Okay, we're live. >> We are recording to serve by nose. >> Good evening everyone. I ask that we all rise for the pledge to the flag. >> Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the
republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Mr. Miller, please call the role. >> Mr. Callahan, >> present. >> Miss Cry Smith, >> present. >> Miss, >> present. >> Miss Leairard, >> present.
>> Miss Leon, >> present. >> Miss Wilhelm. And Mr. Cologne, >> present. Thank you, Mr. Miller. So, a couple things. One, Councilwoman Wilhelm will not be joining us this evening. She is out of the state visiting with
family. Mayor Reynolds will be joining us later in the meeting as there was a world heritage related meeting this evening. So he will be here later on tonight. And then before we move through the agenda, a couple agenda items are
going have been removed from tonight's agenda. So that would be communication 6B is pulled from tonight's agenda as well as the corresponding resolution 10B. So those were at the request of the
administration. We will not be voting on those tonight and we may see them again in the future. Moving on to the approval of the minutes. Any comments on the minutes from the
August 19, 2025 council meeting? Seeing none, we'll continue on the me the minutes stand approved. Public comment. So, we'll start with our first public comment as is custom for any subject not being voted on this evening. So, again, this would be for
anything that's not uh being voted on as a resolution or an ordinance. We have four people sign up in advance. I'll go around the room. I do remind everyone we have a fivem minute time limit and I ask everyone to be respectful of that five minute limit. Our first person signed up tonight, Mark
Riddle. If everyone doesn't mind stating their name for the record for our clerk when he does the minutes. >> Hi, my name is Mark MC Riddle R I TTL E. Um, and for the record, I live um in
1326 West North Street as opposed to West Fourth Street, which is the address of New Bethany. I am also the executive director for New Bethany, Inc. Um I have some comments regarding the Norfolk Southern um decision and mostly my
comments are that I believe that is unfortunate that Norfolk Southern has taken the position that they have. Um but I do however appreciate that we have a few months to get to a solution. Uh what does a solution look like? Thanks to the city community connections team through the health department and the
police department, Bethlehem Emergency Sheltering, New Bethany staff and other outreach organizations. we already know quite a bit about the population that we serve. Um so I consider that good news and puts us ahead of the game in terms of coming up with a plan. Uh we also
know um that each person has a different barrier to um finding shelter, finding a home. So a solution will be a combination of efforts including dollars and space for temporary housing resources for behavioral health services and really a whole lot more than that.
Um I look forward to the conversations ahead. I am impressed by the Bethlehem community, the entire community, including uh residents. I see people every single day coming into New Bethany um to provide support, to donate supplies. Um and it's just truly kind of
a beautiful site to see. Um I spec I think that we're really good at coming together in a crisis as a full community. I specifically want to thank the mayor, the city staff, Chief Cot, every single member of council, and I want to thank previous city administrations as well. New Bethany has
continually over the years experienced open dialogue and partnerships. It's what I really love about being a resident of the city of Bethlehem for the last 20 plus years. Uh my hope is that we can find an agreeable short-term solution while continuing the dialogue for meaningful long-term solutions. And that's what I have to say today. Thank
you. >> Thank you, Mr. Riddle. Our next speaker this evening, Harry Faber. >> Hello, Harry Faber. I wish I had more time to have prepared. Starting grad school has been very hectic. So, I'm going to read a newsletter I received from the Tricontinental Institute for
Social Research. I recommend everybody check it out. On 12th of August, Samar Abu Iloof, who won the 2025 World Press photo of the year of the picture above, posted on her Instagram account that her son's close friend Sammy Shakur had been
killed while he went to look for flour to feed himself and his family. Samar had taken Sami's graduation photos just before the genocide began in October 2023. Sammi's family owns one of the most famous companies in Palestine, which made Halalawa with a tahini among
the best in Gaza. Samaro, Sammy, she added, was killed under a hail of bullets. The sound was very terrifying. We are not just numbers. Each one of us is a story. We have now entered the last quarter of 2025. The days galloping rapidly toward another year. The image of being chased by horses is not idle.
For these are not the wild horses whose beauty stuns the landscape of the meadow. These are the horses of the apocalypse. Everywhere we turn, there is a sniff of the far right of a special type at the gates of power. Its leaders riding their horses at full sprint. None of these leaders have a program to solve our crisis. Rather, they throw an
accelerant onto them, stoking the fires of hell to burn faster and hotter. They deny the existence of climate change and the importance of human dignity. They want to deepen austerity and encourage war. They promote irrationality and so and social suffocation across the world. People of conscience are appalled by the
rise of the far right and appeal to large sections of our social of of our societies. At Triccontinental, we have studied the growth of this far right. We have examined how its political base is rooted in the atomization of society, in the growth of institutions and other groups that favor their political orientation such as new forms of
religious fellowship and off-the-books economies, and in the collapse of class organizations and workingclass and peasant communities. Part of our conclusion is that the political collapse of social democrats and liberals through their adoption of neoliberal austerity policies has created the conditions for the mass base of the farright. Without an
acknowledgement of this fact and without a renewal of the pre-neol liberal agenda, we cannot expect the social democrats and liberals to be significant allies in the fight against the far right of a special type. Struck by the failure of the social democrats and liberals across the global to across the globe to conduct this kind of renewal
and by the failure of liberals in the global north particularly to stop their support for the Israeli genocide against the Palestinians. I have written a letter which I share below. You have surrendered whatever limited neutral function the state had in the class struggle between capitalists and workers. The oligarchy now runs the
state with regulations set to a minimum and worker rights set to set to near zero. You have watched as the oligarchy has set fire to society, breaking up the old factories, sending the machines to countries where labor is cheaper and making money off the factory land through speculation. There are no jobs
left in the wasteland, only survile jobs to tend to the whims of the oligarchy and uberized jobs to provide mediocre quality services to each other. You have urged the compromised state to cut to cut taxes and reduce its social services at the same time as unemployment and poverty have increased. Old liberal
ideas of helping the less fortunate have dissolved in the acid of individualism and personal ambition. The money that used to be spent on social work, social welfare, now vaporized into the financial markets for the oligarchs race to become the first trillionaire. What would they have been recycled through
the tax system is now mired in the casinoike money markets. The whoops and razle of the money concealing the howls of the poor. You have encouraged the state to build up its diabolical attachments to arm merchants and their wares. weapons eat the commitments to society, breaking whatever bonds had
been promised by the modern state to its citizens. There are families on the streets begging for food, and then high above them in the boardrooms, there are ugly deals being made with the people's money and the weapons companies. The values of a people are not in their constitutions, which have been hollowed out, but in their budgets, which are so
heavily biased towards weapons, that there is almost nothing left for social welfare. You have allowed for the growth of a culture of cruelty, monstrous behavior by the police against citizens, by angry men against women, by the hound of starvation against the cry of the hungry belly. All of this is now normal,
the nature of modern civilization. You have encouraged it. You have authorized it. You have hidden behind your social attitudes, your liberalism towards this or that social behavior, your occasional appearance at a pride parade or at an International Women's Day stroll. But you care nothing for the gay man who is
dying of HIV or AIDS and cannot access drugs or the woman who has no shelter to go with her children when her home has become unbearable. Your liberalism has collapsed. There is no liberal philosophers who are not merely analytical. Their moral compass trapped in an academic argument that has little
relevance to this world. Your thinkers are made for television. The foundation on their face designed to prevent the light from shining on them, but also to prevent the light of reason from coming out of their mouths. Your liberalism is advertising, not philosophy. Classical fascist culture was a dead culture. It
was a culture of fake glory and genuine violence. It made a genuine break from the liberal culture that preceded it. >> Thank you, Mr. Favor. >> Well, the rest will be outside if you guys want to read. >> Good luck in your coursework, Mr. Favor. >> Our next speaker signed up. Brian
Hillard. Good evening, council. Uh for the record, uh my name is Ryan Hillard. I am in Bethlehem Township resident, 3901 Peacock. Uh but I am also an officer of STAR serving D and Restore. Uh we base our operations at 75 East Marcus Street
in UCCC Church of Christ as well as um Bethl Emergency Sheltering and other organizations. Um, I stand here representing uh STAR uh to speak on behalf of the Norfolk Southern issue as well. Um, I've been with STAR for over 10 years. Um, and uh, for those who
don't know, we distribute clothing, toiletries, tents, tarps, and other necessities uh, to homeless and low-inccome and others in need. Uh, for the 10 years that I've served there, um, anyone that's talked to me have talked about this. The people that I've worked alongside have been the best people I've
ever worked alongside. And it's not just people like Tim McGory and our numerous other volunteers, but our clients as well. Uh some of the clients that have come through our doors have been uh some of the most wonderful people I've ever met. Um these people come from all walks of life and I would argue that every
single one of them has had experiences and life thrust upon them has ultimately led to their current situation. Uh they're kind and considerate people and they're just looking to survive. They're just looking to exist, just looking to be. Uh these people need spaces to live.
