Lehigh County’s Department of Community and Economic Development has organized the “Great Lehigh County Cleanup” for Saturday, April 19. Fifteen municipalities will pitch in to beautify their downtowns, parks and communities. Pennsylvania Department of Transportation will provide garbage bags, safety vests, and gloves.
Lehigh County’s event is part of the Great Pennsylvania Cleanup. Last year, more than 139,480 volunteers in 5,113 PA teams cleaned up roads, parks, schools, waterways, wildlife areas and communities. Volunteers racked up:
• 7.4 million pounds of trash collected
• 372,096 bags of litter removed
• 13,565 miles of roadway cleaned
• 12,934 trees, flowers, and bulbs planted
• 3,238 acres of parkland cleared
Volunteers will be rewarded for their efforts with tee shirts, beverages, and goodie bags donated by area businesses:
Giant Food Stores, Tilghmann St., Allentown: Five hundred reusable canvas goodie bags
Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corporation, Just Born, Commerce Bank, Lehigh Valley Convention and Visitors’ Bureau, Delaware and Lehigh National Heritage Corridor, and Lehigh County Department of Solid Waste and Recycling: Items for goodie bags
Commerce Bank: $500 towards purchase of tee shirts
Alvin H. Butz Corporation: $100 towards purchase of tee shirts
Physical Graffi Tees of Allentown: Design and printing of tee shirts
Coca-Cola: Cases of soda for volunteers
Weis Markets, Cedar Crest Blvd: $25 for purchase of water for volunteers
Participating Lehigh County municipalities include:
• Alburtis: Camp Fire USA Kids will clean up along Alburtis Road
· Bethlehem: Several parks, the Rt. 378 gateway, the trail on the Monocacy Creek, and various bus shelters will be spruced up by The North by Northwest Neighborhood Initiative, Coalition for Appropriate Transportation (CAT) and other neighborhood groups.
• Catasauqua: Catasauqua Borough Business Revitalization Program, Borough Council (president and mayor are participating), and students from Lehigh County’s Juvenile Probation Dept. will clean the Canal area.
• Coopersburg: Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts #364 will clean Living Memorial Park.
• Coplay: County Commissioner Bill Leiner and the Coplay Town Watch Group will clean up Coplay Parkway and the area around Saylor Cement Kilns.
• Emmaus/Upper Milford: Environmental Advisory Council Between 50 and 75 volunteers from the Emmaus Main Street Program, members of Borough Council and various local boy scout troops will team up.
• Heidelberg Township: Lehigh County Juvenile Probation students will help residents.
• Lower Macungie: Friends of Spring Creek will clean up as part of the ‘Adopt a Highway’ program.
• Lower Milford: More than 30 volunteers, an area Cub Scout troop, and a staffer from State Rep. Karen Beyer’s office will clean up.
• Macungie: Emmaus High School’s Red Cross Club, Commerce Bank staff, Boy Scout Troop #71, residents and local officials and Macungie Borough Business Revitalization Program will volunteer.
• Salisbury Township: Students from Salisbury High School will pitch in.
• Upper Saucon: Lehigh County Juvenile Probation Students will assist residents.
• Whitehall Township: Residents and Lehigh County Juvenile Probation Students will team up.Saturday also happens to be "Get Rid of Your Crap Day" in Northampton County. Ron Angle and I have rented a semi and will be dumping shit all over Lehigh County on Sunday.
Lehigh County’s event is part of the Great Pennsylvania Cleanup. Last year, more than 139,480 volunteers in 5,113 PA teams cleaned up roads, parks, schools, waterways, wildlife areas and communities. Volunteers racked up:
• 7.4 million pounds of trash collected
• 372,096 bags of litter removed
• 13,565 miles of roadway cleaned
• 12,934 trees, flowers, and bulbs planted
• 3,238 acres of parkland cleared
Volunteers will be rewarded for their efforts with tee shirts, beverages, and goodie bags donated by area businesses:
Giant Food Stores, Tilghmann St., Allentown: Five hundred reusable canvas goodie bags
Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corporation, Just Born, Commerce Bank, Lehigh Valley Convention and Visitors’ Bureau, Delaware and Lehigh National Heritage Corridor, and Lehigh County Department of Solid Waste and Recycling: Items for goodie bags
Commerce Bank: $500 towards purchase of tee shirts
Alvin H. Butz Corporation: $100 towards purchase of tee shirts
Physical Graffi Tees of Allentown: Design and printing of tee shirts
Coca-Cola: Cases of soda for volunteers
Weis Markets, Cedar Crest Blvd: $25 for purchase of water for volunteers
Participating Lehigh County municipalities include:
• Alburtis: Camp Fire USA Kids will clean up along Alburtis Road
· Bethlehem: Several parks, the Rt. 378 gateway, the trail on the Monocacy Creek, and various bus shelters will be spruced up by The North by Northwest Neighborhood Initiative, Coalition for Appropriate Transportation (CAT) and other neighborhood groups.
