It's safe to say there's no love lost between Allentown Mayor Edwin Pawlowski and Geza Frey, whose Down Low nightclub has been shut down as a result of a city-sought injunction. Not surprisingly, Geza has contributed $1,000 to Tony Phillips' mayoral campaign.At Thursday night's city council session, Geza was eventually shut down again, but not before making clear that (1) the misinformation concerning Cedar Creek comes from the city itself; (2) Pawlowski's administration missed three opportunities to meet with the public; and (3) the Mayor attempted to get some local churches to play the race card. You can see the full video here, and below is a transcript of the last three minutes.
Frey: Why was noting mailed to the residents of the close proximity of the park until recently, now that that the project is ready to begin in a few weeks?
King Edwin: I'm sorry, what was your question?
Frey: Why was nothing mailed to the residents that live right by the park until recently?
King Edwin: We had done an extensive planning process and it went out. We put out public ---
Frey: The first time I received any mailing was this week.
King Edwin: We apologize for that. It's not typical in the park process, but we try to engage the public the best way we possibly can. I've outlined for you all the things that we've done. It's not like it's hidden from anybody in any way, shape or form. We had two publicly publicized public meetings.
Frey: I've been to the last three meetings and I've seen nobody from the administration until now.
King Edwin: Well, let me address that. The last meeting was just a courtesy of the floor, I was on vacation. It's the first time I've taken vacation in ---
Frey: One of these meetings you were in the building.
King Edwin: Can I finish talking please?
Frey: Sure, sure!
King Edwin: One of the meetings I was on vacation. Greg was here for a certain portion of the meeting and then he had to go and watch his kids because his wife was out that particular evening. [Blogger's note: Actually, Weitzell had has daughters with him at the meeting in question, and left only once it became apparent the public would be allowed to speak.]
The meeting before that, we were told by city council, and President D'Amore and I had talked, that two of three council people were not going to be there and the committee did not constitute a quorum and thus the committee could not have met. Councilman Phillips, to my understanding, did the meeting anyways. I was in the building for an interview with Channel 69. I had a prior commitment. I left the building because of that prior commitment, so it wasn't like we were trying to avoid. Had we known that the meeting was actually going to be taking place, we would have had somebody there from the administration, to start answering some of these questions.
We have tried our very best to do what we can to get this information out to the general public. I think we've gone - quite honestly - above and beyond, in many cases. You look at other planning processes that we've had in the city, this plan has probably been out there longer, has gotten more scrutiny, has gotten more input, has ... uh, we've had it on the web site, it was in city hall right here for at least a year ...
Frey: I know, but the pictures keep changing.
King Edwin: No, the pictures don't keep changing. That's part of the ... the exact plan that was out out there, if you look at the plan itself, it says possible proposed, you know, skate park. Possible, proposed. It doesn't say it's gonna actually be part of the plan. It was just the initial vision. We took in comments on that vision. It hasn't changed since the very beginning. There's been no bait 'n switch here in any way, shape or form. We have tried to give the most detailed information that we possibly can to the general public.
Now, realizing that there were concerns by people who live around the park, we sent out that letter. We also made sure that we worked with council and Council President D'Amore and I had talked, we set up this special meeting specifically to go through this time and express to you - the residents - what exactly is
Now, realizing that there were concerns by people who live around the park, we sent out that letter. We also made sure that we worked with council and Council President D'Amore and I had talked, we set up this special meeting specifically to go through this time and express to residents what exactly is happening because, as you saw, there's a lot of misinformation ...
Frey: Well, that's the thing with misinformation I wanted to ask you about. There was a lot of misinformation given this past weekend and I wanted to ask you why did you reach out to the churches and ask them - tell them - this is a race issue and a discriminatory issue.
D'Amore: Hold on. Mr. Mayor, you can answer that if you want to, but your time is up, sir.
King Edwin: I'm not even going to dignify that with a response.
