Is Robert Brooks Running as a Democrat in Pa.-7 Congressional Race?

 

Robert Brooks is a former Bethlehem firefighter who now leads the Pa. Professional Firefighters Ass'n. He has publicly supported Lamont McClure in the Pa.-7 Congressional race and has even sent text messages calling him a "strong Democrat with a proven track record of putting out fires and a long history of standing up to corruption." But increasingly, I am receiving reports that Brooks is telling others that he now intends to seek the Democratic nomination himself. He was supposed to announce a few weeks ago, but nothing has happened and there is no statement of candidacy on the FEC website.

If he does run, it should be as a Republican, Libertarian or anarchist. In 2019, he posted the Clint Eastwood meme you see above, which also included a skull with a Roman numeral III. This signifies the three percenters, a militia movement that advocates resistance to perceived government abuses. 

Pa Budget Impasse Has Had No Impact on NorCo ... Yet

Pennsylvania's budget was due July 1, but the impasse continues. It's mainly over school and mass transit funding. Our hard-working state senate, after spending most of the summer at the beach or country club pools, finally convened yesterday to propose a "stopgap" plan that Governor Josh Shapiro and Democrats had warned was a no-go. And now the legislature is off again until September. 

This abdication of their responsibility jeopardizes $2 billion in education funding and $542 million in health and human services funding for county offices. 

At the August 7 meeting of NorCo Council, Council member Jeff Warren - he's running for Joe Emrick's seat in the state house - asked Executive Lamont McClure whether this impasse has negatively affected the county. 

McClure responded, "As of today, No." But he went on to add that the county will have to start making plans in September if the well runs dry. 

Big Beautiful Act is Big But Mostly Bad For Nursing Homes

Since the pandemic, Gracedale has been suffering from a perfect storm of resident deaths, staffing shortages, declining census and funding shortfalls that could have sunk the home but for the infusion of cash from the American Rescue Plan Act.  The county-owned nursing home is struggling valiantly to remain a last refuge for older (and even younger) people with nowhere else to go. Despite some negative comments on this blog, it has great support from the community. No one in or running for county office supports privatization, despite what you may hear on the campaign trail. There can be no dispute, however, that the current model is unsustainable because it relies too heavily on outside agency nursing care. A strategic plan to change that is far less Icarian than I would have expected. The American Rescue Plan and Cares Acts certainly helped Gracedale. But what about the recently enacted One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA)?  Is it good or bad for nursing homes?  I believe it's mostly bad and base this conclusion on reports from Skilled Nursing News and the AARP

1) It delays minimum staffing standards until 2034. - In 2024, the Biden administration finalized rules that would require nursing homes to provide 3.48 hours of nursing care to residents each day. While this delay has been blasted  because it obviously reduces skilled nursing care, it's incredibly stupid to impose such a requirement when nursing homes face unprecedented staffing shortages. This gives Gracedale and other LTCFs a bit of breathing room. 

2) It reduces retroactive Medicaid coverage. - Most residents at Gracedale have Medicare, but that only provides coverage for 100 days. To cover the cost, residents must also apply for Medicaid coverage. Under the OBBBA, Medicaid will cover medical expenses incurred for two months after they applied. Previously, there was a three-month window. Since residents at homes like Gracedale lack the financial means to pay these costs, the home would be forced to eat these costs itself, and that's expensive.

3) Home equity limit changes. - Under Pa. law, a person can apply for Medicaid, but the value of his primary residence is exempt it is worth $730,000 or less. The OBBBA increases that exemption to $1 million with no adjustments for inflation. While this might seem beneficial, it is likely to reduce the pool of people eligible for Medicaid as home values increase.

4) Dual Enrollment Changes for Medicaid and Medicare Delayed Until 2034. - Most Gracedale residents have both Medicare and Medicaid, but getting them enrolled in both programs successfully has been challenging. Under the Biden administration, two separate rules were adopted to simplify the process. The OBBBA delays implementation of these new rules until 2034, and this is estimated to reduce te number of "dual-eligible" residents by 1.3 million people.

Gracedale's "Strategic Plan" For Future Success

Blogger's Note: Below is Gracedale Administrator Michelle Morton's strategic plan for the home's future success, which she read into the record at last week's Human Services Committee after responding to several questions I outlined yesterday. Morton comes from the private sector and has only been at the home since March 17. She acknowledged that she has never read a performance audit of the home that was presented last year. 

Morton strikes me as a dedicated professional and one of the very rare people who actually cares about residents, very much like her predecessor Jennifer Stewart King. But her plan is far from bold. She wants to reduce the county reliance on agency nursing from 59% to 30% by June 2026. Shouldn't the goal be its complete elimination? She is shooting for a three of five star resident satisfaction rating. Shouldn't she be shooting for five?

It strikes me that mediocrity, and not excellence, is the goal. The plan completely sidesteps the Big Beautiful Bill Act, which is going to affect both care and financing at nursing homes? That new law should have some positive and negative implications, and a real plan should address these changes. (I am going to discuss this law Wednesday).  

Her plan, at least what she put on record, fails to consider any of numerous  technological changes made to resident care which would reduce if not eliminate the falls that result in lower quality measures scores. It fails to project what the landscape will be like in 20-30-40-50 years. 

And she's completely silent on the one area that probably means most to employee recruitment - the paycheck. 

I do not fault her. She's paid to be an administrator, not a planner. But the county needs a plan for the home's immediate and long-term future. The Exec and Council should put their petty squabbles aside and jointly agree to fund a plan for Gracedale's future success. 