• Catasauqua: Catasauqua Borough Business Revitalization Program, Borough Council (president and mayor are participating), and students from Lehigh County’s Juvenile Probation Dept. will clean the Canal area.
• Coopersburg: Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts #364 will clean Living Memorial Park.
• Coplay: County Commissioner Bill Leiner and the Coplay Town Watch Group will clean up Coplay Parkway and the area around Saylor Cement Kilns.
• Emmaus/Upper Milford: Environmental Advisory Council Between 50 and 75 volunteers from the Emmaus Main Street Program, members of Borough Council and various local boy scout troops will team up.
• Heidelberg Township: Lehigh County Juvenile Probation students will help residents.
• Lower Macungie: Friends of Spring Creek will clean up as part of the ‘Adopt a Highway’ program.
• Lower Milford: More than 30 volunteers, an area Cub Scout troop, and a staffer from State Rep. Karen Beyer’s office will clean up.
• Macungie: Emmaus High School’s Red Cross Club, Commerce Bank staff, Boy Scout Troop #71, residents and local officials and Macungie Borough Business Revitalization Program will volunteer.
• Salisbury Township: Students from Salisbury High School will pitch in.
• Upper Saucon: Lehigh County Juvenile Probation Students will assist residents.
• Whitehall Township: Residents and Lehigh County Juvenile Probation Students will team up.
i have a problem with the do-gooder clean up days. littering is piggish activity not adequately enforced. although illegal, few tickets and fines are given. saturday morning the yuppies(i annoy people when i use this word, sorry) will clean up 7th Street then pat themselves on the back with a luncheon. while they are self-congratulating, the litter will be reaccumulating. by sunday morning you won't even know the street was cleaned the day before. the solution requires much stricter enforcement.
ReplyDeleteThe problem in NorCo is that it's the primary conduit for out of state trash coming into PA. Just look at 33 between 78 and 512. Trash haulers with loose covers and unsecured garbage sprinkle it down the highway like holy water at the Easter Vigil.
ReplyDeleteI'm with MM re: tougher enforcement, but I choose not to ridicule anyone who'll bend over and pick up trash - whatever their motivation.
Good grief MM. Do-gooder clean up days? You come off as a miserable old man. I hope I'm wrong.
ReplyDeleteI don't care why people are willing to pick up trash, let us do it without somebody yelling "Bahumbug" (or however you spell that). What you are encouraging simply amounts to doing nothing. I'm sorry, but when you live in a neighborhood where litter is an issue, doing nothing isn't a good option. Enforcement is needed, but so is the initial clean up.
I'll be out cleaning up in Old Allentown tomorrow morning. If you have a problem with that, you can come find me at the corner of 10th and Turner from noon until two... we will have some outdoor type critters in an effort to engage kids in the neighborhood. And that's the point-this isn't only about cleaning up, but engaging your neighbors.
Sorry you have a problem with people taking ownership for their neighborhood. I really feel sorry that you have that grim a view on service.
"Saturday also happens to be "Get Rid of Your Crap Day" in Northampton County. Ron Angle and I have rented a semi and will be dumping shit all over Lehigh County on Sunday."
ReplyDeleteI missed that part. May I recommend a couple of addresses where you can dump the stuff. They would be eternally greatful.
mr. brace, i admire people who clean their neighborhoods, scott armstrong has been doing it every saturday for 15years, except he doesn't want a trophy or free luncheon at St. Lukes for doing it. Litter has keep 7th St. an eyesore for the last 15 years, why has not the city and gateway projects not addressed it. why is there not a full time crew funded by one of those grants the bureaucrats so cherish to address this one blatant problem. you many call me a miserable old man, but it's becoming apparent your a democrat party apologist pompom boy in training.
ReplyDeletegeoff, btw, your not inventing the wheel, there has been clean up days for years by various faith based groups. what you call an initial cleanup is actually initial cleanup 400. what amazes me is that the city allows this litter to make irrelevant the millions wasted over the years on new sidewalks, tree's and lighting. ask pawlowski who was director of community development for three years, why we would need new townhouses before properly addressing the litter problem? the only reason he can get away with this of is because of people like you think it's some new problem. here's a thought, perhaps while writing 100,000 parking tickets a year, those officers might notice someone littering, i notice it all the time, and write tickets for that.
ReplyDeleteWhat the heck does clean up trash and engaging neighbors have to do with being a Democrat or Republican? You have managed to turn what should be a day of neighbors coming together into a partisan mud-slinging effort.