Uh through whatever experiences they have faced, they're afforded to exist in these spaces are constantly being stressed whether it's from governments or businesses or residents or or just the trials of life. Um I can fully appreciate Norfolk Southern's concerns um as well as further others uh safety
alongside these train tracks. They're very dangerous areas versus uh they pose significant health and safety risk to those immediate immediately around them. U personally I I can um I can relate to that. My grandfather actually had an accident, train accident which took part of his leg while I was serving in the
army for the Korean War. Um, you know, the land around these train tracks should be kept clear for non Norfolk Southern personnel uh for their own safety as well as the safety of the uh of Norfolk Southern personnel. With that in mind, I would just like to urge
the city to be careful and considerate and regulating the areas outside those spaces. You know, I understand North Folk Southern has vested interest in their property, but the outside the spaces outside that property. Um, people need spaces to live. People need spaces to be um, you know, Bethlehem needs to
find space both physically and bureaucratically to give our neighbors spaces to live and they've done so for a long time and I urge them to consider to continue that. Um, the city already acknowledges that we are in the midst of an affordable housing crisis and a manifestation of that crisis sometimes
is homelessness. So we can't look at one issue without considering the other issue as well. Uh we cannot hope to help those who struggle to maintain their housing and then turn our backs on those who cannot afford it at all. Uh as a friend Mark Br has mentioned, city of Bethleam has a great record and working
with the homeless populations and working with the other organizations that support those people. Um, I would like to urge the city that while they work with North Southern to ensure attract safety as well as their their their their property um to consider to continue to consider our neighbors uh
and our friends who live outdoors that still be granted the space to see exist. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Hillard. >> Next speaker tonight, Mr. Mark Will Weber. >> Uh thank you, Mark Will Weber. uh here representing the the drip the uh citizen
uh advocate for water and sewer issues. Uh after I left last week, I I understood the conversation continued. Um and uh I didn't go home and watch it on tape. I was watching the Phillies and the Mariners, but I did see it the next
day. Um the back and forth with Councilwoman Lar and uh Mr. Boscola and uh there's some very interesting stuff coming up and I think um what what councilwoman Larair asked that now that
we have 55% of the smart meters in certainly is a time to explore uh uh adding some of these uh water monitoring devices such as Aquahawk or ion water. I say Aqua Hawk a lot because it kind of sounds like a superhero,
right? And it can be a superhero. it can really save uh uh the citizens a lot of uh of money and emotional wear and tear. Um so it it doesn't have to be Aqua Hawk, but an app like that, Eye and Water, they're all very valid. And I did
somewhere find and I can't find it now, but I will uh was a video from Census, the the actual company that that um our smart meters are from. And it was a a video made for municipalities and water
and sewer uh professionals. It wasn't for guys. Well, maybe it was for me, but not for the average citizen. And and they advised that you should introduce these individual uh water monitoring devices such as Aquahawk or Iron Water within the first
15 or 20% of the smart meters that get pointed. Point being that if there is some sort of glitch, you can straighten them out before you have the whole city on a system and then find out that something's not compatible. Okay. Um
Mr. Boscola referred to me as a gentleman in that which kind of shocked me. It was very gracious of him since in July we were nose tonose out in the hallway with uh some rather raised voices and the chief came out to make sure there wasn't a WWF event being
staged without a proper permit. Uh so it is a heated issue. Um but I think at least we're talking about it. I still kind of see his responses as a a non-committal committ sort of dancing around. I once said he was Fred a stair
would be jealous of his dance steps. Uh maybe maybe uh dancing with the stars is in his future. But if we do get some kind of firm commitment and uh you know reasonable time of when these devices
will follow the smart meters installation. I'll be the first one to applaud Mr. Boscola, Mr. Davis. love to see a video of them on our website saying this is how you download Aqua Hawk. That would be awesome. Be good for
everybody. City would save water. Uh he mentioned a little bit of expense, but guess what? They're making money already on these new smart meters because they don't have guys going around the city in their cars with their little pads tabulating
the uh the water. Um, they're saving wear and tear on vehicles and gas, that kind of thing. Saving water. Um, everybody should be interested in that in case you have a real catastrophe like a, you know, main
breaks up on on Shainersville Road or on East Market Street or something. Now, you've saved water. uh think tank out of Chicago puts it as high as 15 or 20% of savings because once the people have Aquahawk or ion water they actually it's
almost like a video game they get into wow I wonder if I can save even more water next month because they can monitor that hourly um you know I felt there was a little ringing of hands well there's a lot of moving parts I don't know if we can do
it uh he's been in the business for over 10 years almost 12 uh Mr. Davis has lots of experience. I would think that the team of Bosll and Davis are as good as their contemporaries, their uh counterparts in these other mun municipalities where they do already
have this established. I'd say dozens and dozens of other cities, but probably hundreds and hundreds of other cities have it. I was shocked that there's a city, I won't mention its name, it doesn't it's not doing that well. One and a third of people have poverty in
this city about the size of Bethlehem. A little smaller maybe. And guess what they do have? They have eye on water for their residents. Even though this city is struggling, they made sure their their residents are protected and ours deserve to be protected, too. So, we got
to keep at it, but it's a start. I will applaud Mr. Boscola uh when this comes through. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Wber. So, that exhausts our list of who had signed up in advance. So, I'm going to go around the room. Is there anyone to my left who
want to make comment who didn't have a chance to yet? Is there anyone in the wide center who want to make comment? I'll work from my left to my right. I'll start with Mr. Shy. Bill Shy 1890 Eaton Avenue.