Morton's Strategic Plan (I quote her as much as possible): 

Gracedale has undergone many transitions since the property was first bought by the county in 1837. We started as an alms house for the poor, then eventually transformed into a more traditional nursing home in 1950. As a nursing home, our operations have significantly changed over the ensuing years. We now serve a more varied population with an increasing number of younger residents facing mental health challenges. In addition, we have faced numerous challenges such as implementation of the mega rule beginning in 2017. The mega rule was when our regulations were rewritten, and they're called the Mega rule because it's like over 900 pages. We're now number one in the country as far as regulations. We used to be second behind a nuclear industry, now we're number one. And that's just counting the nursing home specific Federal regulations. It's not counting any other regulations at any business has to follow, and it's not counting the Pennsylvania Nursing home. It's just the federal alone is huge. So that was a huge overhaul. And then, of course, came staffing shortages and the worldwide pandemic.

What hasn't changed is our mission to meet the medical, psychosocial, and spiritual needs of the residents of Gracedale while maintaining the highest possible standards of care in the most efficient manner.

Our leadership has changed greatly in the past year with at least eight members of our leadership team, being new to the organization or new to the role. So this May 2025 is a good time to evaluate what we're doing, and how best to position ourselves to address our current needs and challenges, as well as develop aspirational views for the future.

So our leadership team met together to begin the strategic plan, and our first step, we completed a SWOT analysis, [Strength, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats]  We analyzed our strengths, our weaknesses, our opportunities, and our threats. I would say that even that process of developing the SWOT analysis was a change in our process. We were moving more from department head meetings that were more informational sharing to meetings that were collaborative and engaging. We did our swat analysis and when we looked at that, it became clear that we had four themes that we wanted to focus on.

And I think you would all agree with these from the conversations we've already had.

Our focus is our residents, our team, our community beyond our campus and our financial performance.

Before we finalized our goals and objectives for each of these four themes, it became important for us to develop core values. We already had a mission statement and a vision statement that served to define our efforts, but we needed additional guiding principles to solidify and sum up our identity and answer what is important to Gracedale. We collaborated on that. I asked that question, what is important? What things do we want to say, 'This is Gracedale?'

I collected all of those themes, and then we were able to group them into these categories that you see here that spelled out the acronym GRACE. Our values, our grace and kindness, respect and dignity, accountability, and integrity, collaboration and teamwork, and excellence and innovation.

So after we did our swot analysis and our core values, then we moved on to look at our strategic goals under each thing. Our goals are reflective of our mission, vision, and core values, and give us a clear direction for our future.

In spite of the many challenges we face, this direction is positive and reflects the collaboration and engagement of our leadership team with the coming focus of more collaboration and engagement of all Gracedale stakeholders .

I already went over our mission statement, our vision statement is to improve care outcomes such that Gracedale Nursing Home is a preferred facility for area referral sources and a facility of choice for prospective residents and employees .

Grace and kindness. - We want to treat others with compassion, empathy, and kindness. Foster connections and expect the best from everyone and don't make assumptions.

Respect and dignity. - Treat everyone as an individual, be person centered, take time to listen, prioritize the needs of people.

Accountability and integrity. - Conduct our work honestly with transparency at openness in all transactions. Follow not only regulations, but also best practices. Foster trust.

Collaboration and teamwork. - Work together on common goals, both within our campus and the community at large.

Excellence and innovation. - Be flexible and try new things. Take quality personally. Foster a culture of creativity and continuous improvement and incorporate fun into our work.

So next we have our SWOT analysis, so I'm not going to read all of that, but we've looked at our internal strength, so what's our competitive advantage, what res sources do we have? What are we doing well? We looked at our weaknesses, and that's internal as well. Where can we improve? Where are we lacking resources, and where are we underperforming? Then we looked at our opportunities, and that's external. So that's what new technology can we use? How can we expand operations? Can we form stronger partnerships? And threats would be, again, external, but unfavorable things, things like what regulations are changing, what are competitors doing, how are consumer wants changing. So once we did all that, we did come up with our strategic goals.

Number one was to achieve consistent staffing and decrease agency usage by decreasing our staffing vacancy rate from 59% to 30% by June of 2026. So those, again, were real numbers. That was our current vacancy rate at the time we did this. So we have a clear goal. We wanted everything to be clear. As that time approaches, we'd be able to look at it and say, did we meet your goal or didn't we? And they would add that with all over our goals under this, you know, things are flexible because as we go through each month, we'd be looking and say, how are we doing? Are we on target or do we need to readjust ?

We want to develop a recruiting and onboarding program that hires for behavioral characteristics. So we want to look at, you know, not just as someone qualified, but what is their character like, hiring those right people? We want to provide support to new hires so that they successfully transition from probationary employee to standard employee. So many times we hire someone and they, you know, don't finish their probationary period before they move on. So we want to stop that and say, okay, how are we supporting them so that they move on with us ?

We want to provide education to our staff, so that they are better able to meet the needs of our residents and to perform their essential job staff. This includes supporting staff to participate in training so that they are relieved of their duties and can attend training, which is one of the things we do with that mental health first aid. We made sure that there was someone filling in so that the staff who attended the training were able to attend. We'll be continuing things like that.

We're working with staff development to do more trainings that are short little, I call them training huddles. We may gather a group together for 10 minutes, because you can't always release someone for a full day. You know, there's times where we want to do that, but we also want to provide more on the job, like, okay, let's do this training and do it frequently. We get a lot of training in.

