A privately-registered domain calling itself "Citizens With Common Sense" is attacking the Hamilton Crossings project, which will be the topic of a forum this evening at Muhlenberg College.
The site includes both a highly critical analysis of the proposed TIF, as well as a negative review letter prepared last year by the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission.
But it fails to identify these citizens who have common sense.
It is so slickly prepared that I wonder whether it is grass roots driven or the product of a competing developer.
11 comments:
Here's how the public gets screwed out of participating in these kinds of meetings. They cancelled the meeting on Monday 2/3/14 due to snow, OK. They re-scheduled the meeting for Monday 2/10/14, fine. I go to the Lehigh County website today and oh, by the way we moved it to Tuesday 2/11/14. Of course, I had re-arranged my schedule to be there tonight to listen and possibly speak, but I can't make it tomorrow night:
Lehigh County Executive Tom Muller
WHAT: Presentation and public input pertaining to Hamilton Crossings Retail Center
WHEN: 6:00 PM, Tuesday, February 11, 2014
WHERE: Moyer Hall, Muhlenberg College
2400 Chew Street
Allentown, PA
Good catch. I was prepared to go tonight and would have driven there for nothing.
This is almost certainly Cedar Properties the owners of the Trexlertown Mall property. They've been outspoken in their criticism of the project.
http://www.wfmz.com/news/news-regional-lehighvalley/president-of-giant-food-stores-opposes-hamilton-crossings-tif/-/132502/20462718/-/g7dkw2z/-/index.html
That planning commission letter is quite damning when you read it start to finish.
An interesting angle for me will be the use of David Berryman's letter from the LVPC. Apparently, the new LVPC Director is in favor of the TIF, but what about all the plans and policies in the LVPC Comprehensive Plan as indictated in the letter. Will she act like President Obama and pick and choose the Comprehensive Plan policies to be enforced?
Both the analysis and LVPC letter are damning. But I wish the author(s) of this slickly designed web page were known .
@anon 1:27 what are you basing assumption of new LVPC directors support on?
Bernie,
You keep referring to it as a "slick"
website. It isn't.
It's a Wordpress template that pre-made and available for free. The domain was registered on February 5th and it probably took the person less than 2 hours to insert the rotating pictures he/she wanted shown and add the links. It's a basic install.
I accept your analysis.
Whois lookup indicates a number registered to a Johan Bergen of Drums, PA. Interestingly, this same Johan Bergen (replete with identical phone number) shows up for fake website registrations (bluewaveteck.com, e.g.). All the Johan Bergens one can seemingly search on google are still safely ensconced in the Netherlands and not, apparently, in Drums, PA.
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