I'm going to be wearing my economist hat tonight, figuratively or metaphorically. I'm not sure which. U let me let me say straight off that I think that every high school graduate
should should pass a course in basic economics. There was so much misunderstanding of economics in our recent election and right now and five minutes won't be
enough to cover it all. So there'll be a sequel perhaps, but let let me start with prices. During the campaign, Mr. Trump said he was going to bring down prices. Uh-uh.
Presidents don't have that power. Not even him in his wildest dreams, I don't think. Uh they from time to time, twice in at least twice in my lifetime, we've had price controls.
Once u during World War II, I was dimly aware of them then and then once during the Nixon administration. And they don't work because what you get is what's called a black market where
things are bought and sold according to their true value and it's against the law and people get arrested and then it's called profiterian profiteering but it just doesn't work. Presidents do not have that power. Congress does not have that power. The
Supreme Court doesn't have the power. That's one instance where we have truly a free market. But not only that, he's making it worse because in three respects. The first is
deportations. We are right now at just about full employment. I think it's the last number is 4.2%. Maybe that's the last number we can actually trust, but that's another story.
Uh economists say 4% is full employment because one out of every 25 people is between one job and another. I I think 4%'s a little high, but let's uh say we're pretty close to full employment.
So what do we do? We're deporting workers. And what's going to happen? There's going to be a labor shortage. It's starting already. Some firms are complaining. Meat packing plans for example.
So firms are going to start competing for labor. Wages will have to rise. Now that's that's good for people getting higher wages, but it also in increases the cost of production which is going to
result in higher prices. The economists even have a term for it. It's called the wage price spiral. That's one respect in which uh inflation is going to increase. The
second is of course tariffs. I I don't um I don't quite understand when he says other countries are ripping us off. Uh some we have a few we have surplus with. Most of them are deficits.
And that's because well there's a number of reasons for that. Some good some bad. The tariffs if anyone believes that the tariffs are going to be uh as as Oh my
running out of time already. If u that they're going to be absorbed by the importers. Uh I have a bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to sell to you. Prices are going to rise. That's the second instance and tonight's just going
to be about inflation. The third thing is pressuring the Federal Reserve to put down lower the interest rates. It's going to stimulate the economy. We're going to have more inflation. So, get ready for it. He's going to blame it on
Biden for sure, but those are three things that he's doing to cause prices to rise. Part two will may be at the next meeting. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Sh is Nan. >> Hello Valerie Nunan. Um
I have two things I want to comment on tonight. I'm actually going to start with the shorter one. Um I'd like to express solidarity with Lehigh County Commissioner and former Bethlehem right to know officer Zach Cole Borgi. I do
not know and do not care whether he did what he is accused of because it's a complete joke that there are laws against Canabus. Um he was charged with uh possession and intent to deliver. Um
Zach was always helpful to me in responding to right to know requests and unless he was using on the job, I don't see how this has anything to do with his ability to assist the people of Bethlehem. and I'm disappointed to hear that he's been let go.
Um the other you can probably guess um which is uh Norfolk Southern uh intending to evict the homeless encampments in Bethlehem. Um,
this is a frustrating one because I can't count how many times the Bethlehem police or council or city staff or the mayor have fed the public have fed me the line that Bethlehem doesn't do sweeps.
Um, and there have been a lot of times where advocates and unhoused people in the area have been treated like our fears were without basis. Um, you know,
almost people have been told that they should feel comfortable coming to the city for help. And I have seen that city workers have actually done quite a lot to try to build trust, but that doesn't change the situation we're in right now.
And I think it really comes to not making promises you can't keep because the promise not to do sweeps only holds as long as Norfolk Southern is okay with it, as has become apparent. Um, and this
is also a perfect example of how the police are not really there to protect and serve us the people. They're there to protect the law. Unfortunately, the law is not there to protect us, the people in this respect. It's there to
protect private property. Um, so it's like whatever the individual intentions of officers or of the department here or of the city are, they have to go by the law. Um, and it's
basically the same problem as the city's failure to make a stand against ICE. Um, if you look over in Allentown, slum lord Nat Heyman is trying to see the city over the homeless encampment at Jordan Creek. After putting up token
resistance, the city found the perfect reason to evict people, that the area was a flood plane. They argued that evicting people was for their safety. Never mind that homeless people had already voiced concerns about safety years ago. And this suddenly became an
issue worth looking at when money not lives was online. So somebody at North somebody at Norfolk Southern must have been taking notes because what I'm seeing is they're claiming it's unsafe because people are getting too close to
the train tracks. the train tracks have been there for ages and so has the homeless population. Um, and they're saying the homeless population has grown too much and that like the crowding is increasing the danger. This doesn't really make sense.
The eviction is scheduled for December 15th, which is a month and a half after emergency shelters open for the winter. And if you know anything about the Bethlehem homeless population or in general, the number of people camping
outdoors reduces a lot in the winter for that very reason. So, there's going to be a lot less people by the time winter comes around. I'm not really buying this argument. Um, but regardless of the reduction, there are still going to be
some people who cannot or will not make use of the shelters and they still need to camp. Um, and I'm very concerned for their safety. And I think that the frigid cold is a bigger threat to their safety than some train tracks.
Um, I'd like to know what's really going on. Does it have to do with Norfolk Southern's $85 billion merger with Union Pacific? I don't know. Um, or is it just too much of an eyesore for their taste? Either way, it's not a good enough
reason to remove people. Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss Nan. Was there anyone else in the wide center who wants to make comment? Yes. >> Hello. My name is Sam. Uh, I want to also speak on the proposed eviction uh
of the encampments along the train tracks in Bethlehem. Um, I just want to basically echo and say that I'm another person who is concerned. Um, please do whatever you can to stop Norfolk Southern's proposed eviction.
Um, everyone has a right to live in dignity and peace. Housing is a human right. There are enough homes, but many are vacant and people are priced out. If our society had its priorities in order, such resources would be in use by the
people. Some of the current laws, as Valerie alluded to, only benefit the owning class, big landlords, corporations, etc., they're about protecting property, not about protecting people. Um, I just want to urge you to think
about what's stopping us from ensuring that all have their basic needs met. There are enough resources to go around. We should not be reducing the quality of life for the most vulnerable. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Kurt.
>> Hi, my name's It's working. Mr. Certo, >> it's on. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Uh, my name's Arty Curatola, 813 Lawford Street, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Um, last last time, the last meeting I
talked, it stays right here. I think I said more than that, but I don't get I took notice. Not everything gets into the notes. I guess nothing's The other stuff's not that important. This is important. This was important to put in there. Make me look like an idiot. Okay.