ReplyDeleteOn another note, I'm glad to hear the stories of people like Mr. Armstrong cleaning up his neighborhood. Clearly we need to celebrate his efforts too, rather than knocking the efforts of people who are comming together as a community. He may not want a trophy, but he deserves one.
Litter has been a challenge in communities across the state. It's nothing new. And I know that my decision to participate is nothing new. Where you get the idea that I think this way is beyond me. I just choose to be a part of the solution rather than looking down on volunteer efforts. Your disdain of Pawlowski and other powers that be in the city really shouldn't have any bearing on me. I don't work for the city and have only interacted with the mayor on my appointment to the zhb. I'm a volunteer, not some partisan hack.
As far as your other questions, they are good ones, but they certainly don't justify your decision to poo-poo the efforts of good volunteers. The grants that I know of won't pay for the city to hire work crews to clean up litter, but if there are other funding opportunities, it's worth pursuing. The clean and green programs that I worked with in West Chester (if memory serves me right) ran more than 20k a year(one guy, 4 hours a day, 5 days a week, plus plantings and maintenance). That was a small geographic area and was paid for by the business improvement district general funds, not borough tax dollars or grants. Still, it's a good question to ask. I just don't think it requires the partisan mud-slinging you've opted to engage or the dismissal of good people who are volunteering their time.
"here's a thought, perhaps while writing 100,000 parking tickets a year, those officers might notice someone littering, i notice it all the time, and write tickets for that."
ReplyDeleteSee that's a great idea. If parking authority officers can be granted the power to do this (would probably reqire some legal stuff in the form of legislation), it would be a valuable function for the city. If you haven't done this already, talk to M. Donnovan. I know I'll bring it up next time I see him.
Talking about solutions like this one is far more productive than your previous comments. Thank you for the opportunity to see one of your good ideas.
geoff, excuse my response, i didn't realize "miserable old man' wasn't any sort of insult. as far as party affiliation is concerned, your correct, it should not be a issue. however, i recently read you participated in a young leadership program with the D party and both appointments made by pawlowski to the zoning board were democrats. for the record, it is too easy to dismiss my comments as distain for pawlowski or as being political. i just feel that for him, or anybody, to think new townhouses can improve a street marred by litter shows little understanding of the real problems affecting the city. i think at some point by picking up the litter, but not addressing an administration which ignores it, your enabling the status quo. forgive my cynicism, but i would think that after being CED director for three years, and mayor for 2+, pawlowski should be able to find a solution beyond the yearly do-gooder day.
ReplyDelete"Good grief MM. Do-gooder clean up days? You come off as a miserable old man. I hope I'm wrong."
ReplyDeleteAnd I do hope that I'm wrong. I should also say that my family calls my dad a grumpy old man from time to time. We got him a puppy to solve that problem.
Where are you reading about me participating in a D party leadership program? I'm a graduate of the Center for Progressive Leadership and now serve on the faculty. It's not a partisan organization as it holds an IRS 501c3 (can't engage in partisan activity with that designation). We have engaged trainers from both political parties, including Sam Katz (yes, the same Sam Katz that ran as an R in Philadelphia). Progressives, by their nature, tend to be D's, but we've trained some R/I's too.
Your frustration with Ed Pawlowski is your frustration. Please don't feel a need to project that onto me or anybody else.
Personally, I think the best solutions to the problems of litter come from the private or non-profit sectors, not from government. The business improvement district I worked for was a non-profit and we hired (on bid) a for-profit contractor. Local gov't is certainly a partner (trash disposal and definitely enforcement). But in my experience, the more community problem solving is outsourced to the private sector or non-profit sector the better. The two biggest exceptions to this in local gov't are public safety (police, fire, EMS, etc) and public works (road improvements, sewer/water, etc). Gov't should be a partner, but it is rarely creative enough to handle it on its own. Gov't is too constrained by political agendas. Non-profits and for profits can be too, but not as likely.
Have a great weekend. I'm going to do some weeding.
geoff, of course the litter on 7th st. must be solved by the city. the improvement district on hamilton street failed because the merchants, much wealthier at the time, didn't pay their dues. it is apparent that for one reason or another, the merchants on 7th st. do not assemble themselves to handle this problem. but this problem has made allentown a standing joke throughout the area. what we need our leaders, far less " trained" than you and those we have, who would recognize when you have a problem which can be solved, (litter is easy, crime is hard), do it. for the price of one brewpub, this city could be kept clean for 5 years.
ReplyDeleteif gov't is charged with solving this problem, the problem will only come back. The private sector and non-profit sector need to be the leaders of the challenge. this can't be an exercise in big gov't.