We want to develop an employee engagement program that supports employees in thriving at work, as well as incorporating a sense of joy and fund and for work. So we actually have started at that committee, so we have a group of team members that meet, and they plan events for our team members again to make it a fun place to be.

To recognize the good work that employees do through an official recognition programming, honoring employee contributions to our mission. We also want to grow our mentor program, and we went to adopt an anti bullying campaign.

Here's an example of how we're adjusting under number one with the staffing.  Our engagement committee has developed an employee satisfaction survey, and they decided to send that out in October because they wanted everyone to be back from summer vacation and things like that. That's going to go out in October. That way we'll be getting feedback from our team members that we can use to add to our plan. Then we can also see improvement, because we'll have a baseline number.

Number two, to improve service and care outcomes so that we score at least an average of three out of five on resident and family satisfaction surveys. To get a three out of five on resident and family surveys, we run to improve our environment for residents living with dementia by offering specific programs and environmental amenities to meet their unique needs. We do already have a committee for one of our neighborhoods, for residents living with dementia, and that's been great so far. We've had, I believe, that's four meetings. We have a nurse's aide in that program, a housekeeper, because sometimes people forget housekeeping, they're in and out of resident rooms every day. They know our residents. So we have a housekeeper and she's awesome. She's actually taking on a leadership role with in that committee. [discusses different employees]

We want to improve our quality measures, especially with decreasing falls with injury, improving function scores. Function scores are how residents are able to do for themselves. We want to see those scores go up because that's an area where we could be better and reduce hospitalizations. 

We want to begin the person- center journey to decrease institutionalized [?] and increase home likeness. We talked about that already.

And because this was important to our residents, it comes up frequently a resident councils, we want to improve our Wi Fi, to accommodate growing demands on our systems. We have more and more residents that are using, you know, wireless devices and streaming and things like that. So it's taxing our system. ...

Number three, we want to increase our involvement in the larger community, so meaning outside our campus, within the Lehigh Valley. We want to be involved in at least two community events per quarter. 

We want to become involved in area groups such as Lehigh Valley Aging in Place, which we're already doing. We want to work with our county community development, so identify and become involved in appropriate community events. We've already started that and have been involved in some things through them. 

We want to develop on site campus events to bring people onto our campus.  We do already have some of their schedule that will be coming out this fall. We want to implement an interdisciplinary committee to work on committee engagement initiatives. We already do have that committee put together and it involves multiple disciplines, so it's not just marketing now, it's other disciplines are involved in saying, how can we get involved and become an important part of our community?

Number four, financial stability, we want to achieve financial stability on an ongoing basis, and you will see when we do our budget presentations later this year that we are presenting a zero budget. Our budget is balanced .

We want to implement lean operations and I've talked about this at a previous meeting. Evaluate and identify opportunities to operate following lean principles, not just in fiscal operations, but also our operations and practices. What are we doing? Is it efficient ? Are there processes that are redundant that we could eliminate all these kinds of things that go into lean principles?

We want to implement new PDPM [patient driven payment modules] guidelines to optimize financial reimbursement. The patient driven payment models is something that had come out with our guidelines on how we get reimbursed for our short term rehab. It used to solely be reimbursed on the number of therapy minutes. That had changed where it's more about not just therapy minutes, but also how clinically complex the resident was and how much time they need it from staff. Well, that's moving on beyond just short term rehab now. So it's a whole different reimbursement model. We obviously want to successfully implement that.

And we want to continue to develop census, to surpass our census goals and develop partnerships and become preferred providers with area hospital networks and other referral sources. As I said, it's a working document that we've already implemented the beginnings of the majority of that, and we'll continue and we'll also adjust as we go along.

Does a County Government Have the Required Expertise or Time to Run a Nursing Home On Its Own?

August 7th's meeting of Northampton County Council's Human Services Committee was devoted entirely to one topic - county owned nursing home Gracedale.  This was certainly a response to several negative reports. First, Council member John Brown has a withering indictment of facility finances. He claims both that the home has actually lost $38 million in 2023 and 2024 and that the administration has moved funds into the institution without Council's permission. Second, the recent arrest of an LPN supplied by an outside agency raised more than a few eyebrows. She refused to leave a resident's room for two hours and was observed by a police officer as she shoved her fingers into a resident's mouth, saying the demons needed to come out. Third, a recent Controller's audit reveals that about half of $5 million in retention bonuses set aside for nonunion Gracedale workers was diverted and used instead for home expenses.  

As if this were not bad enough, Gracedale's CMS rating has dropped yet again. In February, the home jumped from three (average) to four (above average) stars. This positive development has been touted by Fiscal Affairs Director Steve Barron at a recent Finance Committee meeting. This sentiment was echoed by Council member Kelly Keegan, who said that the home's rating is four stars and that she only hears "positive things." "The only negative things that I hear are from that side [the GOP side] of the dais," she said, suggesting that Republicans rely too much on what they hear from "disgruntled" employees. 

But guess what? After its most recent survey in April, the home's overall rating has been dropped again to three stars (average).  While Gracedale's health inspection rating is four stars (above average), its quality control rating has sunk to just one star (much below average). This is because the facility includes numerous residents who suffer from dementia and Alzheimer's, and they are treated with psychotropic drugs disdained by CMS as "chemical restraints.".