Well, more than I am already. Anyway, resident Arthur Curatollah suggested moving the town hall to move the at town hall. Yeah. Rearranging town hall to move the lectern from the public comment so that
the speaker's faces can be seen on live stream rather than the backs of their heads. The reage management would also allow for more seating. Maybe 10 more two more rows up front. Uh put it up higher in the back there. You know, spend a little bit of the the money for
the people here. So if you get more people, okay, you got more seating. President Cologne advised me that anyone is concerned about the angle in which they are recorded while addressing
council, they can instead use the lectern in front of town hall entrance to his right. The lectern has a microphone that will record their comments. Now, see, none of us knew that
before. Nobody tells us anything in the city and that's why we have the situation with the homeless situation, especially homeless veterans. That should not be part of the equation in the American language. I was a veteran
out of the mil military in 1968. I stuttered and stammered profusely. I couldn't say more than a sentence. I had to edit everything in my mind before I spoke, otherwise it would stutter. Embarrassed me to stutter. But now I have no
problems talking. I don't even use notes when I talk as you can tell. Only if I'm reading something. You know, I don't have problems talking. But I did have problems before with stuttering and stammering. Now it's hard to shut me up. But the thing is, the
fact remains, city council, the United States government does not let people know what they can do. As far as it took till 19, not 19, I'm
sorry, 2015 before I got benefits. I didn't apply because I didn't want to take from other veterans. But then I saw how much money elected officials are getting a hundred to $200,000 out of the taxpayers money.
If by some miracle I get elected as being the mayor, I am not taking one dollar from the tax from the tax dollars, my money will go towards the homeless situation to eliminate the
homeless problems. Very simple. when I didn't apply for any kind of assistance. I made my money through being a musician, memorizing the songs, singing, doing standup comedy,
memorizing my comedy so I wouldn't stutter. But the thing is, in 2015, I got the medical thing from Social Security, from Medic, from Medicaid, but I wouldn't take any money. I made it on
my own. I made about over $1,000 a month being a musician and a comedian. I found out I could make a loan and buy a house. Whoa. With a 30-year mortgage
for about $350 a month back in 2010, which I paid it off now because God has blessed me greatly. I don't have no more mortgage. But they can do that and tell the homeless people to get together, purchase a house on the south side for
maybe $150,000, make the loan, and then you have your own house. This doesn't work that way. You just don't encourage the the homeless people to do this. You be you don't take care of the ponds, the poor people. You want to get to the
rich, so you get elected. Keep the political machine going. You're the knights. You go for the bishops and the rooks. You don't do nothing with the pawns. Get out there and try to get the homeless people to go ahead and make a
loan to get their own houses. They can do it. Onethird of the income, $15,000 a month, I $1,500 a month from social security. Two people can afford to buy a house. Thank you. God bless.
>> Thank you, Mr. Certo, was there anyone else in the wide center? I'm going to go in the third row and then I'll work my way up. Mr. Antalics, >> Brandon from Broad Street. I'm actually going to talk about something that involves city council for a change. Um,
you guys installed these cameras last. Not installed, you paid for them. I understand it was $30,000 for a license from Flock Safety Systems. Essentially how it works. You put in those little solar powered cameras all over the place. It's supposed to be for reading license
plates and all that. But what I doubt everyone in here knows, and this is not some right-wing conspiracy. This is from the ACLU. They're those cameras are taking photos of everybody all the time. They have facial recognition. They're taking pictures of your license plate all the
time. And then they're selling this data to third parties. They're selling they're making money off spying on you every single day. So we paid $30,000 for the privilege of being spied on and having our data stolen.
So I'd just like to know, did you guys read that contract before you signed our data away? Thank you, Mr. and Alex, >> I'm glad you're back to the first row. Thank you.
>> Hope this is nothing personal. Uh Steven and Alex from the first row. Um who also 737 Ridge who created the affordable single family home problem in Bethlehem?
Its own city council. considered Packer, Carlton, Hillside, Montlair, and Burkel avenues along with Fifth, Vine, Morton, Adams,
Van Burren, Webster, Summit, Filmore, Pierce, Verona, Butler, Reneg, and Martell streets. For at one time, majority of these streets maintain single family homes on both sides of the streets. Also, Verona, Butler, and Renick Streets
are no long no longer exist. Today, the number of single family homes might be counted on two hands in that area. In post World War II,
the loss of homes began with council's approval of the appointment of a Lehi dean and the Betham Seal vice president to head the redevelopment authority. Both agencies
who who employ them bought properties through straw buyers and with the city not doing inspections part of a scheme. Large swats of homes were the this
declared blighted allowing the clearing of blocks of single family homes for the schools and steals expansion. This was equivalent to putting the wolf in the hen house.
It was planned. Council further assisted in the loss of single family homes by allowing zoning changes to call five students a family, thereby encouraging a non-resident
developers to outbids private buyers and then convert these homes into student housing. Bethleam is the only college city in the state that allows this. and reflect for a minute
and make a mental count of single family homes that were lost in this process. And if your addition is good, Bethlehem would not have a single family problem, housing problems. So, who created the
problem? Thank you, Mr. Antalics. Was there anyone else in the wide center who wants to make comment? I'll start here in the front and then sir in the second row after. So >> I want to talk about six things because I'm one of the people down at Norfolk.
Um I honestly feel like you're helping all the wrong people. You know who they are because they abuse the system all the time. Um the rent is going up. Utilities are being too expensive. Like water, seriously, gas. Um, and then putting others in the same
category. Often when they see us down there, they will put everybody in the same category whether we do drugs or not. I myself am a college student. I work four jobs right now. I'm literally working on getting my CNA. Two different situations, but I do understand um there is a lot of people down there that
obviously do that. Um, a lot of us in the front work. Um, the lack of funds and the misuse of the funds. Um there's a lot of ringing around the rosies and the truth not being told. And then when we sit here and tell you guys the reason
why we don't want to rush into getting a spot is because we have to make sure that hey I understand that the buses aren't going to be late. I might not be there on time to catch the bus. I need to make sure I have reliable transportation which me I want to save up to get a car. I already have my
permit. Just simple stuff like that. Um, and the the fact that for me insurance and stuff is obviously going to be expensive, first-time driver on record. Um, five, um, unhelpful support. Again, the ringing around the rosies and then being told that the lack of funds with
Lehigh conference and churches and then like you going to wait till like now to like have these people kick us off, I understand has nothing to do perhaps, but to rush things like that and then like know that people aren't ready. A lot of the people down there, sure, the
reason why you can't always help everybody. They abuse the money they get for drugs. You already know what's going on. Um, it's no surprise. It's nothing new. Um, a lot of people are frustrated because they're tired of coming for help. A lot
of people choose to be in that position because what's the point of doing this every single time? I mean, I've been living like this for three, four months and I'm seeing it. I already lived it and I was even homeless before. It's very frustrating. It's to the point where I might as well just like figure
something out. I mean, you you probably would tell people and you already kicking people out certain parking lots for just sleeping in the car and saving their money. Like it really What do you want them to do? Because you can't turn to the shelters. 211 is taking forever to help people do anything.
uh I have to have mental health or fake like I'm a drug addict to go to help for hope who sometimes will close um cases and not help people in the first place. So it's very frustrating at all to even turn to help. But I'm just not always
going to speak for everybody, but I know I'm speaking for the people that I know that are working down there. So I'm pretty much done with what I had to say. >> Do you mind giving your name for the record? >> Destiny. >> Thank you. sir in the second row.
