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| L to R: Gerald Yob, James Pennington and Dave Heintzelman |
Under the gaming law, the Board would first award grants to the five municipalities surrounding the Sands Casino, along with Bethlehem and Northampton County. These are Hellertown, Freemansburg, Bethlehem Township, Lower Saucon Township and Hanover Township. They are entitled to priority, but had to establish that the money being sought was to counter an impact of gambling Since six members of the none-member board are from these communities,
Lower Nazareth representative Jim Pennington said it's time to tell local municipalities, "The goose that laid the golden egg isn't there anymore." Chair Jay Finnigan (from Hanover Township) agreed. "I think one of the reasons this authority will not exist in the future is because 31 or 32 municipalities expected to get rollover funds a little more consistently than they did," he said, referring to municipalities outside of the six communities that surround the Sands Casino. They were entitled to priority on slots revenue grants, but only if they could establish they were impacted by gaming.
"This is not a budget-filling mechanism for municipalities. This is merit based, and I don't think we ever really looked at it. I think it was how we can get this money into our budgets to make the money go away so it doesn't go to the other municipalities. And shame on us, that we allowed that to happen."
Northampton County is holding $745,314.90 for grants. The priority communities submitted $842,722.05 in grant applications. Bethlehem Township alone was seeking $336,800 of this sum, or 45% for an ambulance, fire marshal SUV and two patrol vehicles.
After listening to Finnigan's assessment, Northampton representative Tony Pristash proposed awarding only $339,776.29 of this sum.
Nolan, who had asked for 45% of the money, complained that Bethlehem Township was being treated unfairly, but Pritash answered him. "This is not a matter of fairness and equality. It's a matter of impact. You prove the impact, you get the award. That's how this Board works."
Nolan ended up being the sole No vote on Pristash's proposed distribution. .
No sooner had it passed that an amendment was offered by Bethlehem representative Joe Kelly to add $191,058.11 to fund police officers in Hellertown and Freemansburg. That passed over the objections of Finnigan, Pristash and Pennington.
The two motions combined represents a grant of $530,834.40 to the priority municipalities as follows Hellertown (police officers); Freemansburg (police officers, patrol vehicle); Northampton County (court interpreter); Hanover Tp (license plate recognition system); Bethlehem Tp (patrol vehicle) and Lower Saucon Tp (patrol vehicle).
The nine-person Board includes Kelly (Bethlehem), Nolan (Bethlehem Tp), Gerald Yob (Freemansburg), Finnigan (Hanover), Dave Heintzelman (Hellertown), Donna Louder (Lower Saucon), Pristash (Northampton), John Dally (Pen Argyl) and James Pennington (Lower Nazareth). Karen Collis is the Executive Director.
17 comments:
The golden goose is dead. These guys were greedy. It is time to disband them and send them on their way.
What was the criteria used to gauge impact? Their impact statements should be made public, so we the taxpayers can get a look at the casino's impact on adjacent communities.
Look at these 9 members and the community's they represent, look at the monies their communities received over the years. That leave 31 other communities (total includes two cities and the county) in Northampton County with no member sitting on the board. Then look at some of the communities that got 0 money nada, and a few others a couple of thousand. This was truly line your own pockets first and always. So glad it's finally over should've been run by people not connected to any community in anyway.
I read somewhere Bethlehem was awarded money one year for new directional signs within their city limits that would promote other tourist destinations in Bethlehem and replace the existing ones. I'm sure those new signs did wonders. "Oh look, Harry. The world's biggest belly button lint ball! Let's go there!"
9:06, If you think the nontransparent CFA is an improvement, you're nuts. It will be a WAM tool to help incumbents get re-elected.
"What was the criteria used to gauge impact? Their impact statements should be made public, so we the taxpayers can get a look at the casino's impact on adjacent communities."
The law requiring that impact be shown never specified what constituted impact. That could be read very strictly or very broadly.
The meal ticket for a couple of municipalities died with the new gaming legislation. Today I decided to watch & listen to some of the videos of this committee’s meeting over the past few years. As a Bethlehem Township resident I’m concerned. I respect Mr. Nolan’s vigor in attempting to receive grants but he’s like a turkey vulture. Both he and the Mayor of Freemansburg try to convince the other members that the money is owed to them. Finnegan was correct, their defunct because of the vultures.
We are in trouble in Bethlehem Township. We continue to tap into our reserves as opposed to raising taxes. Now the gravy train ended. Where are our fire trucks, ambulance and police vehicles going to come from? CFA, I doubt it!
The local share distribution turned into a gerrymandered benefit based on County and Municipal borders. Support of gaming impact is a good thing however, it comes a point where it becomes an entitlement. On top of Northampton County’s share from the Sands, an additional $8.1M in Monroe County money has benefited non-gaming related community projects all across Northampton County. During that same period, only $1.4M has been distributed by Lehigh County as municipal grants (excluding defined benefits to the Cities). You may recall Easton was initially left out of the local share until there was an expansion to Table Games. In early years, it was made clear that adjacent communities in LC would be taken care of first. On at least three or more occasions, Whitehall (Lehigh County’s second largest municipality with a funded police department) applied and was rejected.
Over $132MILLION of local gaming share has been distributed across the LV as local share. Lehigh County has received over $8.1M and has distributed only $1.7M as municipal grants. This was the minimum distribution required by law. Up until this year, all those grants were confined to only 4 municipalities. From 2016 local share, Lehigh County received a combined $1,408,369 and distributed only $344,862 as municipal grants. They received 6 applications from 5 municipalities and only funded 5. Guess who was not funded……Whitehall. Granted this year, Whitehall requested a mere $29,000 for MacArthur Road traffic signalization evaluation and timing updates to deal with added congestion however, in prior years, even police vehicles were rejected. This is an example of how a good thing like local control is wasted when so few feel like they are stakeholders. I am pleased the Cities retained their defined benefit. Let’s encourage them to put it to good use.
B.O.To set the record straight I may be nuts (9:06) but I didn't say that I believe the CFA would be an improvement, my last comment was the "people on the board should be in no way connected to the communities in anyway". Now if the CFA is the state representative or state senators that represents any community in Northampton County then they would be connected to the communities. Yor're right there default (walking around money) would be in place again in a roundabout way.
Finnegan and this crew were like pigs at the trough. This should have ben handled by the county council and not the people who wanted to give each other the loot. Now that it is mercifully ending they are at each othrt throats to get the last pennies.
Finnegan was the only non-pig on the committee. Hanover received substantially less than the pigs. There were rounds Hanover didn't submit an application and he was very often the line no vote. Get your facts straight.
Finnegan was the only non-pig on the committee. Hanover received substantially less than the pigs. There were rounds Hanover didn't submit an application and he was very often the only no vote. Get your facts straight.
Oh oh, the Hanover Twp. gang. These insiders go after anyone who questions any of them. This is what you get with incestuous government. The entire gaming board was a mess and your boy was the chairman for life.
Someone seems jealous of good government.
My guess is Fed Ed.
Is it skin thinner than tissue paper?
If anyone thinks that turning this process over to the CFA will improve the situation, they are a few bricks short of a load. This will open the door to municipalities in Carbon, Monroe, Bucks, and Lehigh to be able to apply for a share of the $$$.
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