Any one of these problems would by itself warrant a separate meeting just for Gracedale. But there's more.  Northampton is one of the few counties left in Pennsylvania (I believe it's down to 11) that still owns and runs its own nursing home. This is by no means limited to the public sector. Since 2020, 774 nursing homes have closed, displacing 28,421 people. There are over 68,000 less beds than there were in 2020. Twenty per cent of the homes have closed units, wings or floors because of a labor shortage.  

The problems extend far beyond Gracedale's campus. Can a part-time County Council that only meets once every two weeks by itself solve these problems? Or a full-time Executive who has a plethora of core county functions? Or a nursing home administrator who, no matter how well-intentioned, has no crystal ball from which she can predict what the future holds for geriatric care? 

Perhaps this is why, at the onset of last week's Gracedale meeting, former Ass't Administrator David Holland decided to address Council. True, he's running for County Council, but he knows the topic. He was part of a private nursing home administration - Premier Healthcare Resources - tapped by the county to turn the home around in 2011. That effort succeeded, but after his election, Executive Lamont McClure decided that an in-house administration would be better (and cheaper). 

It may have been neither. 

Holland's message was simple but clear. "Time is of the essence," he warned. He stressed that Gracedale is in direct competition with the private sector, which is moving at "lightning speed with staffing, recruitment, retention, hiring - all those things." Holland sees this firsthand. "We don't have any time to lose." He reminded everyone that the pool of available RNs, LPNs and CNAs is finite.  

Holland's remarks begs the question whether government officials with no particular expertise in a complicated nursing home industry, no matter how high-minded they might be, could ever move at lightning speed. The wheels of government are more like my run-down hybrid bike than a Tour de France road bike.  

Holland was followed by another former assistant administrator, Stephen Carl. He was terminated. He told Council that Gracedale management has a history of editing and doctoring staffing, census and financials to present the home in a favorable light. He denied that he gave agency nurses "premium shifts" He also claimed that Gracedale nurses at the meeting "were recommended not to speak by the union." 

Against this backdrop, Gracedale Administrator Michelle Morton approached the dock. She had been asked by Council to bring a number of her department heads to the meeting and she did so. In contrast to Carl's accusation, they were there for the express purpose of answering questions. Since most of them are nonunion, I seriously doubt any union had issued any recommendations to any of them. With his claims of deception and intimidation, Carl basically proved why he is a former employee.  

Morton was there to present a "strategic plan" for the home's future. I will summarize her vision tomorrow, but she was also present to answer Council questions concerning the home. Since those questions and her answers are what dominated the meeting, I thought it appropriate to start with them 

How many nursing positions are actually held by county employees, as opposed to nurses supplied by an outside agency:  "We've never been anything but honest about our nursing shortage." 

25 of 89 FT nursing positions (LPN and RNs) are filled with county employees. 

9 of 79 PT nursing positions (LPN and RNs) are filled with county employees. 

7 of 16 per diem nursing positions (LPN and RNs) are filled with county employees. 

59 of 198 FT CNAs are filled with county employees. 

14 of 192 PT CNAs are filled with county employees. 

4 of 16 per diem CNAs are filled with county employees. 

When did the nursing shortage start? - "Numbers really began shifting during COVID. Some team members didn't want to be exposed to COVID, for fear of getting it themselves [or giving it to their families]. Others didn't want to get vaccinated, so when the vaccine mandate came out, a lot of people left healthcare because they did not want to get vaccinated. And that's shift is not unique to Gracedale. It's not unique to nursing homes. It's something that occurred across the country for all healthcare. And healthcare was already facing a shortage of nursing. So direct care, especially nurses, aides, all of those. We were already facing that shortage. We knew with an aging population, unless younger people entering the workforce, that was already on the horizon. So this just really accelerated it greatly and really exhaust exacerbated that problem." 

What did Gracedale do to keep staff? -  "So, we attended all recruiting events at Trade and High School, as well as universities and colleges in the surrounding counties, highlighting the rich pension and benefit packages we offer, as well as tuition assistance and reimbursement or wellness credit, flexible schedules when we could do that, job advancement, increased pay for experience, and the free daycare coming soon.  We also hired a new marketing firm to revamp our website to enhance our social media presence and to establish a Gracedale blog and produce videos. We previously advertised on channel 69 and local billboards, and we continued to utilize Indeed." 

Why were those efforts unsuccessful? - "And as I already said, some people left to COVID and vaccination, and they decided to make healthcare altogether and not to return. And then it was also compounded by the high rates that agencies do pay and their flexibility at scheduling. So, with an agency, they can work whenever they want or not work whenever they want. So, we don't have that extreme flexibility. We try to adjust schedules when we can, but we can't offer the same thing that agencies offer. So that compounds the problem. And I would add to that that the last time I checked, and I haven't checked recently, but there were 14 states that actually put limits on agencies, because some agencies are really milking the system. Pennsylvania is not one of the states that puts any limit on agencies."

How does Gracedale handle residents with mental health issues? - So, we do have contract at mental health services in our building. We use Haven House, which offers mental health services, which include personalized behavior plans, individualized therapy, ongoing support from a certified older adult peer specialist, a collaborative holistic approach that takes him into account all of the factors impacting health and consistent communications with physicians, nurses, social services, and family members. We also use a group called Vital Health and Vital Health provides a psychiatrist, and we recently added psychological counseling to that as well. And in July, the psychiatry area saw 316 of our residents, and psychology saw 52. In addition, we're working on offering more training to our team members regarding managing persons with mental health issues. So, for example, we recently trained and certified 7 members in mental health first aid. And that's something that we're continuing to look at."