>> Good evening, guys. My name is Richard Moser. I moved to Bethlehem about five years ago. I fell in love with the community, love the people, love the neighborhood. I started working at a food bank right across the street from my house and I found out about these folks that live down here by the train.
It's about three years ago. I started helping them. The basics, a lot of the basics, the food, uh, heat, solar panels, stuff like that. I just found out they're getting evicted December 17th.
Who picked that day? I can't beat the train company. I don't think you guys can beat the train company either. They got a ton of cash. Can we change that date for later on down? Say May, June. get these people buried in for the winter so they don't
die out on the streets. My heart goes out to these people every day. It's insane to see these people down there suffering so bad and nobody gives a That's fact. Is there any way you guys get it to change the date at least until
springtime when they start waking up, coming out of the woods, they can find a place to live, not being stuck in the winter? That's all I got to say, man. >> Thank you. Was there anyone else in the wide center? Yes, sir.
>> My name is Terry. I ch uh on the North Fork Southern issue. I don't have any notes. I didn't prepare anything, but I hope I have common sense and remind people to have some. I'm one of the homeless people under there.
Apparently, I exist because I'm here. I'm a life. I'm not a bum. Far from it. I work harder now than I ever did before. But I reiterate what that man just said about the date. I know Norfolks, Norfolk Southern, their
property, etc. I know there's people down there that know they're trespassing. I'm one of them. But you don't slap the city in the face by throwing your garbage. I see all sides of this. However, I don't see any point to reiterate what he said. The middle of
winter, you're going to literally have people dead. The shelters don't and can't hold that many. It's on somebody else's conscience. And I'm not a bum. I work hard. I
repeat, I work harder than I ever lived worked in my life. If you don't care, well then you don't care. But I'm going to tell you also, and I mean this with all due respect, you have to live that in your conscience. What if you were homeless?
Not by choice. We need help. Thank you. Was there anyone else in the wide center who wanted to make comment? Is there anyone to the right who wants
to make comment before I move on? Did I miss anyone who may make comment, sir? Uh hello, Sebastian Zavaruka, 341B Spring Street, uh to talk about the the threat of eviction from Norfolk Southern on their private properties. I'm not
going to comment on uh the legality or anything of that nature. I just want to address like what I see as an overarching um stigma that's applied to these people. I tried to do a lot of research beforehand contacting different city officials, went to the police department early this morning, talked
with the community development agency at city hall to try and understand some of their plans. Um, and from I wasn't able to confirm this in time before this meeting, but my understanding is that this neighborhood, this community got attention because of some criminal activities that were allegedly
associated with the tenants there. Um, and then from that point uh they the community uh was who was affected was some uh cooperative. um they um reached out to the city and
weren't satisfied. And maybe if that happened or not, they then went and sent a letter to Norfolk Southern because they were they're making their own investigative report and allegedly were identifying members of this community as being at fault. And so from this potentially is what precipitated this
action. Um, and my concern, you know, I I don't have any hard evidence of this besides getting, you know, conversations from people, but I still think it holds true what I'm going to say next, which is in regard to how our systems at B, the people who hold the power can very
easily um, hold sway um, and apply a a stigma against people, and that stigma travels very far and fast. I don't see in our community when we have a member who performs white collar crime against individuals, do we go into their neighborhood and start ripping up their books and assessing all of their
standards of living and you know um start putting a a deep lens on them. Um because my concern is that if this is precipitating from a point of criminal intent and activity, we're having a large swath of population who is being punished. I speak I've spoken to these members of the encampment. A lot of them
have been there for many years. Some of them have live been residents of Bethleam their entire lives, right? And they've been shuff had this shuffle game happen many times and they're prepped. I mean, as as much as they can be to find the solution, to find the momentum
type. And so I'm but all I care about here is just to you know shed light on the fact that in our community in our system uh where we're at we have a very loose uh stigma application against certain demographics of our population
and this is one of the the demographics are very vulnerable right u and so that's just my concern for the record and just a point of uh awareness for the community of what's going on here. Thank you. >> Thank you. Was there anyone else who wants to make comment who didn't have a
chance? All right, that concludes our first public comment. Moving on to second public comment. This is for any ordinance or resolution that's to be voted on this evening. We didn't have anyone sign up in advance. So, I'll go around the room. Is there anyone to the
left who wants to make comment on anything being voted on? Again, I turn to the wide center. Anyone will make comment. Sarah in the pack. Hi, I'm Joe Papowski running for city council. Um, today I'd like to talk about our changes to the Salo ordinance.
Uh, specifically, uh, how our the SAO ordinance, the new one, will affect affordable housing. So, I made an illustration here. Uh, there are good things in this SAO. Don't get me wrong. The storm water is very
important. It has to do with safety and it has to do with our environment. Stopping the storm water, holding it some of it back will prevent disasters when you get too much storm water and flooding. So, we have safety there. Uh, percolating the water back into the ground and the table without it running
off is great. Um, but the one thing I want to address that I don't think is a good idea with the SDO is the bike and walking paths. Um specifically it says that um major subdivisions are subject
to this rule. Uh now a major subdivision could be five lots. So let's take a look at this. Let's just take a 10 lot subdivision as an example. Take the 10 lot subdivision and you lose one lot to
the bike path or the walking path. So now the developer has to redistribute the cost of the 10 lots to nine houses. That increases the cost on those houses 11%. If you take that 11% and add it to the
33% postco postcoid cost increases of the houses, we're up to 44% since 2019. So I strongly urge that we look at this and maybe do something else. Uh what we could do and I think would be a good
idea is to make the threshold 25 houses and no smaller because if we went 25 houses it would be a 4.17% increase on the price. Sorry I should have given y'all a sheet with this but I didn't have time. So,
what I'm saying is if we could do that or maybe we change the square footage of the lot for the 10 lots, allow them to put the bike path in and still put 10 properties in and evenly distribute that. Um, so both of those are viable
viable ideas on how to make this move forward. Um, but you all heard it, we have a problem with affordable housing. The girl that was just here has a job. she's going to school and that's what I've heard with a lot of them. So, let's think about what we do before we pass
this out though. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. >> In the very back, Gail Malakus, 825 Carlton Avenue. Um, you know, I have heard this argument against the salo and I'm not even sure
if Mr. Paplaskki is saying that packing everything in like sardines would be affordable housing. It would just be more housing. And I have heard other people express money concerns over the sustainable elements of the new salo
like solar panels, rain gardens, native plantings, permeable pavings. I feel we can't afford to not incorporate these um sustainable elements that will work
to improve our air quality which we know is abysmal. Um, more trees and plantings can only help to mitigate climate change and trees, the simplest way to
mitigate climate change, permeable pavement. We we can't afford to have any more storm water runoff in this town. Um, so and in the long run, I believe solar panels will save save money and be more
affordable for for people. So I don't see the affordable housing and the salo as clashing. I I think we can do both and I hope we do both and um I think we can work on the affordable housing and
also the sustainable issues and I I do hope you pass this all though. Thank you. >> Thank you. I will note Mayor Reynolds has joined us. Welcome Mayor Reynolds. Was there anyone else who wanted to make comment on anything that we are voting
on this evening, resolution or ordinance? All right, seeing none, we're going to conclude our second public comment. Moving on to old business. Any old business from members of council? Seeing none, moving on to new business.
