and current legislature may be the most corrupt since the Ripper Act of 1902.
ReplyDeleteThat's when the state government seated in Harrisburg removed the mayor of Pittsburgh, replacing him with a "recorder," and extorted $200 million from Philadelphia's taxpayers for construction of the City Hall on Broad Street, from whose dome the statue of Benjamin Franklin bestrides.
The legislature repealed the Ripper Act in 1903, but replaced it with the cities-classification act creating cities of the first, second, and third class.
This act designated Philadelphia a city of the first class, Pittsburg and Allegheny cities of the second class, and the remainder as cities of the third class, including Allentown, Bethlehem, and Easton.
Today, as far as I know, only Pittsburgh remains as Pennsylvznia's city of the second class.
Also, as far as I know, Easton hasn't the population to qualify as a city of the third class, and hasn't for many decades now.
The out-migration has created a condition that a series of the city's mayors and its influx from NYC of yuppyish trust-fund kids who dub themselves New Urbanists of Easton, NUE, now try desperately to reverse - at the expense of Easton's other neighborhoods.
Aiding and abetting NUE are Easton's Downtown Neighborhood Association, DNA, ReNewPA, the Greater Easton Development Partnership, GEDP, the Brookings Institute, and Lafayette College, which is expanding its campus into the flood plains, wetlands, and steep slopes of the Bushkill Creek corridor in the development/redevelopment of a new urban community dubbed Bushkill Village.
This is the corridor of Bushkill Creek that extends from the old Simon Silk Mill and Moon building on N. 13th Street to the stream's Delaware River estuary.
The corridor includes the former Jac & Co. Restaurant, the former Mohican Club, the former Hoff Class Auto Restoration business, and Case's Auto Tire Company - all of which were taxable properties until acquired by preperty tax-exempt Lafayette College.
In their desperate effort to re-populate, Easton's new arrivees have allied themselves with the city's officials and developers in glutting Easton with luxury condominiums in today's sub-prime mortgage crisis.
Indeed, it's a desperation that drives them to sacrifice Easton's imperilled environment to the yawning maws and avaricious jaws of developers like Lou "Hannibal Lecter" Pektor.
Anon 11:10, aka Billly!!!!!
ReplyDeleteYou're back. After a long absence, Billy Givens is in the house once again.
And yes, I have at times deleted some of your long and off-topic comments. You are one of the very few who has that distinction.
But I acknowledge publicly and freely that I was wrong to have ever deleted a word you have written. As you know, one of your comments a few months ago prompted a letter from Broughal's law office, threatening me with a libel lawsuit. You must be doing something right!
"It's the Public Whom We Serve", how profound. It Is The Air We Breath. It Is The Water We Drink. WOW! Now I'm profound too. Only this guy could get away with these corny, overused political catch phrases.
ReplyDeleteIt is my coffee I drink. It is politicians with platitudes I detest.
ReplyDeleteAnon 6:56, 2:32,
ReplyDeleteI give Stoffa credit for walking the walk. More than most pols I know can say. He's reviled by a lot of politicos and he has had some run ins with some departments in the county. But he does have a large cheerleading squad, as someone mentioned. They're called voters.
Sorry about that Will Penn: It's your statue, not Ben Franklin's, that stands atop your City of Brotherly Love's $200 million (in 1902 dollars) City Hall Building.
ReplyDeleteIf you can see as far as 60 miles north to the "Lehigh Valley," it must break your honest heart to witness the goings-on in Northampton County since your elder son Thomas stole those 315 acres from Lenni Lenepe Indian Chief Tatamy in Forks Township in the infamous Walking Purchase land-grab larceny of 1737.
Google "Donna Taggart and New City America" and read about Donna and partner John Englesson, both former officials of the Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corporation (LVEDC):
ReplyDelete"New City America has entered into a business alliance with Donna Taggart and Associates and John Englesson of Dynametrics, establishing New City East. NCA is based in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and seeks to establish Community Benefit Districts, Business Improvement Districts and Neighborhood Improvement Districts throughout Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland."
Bernie O'Hare received his May 10, 2007, letter from the Bethlehem law firm of Broughal & DeVito LLP representing Taggart Associates.
ReplyDeleteBoth letters, probably identical, threatened to sue us about postings on our blogs re Taggart - coincidentally independent postings that he and I had never discussed with each other.
Armed with a degree from Cedar Crest College in finance, Taggart Associates president Donna Taggart has parlayed her various positions with the Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce, Greater Easton Development Partnership, the Green Knights Economic Development Corporation of Pen Argyl Borough and Plainfield Township, Lehigh Valley Industrial Parks Inc, Lehigh Valley Partnership, and various other private, non-profit organizations into this latest venture, New City America.
This may all be well and good, except for the fact these ventures mirror in too many instances a massive transfer of public wealth into private ownership - and in some instances the transfer of private ownership to other private entities, a notable example being the transfer of 33 privately owned properties in the Bushkill Creek Corridor from N. 13th St. to the creek's Delaware River estuary and between it and the Easton-Phillipsburg Free Bridge, to include the proposed Riverwalk project of Arcadia Properties, Lafayette College's more-or-less silent partner in the development of Easton's Bushkill Village, an extension of the Lafayette College Campus.
Taggart Associates' clients include besides the city of Easton the New York real estate giant Newmark Knight Frank and other partners of the BethWorks Sands LLC, including the Pennsylvania and New Jersey law firm of Florio, Perrucci, Steinhardt, and Fader.
As reported in today's or yesterday's edition of The Morning Call, the Bethlehem Planning Commission has scheduled its final review of the BethWorks project for Tuesday, October 16, 2007, in Bethlehem's city hall on Church St. beginning at 3:00 pm.
This meeting will be the public's last opportunity to speak before the city issues building permits.
I urge the public to attend and to request that the meeting be postponed and rescheduled at an evening hour when greater numbers of the public can attend and participate.
speaking of bad government, last week Lamont "wrong Way" McClure was touting his votes to help taxpayers. This is the same guy who voted to pay 1.8 million more than necessary for communications, and voted to raise the filing fees for bankruptcies citing, "we need to take care of the lawyers". (what about those homeowners?) Now this week, Wrong Way McClure proclaims that he is protecting green spaces. This is after failing to meet with a developer who was seeking TIF (tax incentives for brown field rehabilitation)and then voting for the tax incentive when in reality, the developer was building a mall on prime farm land! Wrong way McClure has alot of nerve claiming he is the guardian of the taxpayer.
ReplyDeleteDottie,
ReplyDeleteYou and I disagree on many things. This is not one of them. LaMont McClure is bad for Northampton County.
Dottie Niklos said...
ReplyDeletespeaking of bad government, last week Lamont "wrong Way" McClure was touting his votes to help taxpayers. This is the same guy who voted to pay 1.8 million more than necessary for communications, and voted to raise the filing fees for bankruptcies citing, "we need to take care of the lawyers". (what about those homeowners?) Now this week, Wrong Way McClure proclaims that he is protecting green spaces. This is after failing to meet with a developer who was seeking TIF (tax incentives for brown field rehabilitation)and then voting for the tax incentive when in reality, the developer was building a mall on prime farm land! Wrong way McClure has alot of nerve claiming he is the guardian of the taxpayer.
8:56 PM
Dottie is Vice Chair of the Republican Party and is saying things only the County Exec would have known, because these events were exchanged in confidence with Stoffa. I smell a rat.
You better smell some more because there's no rat. His votes are all a matter of public record. And at least two of the three issues mentioned by Dottie were talked about here, and as they occurred.
ReplyDeleteLamont may not like this, but those meetings are open to the public.