Do the administration and unions instruct employees against speaking to Council members? - "I have never heard anyone say that. I have never told anyone that none of my team has told anyone that I can say that, you know, rumor mills are big, and rumors come back to us of people having talked to certain council members and the information that we were told that they said was not correct. I can tell you how I operate and here I'm saying it in public. So, I would say to our staff the same as I tell them when I teach them about talking to our surveyors when they come. I said, I highly believe in ethics. I don't believe in hiding things. I tell them when surveyors come, you're not to lie, you're not to hide anything. You know, if we had a violation, then we accept that and figure out how do we fix it and move on."

Council member Jeff Warren discusses rumors. - Quite frankly, we I don't know about all of you, but rumors that around about me in this community. I could tell you what I do about rumors. People think I'm gay, because I wear this pin. [I have never heard this rumor, lol]. I have a wife who's a female and two daughters. The rumors abound. There's hearsay everywhere in government, federal government, to the state government, down to our local government, I don't know what to do about it." [Be proud Jeff, be proud!]

Council member Kelly Keegan on GOP Council members and agency nurses. - They're taking advantage of us. That's what they're doing. There is a name for it. It's called Cash Cows. The next thing is that's why some states did limit it and Pennsylvania's not one of them. The next thing I want to say is to [Ron Heckman], you talk about that we don't pay a lot. When I graduated nursing school, many of my friends that I graduated with went to work for Gracedale because they made so much more money than the starting salary in the hospital. That's a fact, and they probably still are working there to this day. Not only do they get paid more, but they get a pension after five years. That's a huge incentive. So, you know, the county does provide for these people. And then the other thing I want to say is, Ron, you keep saying that you don't want us to go at each other and you want this not to be political, but you keep tolerating the other side at disparaging Gracedale and then you keep saying that you don't want us to go at each other." 

Council member John Goffredo believes drastic changes are needed or we will lose Gracedale. "I love that you're optimistic. I have maybe a little bit more of a pessimistic outlook. I see the inflation, the cost of living, wages, even in the private sector, struggling to keep up. And in the governmental sector, it's going to be even worse, and that's why we're heavily relying right now on agency staffing. We can't keep up. We're trying. You know, I said something pretty radical and the people I was talking to were in the Union, you know, they were shaking their heads. I was like, 'I don't think your unions are doing enough for you.' I really think merit-based and getting people the best nurses getting paid the most, because you have basically agency staff making or the agencies getting double what our staff is getting. So how do you not get retention, unless you pay your people more? And how do you not pay your better people more and attract better employees?

"I think it's pretty obvious how to fix the problems, but it's just really hard to do under the model we're working in. You have negotiations, you have people not feeling represented people that say they can't talk. It's a broken system. And if we don't make any drastic changes soon, ... we're going to lose the home.

"We had economic development, every person that came in here was like, we're getting cut, we're getting cut, we're getting cut. Everybody could make it political and say 'Oh, yeah, big bad Trump's cutting everything.'  The end of the day, we're in debt at every level, state, federal county.  We're in debt. People have less savings; people aren't making as much. Money is an issue at every level, in every arena. If we want to see Gracedale survive, we can't keep doing the same thing."

Council member Kelly Keegan ends meeting with usual personal and partisan rant at Goffredo: - "Gracedale is not in debt. That is a lie. Stop lying to our constituents. Stop lying to the county. You have no evidence of it. 

Goffredo - Kelly, Kelly

"No, I'm talking. [shouting] I have the floor.

Goffredo - You have the floor, but you don't have the facts.

"Neither do you, and you keep telling everybody lies. So, stop it!

She droned away for another minute. As you can see from Goffredo's own remarks, he was speaking about debt in general, and although I wish he was wrong, he happens to be correct. Moreover, until Council members listen to each other and operate from a presumption that all are interested in what is best for the county, Gracedale is doomed. 

Blogger's Note: Tomorrow, I will summarize the impacts that Trump's Big Beautiful Bill will have on the nursing home industry and compare them with the rather vanilla "strategic plan" presented. 

Gracedale "Strategic Plan" Unveiled

At a lengthy and sometimes heated meeting of Northampton County Council's Human Services Committee on Thursday afternoon, Gracedale was the sole topic of discussion. I'll have a complete report for you on Monday. 

NorCo Has Sold $32 Million in Bonds For Parking Garage, Will Save $5 Million Over Projected Cost of Repayment

At last night's Northampton County Council meeting, Executive Lamont McClure advised the governing body that the county has sold $32 million in tax-exempt bonds for the construction of a new parking deck. He added that because of its favorable bond rating, it was able to sell them at a lower interest rate than was originally estimated. This means the county will save $5 million in bond payments. 

He indicated that engineers have already embarked on taking core samples to see how far they can go before having to move bedrock. He is pressing "full speed ahead" because "I don't want to leave the next executive and the next county council in a position where they're not prepared to move forward when they're ready to move forward. Once you shut that garage down, there'll be a lot of unhappy people, and you'll want to get that thing knocked down and put up as fast as you possibly can." 

McClure Defends Plans For "Ballot on Demand" Stations in Washington Tp and South Bethlehem

At last night's meeting of NorCo Council, Executive Lamont McClure defended plans to open two satellite elections offices - one in Washington Tp and one in South Bethlehem - to enable voters to request a "ballot on demand" instead of having to come to the courthouse. In last year's presidential race, over 7,000 people visited the courthouse for a "ballot on demand," which enables a voter to request a mail-in ballot in person and then complete it on the spot. 

