Blogger's Note:Opinions Online is a regular Saturday feature. If you'd like to express your opinion on any topic, click on the Opinions Online button on my left sidebar. You can also call 385-325-2564. In addition to these submissions, I sometimes highlight comments from throughout the week and re-publish them here.
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One issue hardly ever mentioned in a list of things to do in preparing for a bad snow storm is to fill your gas tank . At least in this way you can stay warm if there is a power shortage. Naturally you need to make sure you open a window periodically and to make sure the tail pipe is not obstructed.
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Casey should worry more about our lead laden air and water than Flints.
He wants to keep burning more of his buddies waste coal here that is loaded with leaf.
Blogger's Reply: I have no idea what this person means, or who this person is discussing.
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Looks like West Easton finally has transparency and a motivated council.
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So the good government Bethlehem administration hires someone named Ronca to help with snow removal . Gee, that names sounds familiar. Surely it's coincidence.
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If I were giving this a title I would call it "The Unnecessary Asbestos Scare"
A number of years ago my wife and I went to London (uk) and I saw something I will never forget: a man in his 50s on a thirty foot ladder removing a single faulty brick with a hammer and chisel. Now in this country, we`d backhoe the damn thing and put up a new building. This is why places like Prague and London have centuries old beautiful buildings. Which brings me to my intended title.
ASBESTOS
When I graduated high school I worked with a plumber for 3 years. We cleaned all kinds of stokers and it was not uncommon to mix the asbestos in a bucket in water to seal the chimney pipe with our bare hands. Asbestos is no danger unless disturbed or snorted-which I never tried by the way. The Bethlehem Steel bldg. should be preserved and reused. If asbestos is so bad why didn`t half those people who worked there for many years die from all that asbestos poisoning? MILLIONS of dollars have been wasted on it`s removal. Cover it up and don`t snort it.
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Hey bernie i want to just put something out in the air to chew on i heard that ted cruz is using the argument that he can be president because his mom is american and back in the day child born to a british subject was british period but back in the day women became the property of thier husband so his mom must be considered by her husbands nationality just saying.
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Albert Abdouche continues to get a raw deal from ANIZDA.
How is it he has to finance the project on his own, have it open, have it reach three star status and THEN ANIZDA will finance it?
Anything else he has to do? Base jump from the top of the building?
Reilly and Jaindl held to the same standards? No. Did Reilly have to lease 75% of his apartments? No. Did Jaindl have to secure 50% tenants for the offices? No.
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One consistent issue that keeps coming up is what to do about non profits and taxes . For example , if my memory serves me correctly , the city of Easton has 40 per cent of its properties categorized as non exempt. My solution would be to assess them at a small per cent of their assessed value . e.g. 10 per cent. After all if an ambulance or fire personnel are needed on a Sunday morning at a church shouldn`t they shoulder some of the ultimate expense?
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I love the rich, revisionist thinking in Lower Macungie - the posit that the bypass was the logical place for all the stuff that's happening there now despite the fact the whole bypass was built due to the endless complaining about traffic congestion on Hamilton Boulevard and how it was killing business.
Next up will be the township complaining it needs redevelopment money for all of its old malls it will kill off with all the new malls they absolutely had to have on the bypass.
6 comments:
Nothing will ever be done about non profits as long as for profits exsist. .They the non profits are good and help people, the for profits do not! Everybody knows this, let us never raise this matter again.
Non-profits like churches and hospitals?
Which one of these "non-profits" is really a "non-profit"? Just because you spend all of your revenues does not make one a non-profit.
Hospitals have money to advertise(?) on TV and billboards, why?
The TV and billboard companies love that. The City could get some profit from running non-profit hospital ads on the billboards that are on the property that the Mayor leased and property that Abe Atiyeh's sold to the billboard companies.
City Council has talked about taxing the hospitals. I don't feel we need to tax the churches.
Can you compare hospitals and churches as non-profits?
Good points Rich. the for profit health system in America has hospitals, drug companies and health Insurance companies spending millions on advertising, while providing expensive substandard health care.
Time to remove the profit motive from medicine.
The "bypass" is fundamentally flawed since it has a sequence of traffic signals and 45mph instead of grade separation and higher speed limit. The Route 222 "bypass" was built to mitigate existing problems. Was NOT built to handle extra traffic generated by new uses such as the Hamilton Crossings regional shopping center and two warehouses on Millcreek Rd.
The upgrades associated with Hamilton Crossings (paid for by taxpayers through TIF) represent band-aids. The end game is grade separation. And it will cost us. Both UMT and LMT jointly requested grade separation on last years LVTS.
It's my understanding the original plans for the roadway called for a true bypass with grade separation. Then unfortunately at some point smart planning was circumvented by politicians, influential landowners and other powerful entities who benefitted from the land value increases associated with signalization.
I do argue for development along the corridor of a certain type. Definitely not warehouses and mega shopping centers. The problem is the direct or adjacent access to the bypass via signals. The corridor should be the townships bread basket but in the way of local serving walkable, properly scaled, high quality, low impact neighborhood commercial and mixed use development along the Boulevard. In fact we have a whole corridor plan to encourage just that.
What needs to happen is both the Boulevard and "Bypass" need to be de-stroaded. Today, the bypass and boulevard today are low value, dangerous and low ROI Stroads. But we are working to address.
STROAD defined: http://www.ronbeitler.com/2014/12/12/rt-222-bypass-road-street-or-stroad/
http://www.mcall.com/news/nationworld/pennsylvania/mc-keystone-amendment-toomey-coal-20150121-story.html
Here's an article from the Morning Call last January on the waste coal issue the commenter appears to be talking about. Most of the waste coal plants that exist are in PA, and it appears (from another source) that lead may be one of the contaminants.
I have always marveled at how hospitals can get tens of thousands of free volunteer work from young girls and guys (candy stripers) and little old(er) ladies manning gift shops while they spend millions on advertising, etc.
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