ReplyDeletewhen pawlowski ran for office and spoke of clean and safe streets, i assumed he was referring to litter. i understand the "citizens" must be retained, but if you have a dog that isn't housebroken, most people clean up after it until it learns better. litter in allentown should be cleaned up continuously by the city. we have a parking authority with parking meters at 10th and chew giving tickets. we have two hour parking throughout the center city. why is the enforcement of parking rules a priority, but litter isn't? i understand that litter, unlike parking will not pay for itself and make money, however it is a quality of life issue. litter abatement must be done by the city, if not, you inter-city dinks will be able to congregate each year in a smaller place.
ReplyDeleteMichael & Geoff, Dudes, you guys have been talking garbage all day!
ReplyDeletebernie, you certainly were enthusiastic about sal panto's vow to clean easton, government taking on litter.
ReplyDeletegeoff, these non-profits you refer to you are actually funded by us tax-payers giving private beaucrats jobs., that process cost more in administration. here in allentown we pay heidi bear to administer the community block grants to people like you, who in turn hire people to pick up the litter. two unnecessary beaucrats between the taxpayer and picking up the litter. on the other hand, the city could hire two more street workers, buy two more brooms, and be about $200k ahead. (in addition to your salary, we have to pay for your office and overhead)
in the miserable old man's allentown, heidi and you wouldn't have a job. the city population income level allows us under HUD rules to use the block grants directly on infrastructure.
i believe the non-profit sector has created a culture of non-productive, i call it the poverty magnet.
This is another exchange where MM wins the rhetorical battle and loses the rhetorical war by coming off, once again, as the hyperbolic whacko who'd question the motivation of those who'd stoop to clean another's mess. The more I agree with the guy, the more I wish he'd go away. A stiletto is far more effective than a jackhammer in these situations. MM, Dale Carnegie wrote these great and helpful books. Go ahead and Google it.
ReplyDeleteanon 7:30. i remember clean up days on 7th st. back in the early 90's., after working for several hours we would eat at the deli, long gone!!! i think it's time to really address the issue. we need a clean up day every day. i think the city doing it would be the most cost effective for the taxpayer in the long run. if you find my remarks on mark, but too blunt, fine, articulate your way. i would only need that dale carnegie course if i was seeking your vote, which i'm not.. or perhaps a job, which i'm not. i'm just a guy who has noticed, while others speak so much more reasonability about our problems, they never get solved.
ReplyDeleteI disagree with anon 7:30. The soft approach is not working, let's be realistic, it would make more sense for the city to enforce daily sweeping and hire some workers, instead of more bureaucracy. I have nothing against these clean up days, and I think everyone should do their part to help, but it doesn't really solve the problem. And it's not nice to call someone a grumpy or miserable old man or a "whacko." I met MM and he is not that at all. :D
ReplyDelete"(in addition to your salary, we have to pay for your office and overhead)"
ReplyDeleteI don't get paid by CDBG money or the city, so again, I'm not sure where you are coming from. The more I read what you say, the more I'm convinced that I'm better off just doing what I know to be right and walking away from direct interaction with MM.
All my best MM. All I need to know about this conversation can be summed up with this sentence:
"i have a problem with the do-gooder clean up days."
Sorry for all of the hassle Bernie. You truly are a wonderful host but I'm done commenting toward anything the MM says here or anywhere. Communities don't improve through blogging put-downs. They improve b/c people take pride in their community and start to work with their neighbors. It's a shame that my short-lived interest in this medium has been squashed by something that is seemingly as positive as cleaning up trash.
brace, so it's my fault your interest in blogging has been diminished, i didn't know i was so influential? when i refer to your office and overhead i was referring to a hypothetical non-profit which would hire a contractor to clean litter, which you suggested was superior to the city directly doing it. as you well know my issue isn't residents cleaning up after their neighborhood, but that the city has ignored a major problem, which negates much of the money otherwise spent. btw, pawlowski would be proud of the way you imply that someone like myself who questions policy, and the money spent implementing it, hinders solutions. you do have a future!!!
ReplyDeleteMM, I am more than a little surprised a the controversy caused by a garbage post. I think anyone who starts things off by slamming others for volunteering their time is out of line. I can understand why Geoff took you to task. It's inconsistent with most of your other positions, in which you encourage volunteerism.
ReplyDeleteYou and Geoff obviously have issues with each other that are unrelated to the relatively noncontroversial nature of this post. I happen to know and consider myself friendly with you both. You both care about your community. You are both motivated by more than partisan politics.
Geoff, I don't think you've ever had the pleasure of sitting down with Michael one on one. Michael, you are hearing things about Geoff that do not appear to be accurate. The truth is you are both decent and very caring people, and the LV is very lucky to have you both. I am very thankful for the insight provided by both of you.
The best cleanup we can do for L.C. is raze half of Allentown and start over.
ReplyDelete