NorCo GOP Chair Geissinger and Charles Baltic, an attorney who lives in Upper Mount Bethel Township, earlier this week threatened the elections commission with a lawsuit over the establishment of satellite offices. 

Geissinger asked County Council "to do all that you can within your power to put the brakes on this runaway administration and it's ill-conceived notion that for some reason, we need to put an on-demand satellite office in a polling precinct that had a whopping turnout of 44 voters in the municipal primary that just concluded."

He blasted plans for a satellite office in South Bethlehem, which he described as "the one place in the county, that probably is most open to transient individuals, not properly registered, or possibly registered in two locations to vote in Northampton County, and thus disenfranchises  the very citizens who pay taxes so that you can represent them, so that this building can stand, so that all of the services, the hundreds of millions of dollars of services that our citizens require, that you oversee, can be disenfranchised by an administration that has once again proven that election integrity is nowhere on its list of priorities.

"Mr. McClure has failed multiple times to run good elections.

"Use your authority and your power to ensure he doesn't do it again."

McClure responded that of the 7,000 people who requested a "ballot on demand" at the courthouse during the presidential race, 62% were Republican. 

"They were registered Republicans, so we know we have actual empirical data that suggests that the people who like to vote in person on paper are Republicans.

"So there's no partisan motivation for us doing this.

"Why we're doing this is on the south side, and then we'll talk about Washington Township.

"And by the way, Washington Township has one of the largest precincts in Northampton County.

"And that is overwhelmingly Republican.

"And we're not considering that at all.

"We're considering that as a place where people can go to vote on demand.

"One of the things about the on demand site in the south side of Bethlehem, now that we know that it's Republicans who like to vote in person on demand early, maybe the Republicans from Lower Saucon Township or Hellertown Borough will turn out even in greater numbers to go vote in person on demand early at this new site on the south side of Bethlehem.

"So there was absolutely no partisan motivation whatsoever.

"But what our site on the south side of Bethlehem was meant to do?

McClure said it would combat election interference. He noted that, during the Presidential race, the NorCo GOP Vice Chair "was routinely interfering with the judge of elections who we've demonstrated had some of his own issues that day, routinely interfering with the judge of elections throughout the day, so that line continued to be slow."  People who lined up to vote there waited as long as six hours, according to national news outlets. 

"So part of our reaction is part of the reason we're doing this in preparation of the next presidential election is beginning the process to perfect the process, so we never have a situation like we had at the banana factory."

We're gonna' make sure we completely rule that out.

He added that Washington Township supervisors "are considering our plan to have an on demand in person site there.

"The supervisors approve it, we'll be there, and we'll be happy to be there."

McClure Leads Dems in Early Poll For Pa. 7 Congressional District

So far, four Democrats are seeking their party's nomination for next year's Pa.-7 congressional battle against incumbent Ryan Mackenzie. Lamont McClure was the first out of the gate. He even dropped plans to seek a third term as Exec, which means NorCo taxpayers will be spared from paying his salary as he runs for another office. Lehigh County taxpayers will be less lucky. Controller Mark Pinsley, who's always running for something, will continue to collect his salary as he spends his days on the campaign trail. There's also Carol Obando-Derstine, recruited to run by Sue Wild.  Ms. Wild was beaten by Mackenzie in last year's race. She apparently thinks that she, and not voters, decides the next Democratic nominee. Finally, there's Republican-recently turned-Democrat Ryan Croswell, a carpetbagger who just moved into the Lehigh Valley a month or so ago. Some goofy DC elitists, who think they know everything, put him up to it because they know what's best for us. Of these four announced candidates, only McClure has stood up for everyday Americans. Only McClure has consistently been a voice for organized labor. So it should come as no surprise that McClure leads in an early poll of the four candidates who've announced, and one who is still mulling it over. 

Public Policy Polling conducted a survey of 518 likely Dem voters on July 29-30 and included Bob Brooks. He's a retired Bethlehem firefighter who tells everyone he's running even though he has actually endorsed McClure. You can see it below. 

McClure leads all candidates with 23%, compared to 7% for Obando-Derstine and Pinsley, and just 3% for Croswell and Brooks. It's an early poll, with 58% undecided, but McClure has a strong lead among those who have made up their minds. 

Nearly a third (31%) of likely voters view McClure favorably, compared to just 16% for Pinsley, 11% for Obando-Derstine and a scant 6% for carpetbagger Croswell and Brooks. 

His lead is strongest in Northampton County, where he polls at 40%. 

Public Policy Polling Gives McClure Lead in Pa. 7 Race by BernieOHare on Scribd

UPDATED: Easton Area Attorney Stan Margle Faces New Drug Charges

According to the Pa. online docket sheet, Easton-area attorney Stan Margle is facing new drug charges. He's been charged by Bethlehem Tp Investigator Ed Fox with possession or use of drug paraphernalia stemming from an incident on July 23. Charges were filed on August 5, and a preliminary hearing is scheduled before Magisterial District Judge Dan Corpora on September 9. 

As I told you back in February, Margle already faces charges of possession of both controlled substances and drug paraphernalia.  He was charged with these drug offenses after he left juvenile court but forgot his bag.  In an attempt to determine the owner, Sheriff Deputies opened the bag and discovered that it belonged to Margle. They also discovered what was later determined to be cocaine, along with the paraphernalia facilitating its use. There was also video surveillance showing Margle bringing a satchel into Juvenile Court and then leaving without it. He later returned for the bag, only to discover it had been turned over to county detectives.  