New business from members of council. Councilwoman Leone. >> Um, I had a a couple of questions. There's two obvious topics that were brought up tonight. Well, one not so obvious, but it's it's in the news, so we should discuss it a bit. Um the first one I wanted to talk about is um
everything that's happening down at the canal. Um some good questions were brought up tonight. One of the ones that is sticking in my head is is who did decide the date for um the Norfolk Southern? Like who picked December?
Norfolk Southern picked December. Um, this was not the first time that anybody from the city has had conversations in Norfolk Southern. They have expressed concerns before um about their property and I think between Chief God and others um it was a determination in their
conversations oftentimes with the Norfolk Southern uh police was the idea that like if something is going to be done here on your property we would ask that you would try to p push it off as long as possible to allow for the services to allow for the shelter to open and things like that. So they were
the ones that picked the date. they could have picked October 15th or November 15th or whatever. Um, but you know, as they have uh been in contact, especially with our police department, uh the police department, I think has done a great job, including the officers that interact with our community
connections program to try to get across to Northfor Southern um that pushing off that date as long as possible was in the best interest of everyone. >> Okay. So like the the conversation has been it is the it's the dead of winter
and it is the dead of winter. Well, I feel like June or July is the dead sorry January is the dead of winter now. But like the the emergency shelter is open then we have more resources available in the winter than the summer because UCCC is open and and I understand um that but
there's also more people now than there have ever been. And does UCCC does the emergency shelter have the capacity to house however many people would be pushed? And I'm assuming that it is just Norfolk Southern property. It's not the entirety of the canal. It is just the
Norfolk Southern property. >> It is Norfolk Southern property. >> So it's a very specific area that they're being asked to move from. So they're fine everywhere else. >> Norfolk Southern is asking for their property to be their property, I
believe. And I don't know, Miss Soul or Miss Collins, I believe, sent an email today, I think, that kind of like outlined everything and um that was that was the plan. But one of the things that I think is important to understand, and it was in the email, and you've heard Kristen and Sarah and Laura talk about it, is you know, our community
connections program, which predates our administration, which we have expanded, goes back to 2020. So the type of information that we have with our service providers is the information such as is somebody interested in using bees? >> Is somebody not interested in using
bees? Does somebody have housing potentially lined up? Some of the people that are unsheltered throughout Bethlehem have better relationships with other service providers than our Bureau of Health. So it is a kind of constant like we're pretty familiar with a lot of
the people and our community connections program and our police and our service providers are gathering that information. So one of the things that you know we had seen um based on what had happened in Allentown was the question had come up about what percentage of the unsheltered folks are
on Medicaid if they qualify. So that has been a priority for community connections for a long time. So our percentage there is pretty good but as we move forward over the next three and a half months with our service providers with the health bureau it's about asking
those basic questions. What percentage of people want to go to it's almost like can we get eight answers to eight different questions for every single person is are they interested in going to BES? Are they have are they able to access Medicaid? Um what what are their
kind of long-term prospects? are they interested in some type of continuum of care services? Um I won't read the whole um memo that Sarah and Laura sent yet, but it's the idea of like how can we gather as much information as possible to try to make sure that we are helping
people to and like I said, this isn't like a week conversation or three and a half months. Some of these individuals and we have success stories. There have been people that have been placed in permanent housing that are in permanent housing. Um, and I think I saw Mark here before somewhere and Mark is here and New Bethany is a a huge partner there.
That's not every story. Sometimes people are like, I don't want services. I'm not looking for housing. There's other people that you do a whole lot of work, months of work to line up housing and then something happens where that person doesn't take it. So, we also have success stories along the continuum. But like we've been doing this work now as a
city very intensely for like six years. So, as we continue moving forward here, community connections isn't going to stop. our interactions with Bob Rap and BS aren't going to stop. Obviously, everything we're doing with Mark um and we're having those conversations. Laura and Sarah, Sarah and Kristen are meeting
with the um the service providers in Lehigh Valley uh this week to kind of talk about that. So, it's going to continue to be this kind of what do individuals need, but we're adding on to a whole lot of information we have from most people that choose to interact with
us. >> Um can you expand on that a little bit? are are you or anyone within the administration? Because one of the the issues that's like weighing heavy on my heart right now is that like while some people are there in a more semi-permanent situation, we do have people that transition throughout the
cities. Um and my my big concern and my big worry is that like we have all said Bethlehem is a safe place and I think that we have proven that Bethlehem is a safe place. Um we are a place of limited resources. So if we become a place where people feel like they can come and and
seek services um or and not get pushed out of places that we can actually control. Uh are is are there any is there any work at the county level or anything like that that can really help the cities that are the ones that are dealing with this? I mean we all see the budget. We don't have the most wiggle
room in our budget. We we need resources to deal with this. >> Yeah. So, I would say, and it may not always appear this way, but I can tell you our community connections folks that go and basically every couple of months um find ways to determine what the number of people are that are in um uh
the unsheltered communities. Like that number rises and falls. And it might not seem that way based on somebody saying like, "Oh, I see a new tent over there." But if you look across the city, that number will go up to 90, go down to 55, go up to 72, go down to 61. partly because we were talking about it's
because people do sometimes move around or they leave and they come back and things like that. I mean we are doing the best we can and one of the things that Laura and Sarah and Kristen talked about was just how successful we have been in being able to provide services
to individuals in the community. If the question is would this be better organized at a county level or at a bycounty level the answer is 100% yes. We have 62 municipalities and if you talk to Mark, if you talk to Bob, talk to Kristen, talk to Chief K, talk to
Lloyd, like we have people whose stories are like, I was in Bethlehem for seven months, then I was in Walnutport, then I was in Allentown, then I was in Easton and so on and so forth. So, we do get support in different ways from across the county. But as far as a solution is concerned, you are correct in that the
cities Allentown Bethle East are doing more than their fair share as far as providing those services. And I know there are people in the room that spend more time in this space than I do, Mark being one of them. And how challenging is sometimes even getting some of the surrounding municipalities to admit that
there are people that are unsheltered that are living in their community and especially getting them to contribute resources. But if I if it was up to me, I I do wish the two counties with 62 different municipalities rather than three would be like, let's organize. So
if we have and I and I the number is escaping me at the point at this current time and that point in time count as far as what the numbers are as far as how many people it's probably low, but whatever that number is like to come up with a way that all 62 municipalities
are contributing to the solution, I think is an ultimate and easy goal. I think for all of us. >> Okay. I I have a I need to digest that for a second. I have a a a specific question about a specific program that uh the the young lady brought up. She said a program about health and hope and
she said a lot of the programs are for people that are uh suffering under addiction or have mental health issues. Are there programs for people who are not suffering from addiction or have mental health issues? What about people who like her um are a student uh and
