Tom Nolan Finds Nemo

Bethlehem Township Commissioner Tom Nolan is seeking reelection to a $4,125 part-time position as the First Ward's voice. From the Planning Commission to the Board of Commissioners, he's served in one capacity or another for over thirty years. He's the Township's voice on the Gaming Authority. And for the past year, he's volunteered to serve on the library board. But colorful developer Abe Atiyeh, who is pretty much pissed at everyone in the Township, from his own neighbors to zoners to commissioners, has a posse of candidates getting ready for a takeover. His own wife, Nemo, is taking aim at Nolan.

Now I'm not so sure about his neighbors, but Abe has every right to be angry at Township officials. Commissioners spurned him when he pleaded for homeless shelter money. Atiyeh made a contribution himself. Zoners continually rejected a special exception for a treatment center in an industrial park, near nothing except a few dead skunks. He was forced to go to court at least three times.

So Abe organized a team of candidates, from his own wife to Martin Zawarski, to clean up.

There's nothing wrong with that, either. He has every right to use the electoral process. It's the American way. Even those gigantic green and white signs, touting Nemo Atiyeh, are fine. They make "Finding Nemo" easy.

But in a recent mailer complaining about increased traffic in the Township, Atiyeh goes too far and actually blames Nolan for a development that he actually opposes. Developer Michael Perrucci has proposed a 420-unit apartment complex off Route 191, right next to Housenick Park. Nolan is one of two Commissioners who has publicly stated he opposes the plan. Yet in the Atiyeh mailer, Nolan is blamed for that project as well as another development that is only in its early planning stages.

Abe is entitled to express his opinions about Commissioners, but he's not entitled to his own facts. Atiyeh complains Bethlehem Township is "stuck in traffic, thanks to Tom Nolan." He laments "out of control development," but thought nothing of proposing four three-story apartment buildings in an institutional zoning district in Bethlehem. When that was rejected, e pulled a LULU (locally unpopular land use), and switched to a 4-story, 125-bed, inpatient detox center and psychiatric center, just as stone's throw from Bethlehem Catholic High School.

True, Becahi has been having trouble fielding a good football team for the past few years. They're depressed, but they don't need a psychiatric hospital. They just need Coach Stem.

And Bethlehem Township residents should be told the truth instead of beng misled into thinking that Nolan supports a development that he has publicly opposed.