Criminal court for the earlier charges is set for August 26. 

I will update this post if I can learn additional details. 

UPDATED 8/7/25, 11 AM: Lehigh Valley Live reports more details. Believe it or not, he's accused of leaving yet another bag in a court facility. And of course, he is claiming he was set up. 

NorCo GOP Threatens Litigation if Two Additional "Ballot By Demand" Stations Are Established

Thanks to recent changes in state law, county elections offices actually conduct three elections instead of just one. First, you can vote at your polling station on election day. Second, you can request a mail-in ballot (MIB) and vote by mail or by dropping your ballot off at one of several drop box locations. Finally, you can get a "ballot by demand" from the county elections office, fill it out and drop it off once MIBs are available. At their June meeting, NorCo's elections commission authorized the administration to pursue the establishment of two additional "ballot by demand" stations in South Bethlehem and Washington Township. The vote was 3-2, with Democrats supporting two additional stations and Republicans opposed. NorCo Republicans have now threatened to sue if these stations are actually established. 

Charles Baltic, an attorney who resides in Upper Mount Bethel and is a committee member, told the Commission that the establishment of two additional satellite offices is contrary to election law. "Should the commission or the county elections department move forward with this plan to establish one or more satellite county election offices, litigation to prevent this will be forthcoming," he warned.

Baltic's sentiments were echoed by Glenn Geissinger, who apparently is still the NorCo GOP chair and has yet to move to Schuylkill County as its new Finance Director. Geissinger also claimed that these satellite offices are illegal. "You have essentially authorized this administration to place an on demand voting location without any kind of empirical data in a precinct that is 80-20 in its Democrats to Republican registration, you have done it without any kind of parameters on its openings, the security of ballots or the integrity of the vote. It is an abominable assault on our democracy. Period."

Solicitor Michael Vargo advised the elections commission that he believes these satellite office locations are legal and would prepare a memo outlining his reasoning. 

County Administrator Nicole Pietrzak said that Washington Tp Supervisors have yet to vote on establishing a satellite office there, and that the county and Fowler Center in South Bethlehem are still considering whether a satellite office there is feasible.

In his report, Elections Registrar Chris Commini noted the following:

Last day to register - October 20.

Last day to apply for MIB or on demand voting - October 28, 5 pm

Last day to return MIBs - November 4, 8 pm.

Election Day - November 4. If you are in line by 8 pm, you must be permitted to vote. 

Canvassing the Vote (Official Tally) - starts November 7

Registered voters - 227,887.

MIB enrollees - 27,069. 

Election Day - November 4.

He had a message for voters as well. If you have any concerns about your registration, polling location or status of a MIB, contact a trusted source.

These are (1) the Northampton County Elections Division at 610-829-6260 between 8:30 am and 4:30 pm Monday thru Friday; (2) The Department of State website, which is vote.pa.gov, or (3) you can call the Department of state at 1-877-868-3772.

If You Don't Like the Message, Kill the Messenger

I make an effort to listen to right-wing talk radio for at least a few minutes every day. Between unending commercials for guns, survival kits and Viagra, torrents of hate are unleashed on nearly half of the country. This vitriol is aimed mostly at Democrats, who are vilified and dehumanized ad nauseum. These right-wing radio broadcasts, which are corporate-run and owned, also do their best to savage mainstream news outlets, also corporate-owned and run, as "fake news." And they've succeeded. Public confidence has been undermined in any institution that fails to slant to the right. Now President Donald Trump has taken what really is a war against reality to a whole new level. Instead of killing the message, he is killing the messenger. 

In the wake of a negative jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Trump has fired Erika McEntarfer, who headed that agency. He claims that she "rigged" the numbers "to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad... .” Her immediate predecessor, a Trump appointee, called Trump's accusation "groundless." Trump offered no evidence to back up his claim. 

When the sky is cloudy and gray, but you insist it is blue and sunny, it fails to change reality. Trump and his right-wing media influencers are not only trying to control the message but are making sure they control the messengers as well.  

Whoever replace McEntarfer will have to make sure the next jobs report is shaded to say the sky is sunny and blue. 

Trump is doing what authoritarians do. But it fails to change reality, as some are beginning to notive. 

My Weekend Getaway

I took advantage of great weather to ride the Pine Creek Rail Trail this past weekend. That's a 62-mile gravel and crushed limestone trail between Jersey Shore (Pa.) and Wellsboro. I rode up Saturday and came back Sunday. It's about 140-miles from Nazareth. Jersey Shore, incidentally, is called that because many of the people who lived there had relocated from Jersey. Now they move here. 

It's a bit off the beaten path. After leaving I-80, I still had a good 40 minutes of driving along Routes 880 and 44. I encountered five horse-and-buggies on Saturday and again on the way home. Most of them had kids peering out the back, waving at me. The horses cantered with what seemed like pride. On the way home, I also saw some Mennonite families out for a walk. They waved, too. I also saw them on the trail. The men always wear trousers (no shorts) and the women wear dresses and, sometimes, a bonnet. I also saw large numbers of Mennonites cycling when I rode the GAP a few years ago. The men always had saws in case of a fallen tree blocking the path. 

There were more e-bikes than regular bikes on the trail. The riders are both young and old. Most are very courteous. I think they're great. People who otherwise might be reluctant to ride at all can get outside and many of them will pedal. I also think they can help a great deal in the event of a breakdown or medical emergency. It's nice to have company. 