she's not seeking any help. she just cannot afford to live somewhere. What programs are there for someone like her? >> I might not be best equipped to name each and every program that we connect people with. >> I guess a better phrase of the question, are there programs that someone like her
cannot participate in because she doesn't have mental health issues? Are there programs specifically just for people who have addiction and mental health? Well, I think it's certainly I mean it's certainly true that you know there's uh programs and funding that comes from the county mental health, right? Or there's programs that are
specifically run out of um places that offer substance abuse treatment. And you know, we can connect people who have those problems with those services, of course, but that doesn't mean that there aren't options for people who um you know, simply are just looking for housing support. I mean, a program that
is, you know, just offering housing counseling, New Bethany, for example, doesn't um, you know, prevent FE people from coming in if they if they don't have mental health or substance abuse problems. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. So, >> like New Bethany, Conference of Churches, you know, street medicine, all
these programs, they're available to to everyone. >> Along along that line, we talking we're talking about housing. We're talking about affordable housing, attainable housing, and housing within the city of Bethlehem. Um, I mean, I heard I heard today that you could buy a house in South Batham for $150,000. Here to
dispel that rumor, absolutely cannot buy a house in South Batham for $150 or $50,000. Um, it is much higher than that. And if it is that low, it is a total gut job and it's not movein ready. And we did a study and I can't remember
them the number. What is the vacancy rate like within the city of Bethlehem? So our our vacancy rate in our market when we did the opening growth study was around 2%. And and so a healthy market your rental vacancy rate is like six to 8%. That's the number of units that are
sort of available or turning over or like kind of coming back on the market at any given time. So you know that was one of the main one of the big takeaways from our our opening door study is that we just have so much demand for rental housing. We have so little vacancy. >> And one of the things that happens there
too is that we have less of a turnover rate even in our rental market because once people move here, they want to stay here. Whether or not it's renting houses or renting apartments is that they are less transient than they are in other places because once they move here, they oftentimes want to stay in the same
apartment for a long period of time. >> I have other questions about a different topic. I don't know if you want to try to just ask all my questions or do you want to >> You have the floor. >> Okay. Um, so before I move on to uh the next topic, I want to come back into the fact that it is uh the Northol Southern property and I understand that it's just
hard to exist within the city of Bethlehem right now because we are a desirable city, but Northol Southern specifically um that property specifically. Uh can you tell me what the response looks like to trying to zero in on that one specific area? I know we talked a little bit about it,
but is there like we are engaging these community partners? I'm assuming Mark and Bob. Um, but just specific to that area or is it like we're doing this all along the canal? Is or is there anything we're doing differently in the area that's currently being targeted to prioritize their ability to to still
exist within the city of Ethan? >> The delivery of service is obviously easier when you have more people close to each other. So, I'm not saying that um Carissa, who's kind of our main community connections person, can get to every single person the same amount of times. Um, but we are obviously one of the things that's going to be part of
that conversation this week and moving forward is what are we able to do that is able to if somebody has to move in the next three and a half months like what services are we looking for? But once again, I'm just being very honest like it's a very personalized situation
because of how much contact many of these service providers have had with individuals. So it could be and I'm just giving this as a hypothetical example. It could be a situation where you pick person A and this is what we know about person A's life. This is what the
challenge has been from getting them from here to here. So then it's not necessarily like you're sending more people in. It's just like well we need to help that person get from point A to point B. >> So there will be some people that probably we don't have that information on. But I'm saying as a general um kind
of body of uh information, we have a lot of information about what have been the individual kind of um uh you know challenges for individual people. Sometimes it's just somebody waiting for an apartment to open up. Sometimes it is issues with, you know, drug and alcohol
services that aren't necessarily that they're not necessarily taking advantage of. You could have 91 people and I think you have 91 different situations. But part of that planning is going to happen this week when we're engaging with the community partners who are already engaged. So I think it's more about how do we continue the work.
>> Yeah. So I mean as as always I'm going to ask you guys to continue to like keep council in the loop about what we can what we can do to to support. I know that the the sheltering is something that we're supportive of. The the new shelter that's going to be over on the
southside the for the families that's a step in the right direction. Um but it just seems like with the rising cost of everything, everything feels like a catchup. It always feels like just a little bit too little, just a little bit um too late. And so just whatever we can
do um Mark, Bob, where you are, uh just continue to to keep us in the loop about what we can advocate um for. And the last question I had on this was is there any negotiations about moving the date from December to further out or they
like this is as far out as we're willing to again I appreciate it's not the 20 days but is that as far out as they're willing to go? Are there continued conversations um to maybe push it out a little bit further or >> that's the date that they gave us which is obviously different since it's private property than is public
property. I will say that they have, you know, offered assistance because with some of these other service providers, different services and things like that, I don't exactly know what that looks like yet. I would look at what Lauren Sarah sent today is kind of like the baseline.
>> So then the conversation with the community partners to understand if there are particular holes there once we have a like a firmer number about like intent to go to bees. Um, but for example, I was talking to Chris Wenrich today. We've been spending a lot of time
on this. This is like the number one thing we've been talking about over the past couple of weeks in city hall is trying to put together a plan here moving forward that that will be able to um alter move mobilize whatever it is depending if if different things pop up.
But I was talking to Kristen today and she was talking about how they're applying for grants for like emergency short-term shelters. So one of the things that happens sometimes is we have dollars that let's say there's you know a fire at someone's house or something happens and you know we have had money in the past that we've been able to get through grants. So like that's another
potential area you're just talking about potential things that could come down like it could be two months from now by which like we're saying is like this is a fund that needs $10,000 rather than $5,000 or we applied for this grant and this will allow us the opportunity like those type of things. So, I think there
could be a return as far as an ask is concerned. We're just not exactly there yet until we're able to basically have that conversation with the service providers. >> Okay. Thank you. And then I mean completely shifting gears. Um I I'm not allowed to turn to people. So, uh
completely shifting gears, uh there's obviously been some news and Valerie uh brought something up. Go ahead. >> Can we is can we talk about is it possible for us to finish the homeless conversation? That's kind of what I was turning to you about because I know that everybody else is going to have >> that's a preference to if >> Yeah. I just know everybody else is going to have
>> given the severity of it topics. >> Well, let's let's stay on the topic of the Norfolk Southern letter then and I'll work through council. So, if that's the wolf council, I will ask everybody then we'll speak on Norfolk Southern get your questions answered, make whatever
comments you have and then we'll move on to the other, you know, matter at hand during new business. So if that's if you want to give back the floor, no problem. Um, anyone on council want to make have questions, comments as it relates to Norfolk Southern Counciloman Camy Smith.