The trail is part of the Pa Grand Canyon - the bottom part. I'm told there are breathtaking views if I wanted to ride or hike up some of the surrounding mountains, but riding 124 miles over two days is enough for me. 

The ride up from Jersey Shore to Wellsboro is supposed to be a slight, barely detectable elevation. But I suffered Saturday for a few reasons. First, most of the ride up was in a headwind or crosswind. Second, I loaded my bike with all kinds of crap it did not need and it was too heavy. But my biggest mistake was failing to stash away an instant coffee or just mix coffee with one of my water bottles. If I don't have caffeine after about three hours on a bike, I start to bonk. 

On the ride up, I was warned by a group of riders that a large rattlesnake was on the trail, waiting to pounce. Close to Wellsboro, I was warned by another group of cyclists that they had just encountered a big ol' bear. Unfortunately, I saw no rattlers, bears, porcupines or bald eagles. I only saw rabbits and squirrels.

Once I hit Wellsboro, I lucked into a $63 cabin, which is about half the rate of a hotel room and only 2.5 miles from the trail. 

The ride back was much better. It was downhill. The wind was at my back. Most importantly, I mixed coffee with a bottle of water. And I stopped at Wolf's as General Store for more, as well as three priceless rose-colored quartz stones that I got for $3. 

I want to visit this trail again in the Fall, when the leaves turn and the bears are hungrier.  

Pinsley Joins Increasingly Crowded Pa. 7 Congressional Race

According to several news outlets, Lehigh County Controller Mark Pinsley has announced his intention to seek the Democratic nomination in the Pa.-7 Congressional race. His Statement of Candidacy was filed with the FEC on July 30. 

He's got company, including NorCo County Exec Lamont McClure, Susan Wild puppet Carol Obando-Derstine, and Republican-turned Democrat Ryan Croswell, who resided in D.C. until he was urged to run. 

Pinsley is a poster boy for what is wrong with Democrats. He's a blatant opportunist. No sooner was he elected South Whitehall Tp Commissioner than he announced he was running against Pat Browne in a State Senate race. Undaunted after losing, he took on Lehigh County Controller Glenn Eckhart in the next election cycle and knocked him off. As Controller, he proposed both an increase in sales tax in Lehigh County as well as an income tax that would hurt low-income families that work multiple jobs just to put food on the table. He called for UN observers in the 2020 presidential election, He also revealed his true feelings about Allentown and Bethlehem when he objected to them being combined as part of redistricting. "We don't need another ghetto," he said. Well, we don't need Pinsley. While running for re-election as Lehigh County Controller, he told donors he was running for state auditor general. He did and he lost  Then he started telling donors he wanted to run for the US Senate, but appears to have put that off for a seat in the House.  

The most offensive thing about him was his use of families accused of child abuse as political props. He paraded them before both Northampton County Council and Lehigh County's Board of Comm's with unproven claims of misdiagnoses of child abuse. His claims were completely contrary to the philosophy of the human services departments in both counties, which will only separate children from their family as a last resort, and with due process.  His actions solved nothing, but he did get a $50,000 campaign donation from the lawyer who filed a class action on behalf of families claiming they were wrongly accused of child abuse. Both LehiCo and NorCo have been dismissed as Defendants in that matter. 

He's never shied away from using his public office to play politics. Most recently, he did that with a thinly disguised political rally disguised as a "town hall" to discuss planned federal cuts to Medicaid on a county level. 

I still believe that of all candidates on the left or the right, the person best suited for Congress was John Morganelli, a true centrist. He's unfortunately done with politics. Lamont McClure has been his protege. 

A Tale of Two Apartment Buildings

Above is a photograph of Nat Hyman's Water's Edge 94-unit apartment complex, located at 2025 Edgewood Avenue in Palmer Tp.  In early June, zoners gave their blessing to a proposal to allow the former Crayola factory to be used instead for apartments. As you can see, Hyman has painted the building two different shades of blue. Windows that need to be replaced have been boarded up. He had a team of workers at the site as well, preparing the property with nonstructural studs so he could begin work once he received building permits. But as I explained to you on Monday and again yesterday, township apparatchiks have done their best to prevent Hyman from moving forward. They've sent  peeping Toms to peering through windows, issued stop work orders and even executed a bizarre search warrant. They claimed they were responding to noise complaints from residents, even though there are none anywhere near this property. They unlawfully refused to issue a permit on the basis that he had to wait for a 30-day appeal period to expire even though he has every right to assume that risk. And as of yesterday, they now claim that it will take 30 business days (6 weeks) just to process his permit application. 

About a mile away, you can see the vacant Dixie Cup factory, replete with broken windows. This project was approved in June 2024 for over 400 luxury apartments. The nonlocal developer, Brian Bartee of Skyline Investment Group, told both Wilson Borough and the School District that he would have units ready by April 2025 and be done by December. He's received $500,000 in RCAP funding and is seeking a $29 million tax break for the project. The only reason he doesn't have it yet is because NorCo Council is hesitating. But since the county's portion of the tax break is relatively small, he could possibly have moved ahead without it. 

Instead of building anything, he's had a fire on the property. Get this, he's "finalizing plans" to fix windows, which should have been a top priority to abate an attractive nuisance. Now he's saying the project will be done by 2027. 

In Palmer, a developer is doing everything he can to redevelop an old factory into workforce housing, a public good. He is being hamstrung by officious bureaucrats.

In Wilson, public officials are falling over each other to hand out millions of your money so a nonlocal developer can build luxury apartments that most of us would be unable to afford. And the damn windows are still broken.