>> I was just going to say, um, would you be able to speak in the microphone because I I have a hard time hearing down here. Okay, >> I apologize. >> Thanks so much. Thank you. Um, I just I know it's a really tough situation and we're limited. Um, I just have a few questions. Um I'm wondering because you
know we'll have the bees shelter open by December but then I think about where will the folks go during the day. Um I'm not sure if Mark at New Bethany if most of the folks go there or if there's even room. I'm just wondering like you had mentioned about, you know, sometimes we do short-term with motel or whatever,
but is there any way that we could look at additional funds that can go to like New Bethany for daytime services because if they can go at night to bees and we have a really cold winter, then what about during the day? >> Yeah. And I think it's all on the table.
And as far as what those potential options are, um I think now if you talk to Bob at BS or you talk to um like I will tell you that oftentimes, you know, it is cold in the winter, like even during the day to the point that
individuals that are living there now will often go other places now to be able to stay warm, whether or not it's the library, other places and things like that. But I think there's absolutely the potential. Which is why though we don't want to get out in front of that conversation with the different
service providers about what they're thinking or not thinking before we can put together more of a a plan as far as like a month from now or six weeks from now saying like this is another fund that we might want to put money aside for. >> Yeah, I think that would just be great because I mean this is certainly a
crisis we didn't anticipate. Um, and it would be great if we look and see if we could if we can, you know, raw and Peter to pay Paul and do what we can to help these folks. And I just want to thank um, Mark and Brian and Tim for being here and everybody that works with you because I really am grateful, everybody's grateful for all you do. Um,
I know this was brought up again, but you mentioned have you been in conversation like have you asked North Folk Southern to delay it? And also, you mentioned that they offered assistance. Do you have any specifics on what assistance they're willing to offer? >> We've seen what they've offered in other places. Um uh but once again we're not
sure that like we don't want to say like oh we'll take A and B that you did over there until we come up with what we think is the once again I'm just coming back to like let's say you decide that you know this whole conversation comes down to you know we're able to get 50 of the $75,000 in fund A and we need
$20,000 over here is like we want to know what the specific ask is that we want to help them with rather than just basically being like what can you do and then them coming with things that we either are repetitive or we don't need or service providers already have and things like that. So like they they have been open to that that conversation and
we're hoping to intensify those conversations once we're able to talk to the service providers in the near future. As far as Norfolk Southern pushing off the the date, um I think they have been made aware by people contacting them that there are people
living in these particular vicinities. There are people that have said, you know, to to Norfolk Southern, like there are individuals that are living on your property and we think you should do something about it. This is not new news to Norfolk Southern. Um, so I'm not
going to say that if something happened there. I don't I can't speak for them. All I know is that we have consistently when the ideas come up in the past said you can't just do this without giving as much time as you humanly can that would
allow people the opportunity around here with the service providers and our community connections and things like that. So like when we got we didn't know the letter was coming when we got it. I think somebody from North Southern called both the health bureau and the police department which was our notification that that letter was coming. But like we didn't know what we
didn't know what date they were going to send the letter or whatever it was. We just expressed to them over and over again especially the police and community connections like if you were going to do something it really really needs to be like several months in advance rather than just something quickly. >> Okay. Thank you. That's all I have for
that. >> Councilwoman Leard staying on topic about Norfolk Southern. >> Yeah. Um, so I had just had a couple of questions to make sure that we're considering um
all options. Uh, one, has have there been any conversations with any nearby properties where um, camping may actually be allowed for because we know there are people that for whatever reason either can't or won't utilize
some of the uh, sheltering places available and for whatever reason camping is the right option for them. Um, so is assisting people with finding legal places to camp on the table? >> I think you've heard that concept talked
about in different places with different service providers. Um, obviously there's a challenge as far as um, land is concerned. Um, but I do not know of anything concrete at this particular time because there are a lot of things that go into that including liability
and insurance and things like that. Um so at this moment I can't I can't say with any certainty that anybody has any type of concrete plan there as far as their property is concerned. >> Okay. Um and in the past neighboring cities have uh opened warming stations
for daytime use. Um Bethlehem has not to my knowledge. Um, you know, we do have public buildings that people are welcome to spend time in, of course, but is that something that's being discussed as a, you know, not a solution, but a potential?
>> I think I think everything will be on the table at this point as far as potential options once we have an idea of what the particular need is, >> including from the information that we gather from the individuals. >> Okay. Um, and then as you consider, I
know you said you may be, you know, coming with an ask at some point in terms of budget moves or anything like that. Um, could you just also please uh make sure to consider any actual uh legislative changes that might be useful
in supporting um, you know, vulnerable members of our our community at the same time, not just budgets. >> Um, absolutely. I think that one thing that at some point and in the memo it talks about how um the amount of money
that's needed for BS is approximately $6 million. Um but it is like they I believe are not the date that they're supposed to open is October 15th, November 1st.
We do we think it think it's October 15th. So, and once again, I'm just speaking hypothetically here, like that goes back to an agreement from, I believe, a zoning hearing board decision like years ago, like well predating our administration.
>> But, and I don't even think that they're basically run by volunteers. So, I'm not saying that they necessarily I mean, I remember one time, I think it was like seven, eight years ago, where they weren't supposed to open till October 15th, but it was like really, really cold on like October 12th and 13th. And I think it was Mayor Donas at the time
that was just like open. So I think there's a conversation at some point about what those dates are. >> Um but I'm not speaking for BES because they're the ones that staff it. It's their volunteers. We have supported them financially in different ways to help
with the operation. I'm just saying as far as legis legislative changes are concerned. like that was a little bit of a like >> sure >> how do you come up with anything about those sorts of dates or what's allowable on different public land uses things things like that um we've talked before about bathrooms be you know anything
like that just if it if it could be sure to be part of the conversation >> since we have to be having these conversations unfortunately anyway >> um I want to make sure we're holistic about it. >> Yep. >> Uh that was all I had on this topic. Thank you. >> Anything else from members of council?
Councilman Quiet, >> I just briefly um because I think all my questions have really been asked and um this was a very thorough uh accounting of all of the work that's being done and wanted to thank um in particular Destiny and Terry um for their story, for their
openness to sharing um their lives. And I think that Destiny made the point um that I think Mayor Reynolds is making, which is that every individual has their own story. And as Mark Riddle said, you know, every individual has their own
challenges to um finding housing or or uh finding the right living situation for themselves. And so it is a very individualized approach that needs to happen. Um I did want to raise awareness, this is tangential but related. We received a a an email from
um Andrew Block who represents um Community Action of Lehigh Valley. um updating us on some very staggering statistics and these are concerns that only add to the um unfortunately uh to the difficulties. Uh and this is about
um food in particular. Um so $13 million in USDA food purchases have been terminated. He this is just a laundry list, but it's important to keep these things in mind. Wiping out fresh produce, dairy, and meat from 14 Pennsylvania food banks. Um, our largest
food donor, um, CLB runs Second Harvest. Um, United Natural Foods is closing its warehouse this fall, which will mean a loss of 500,000 pounds of food annually. 10,000 people are receiving less food each month than before. Um, and then you may have heard of the local food purchasing agreement, which is another
federal thing. Uh, $1.2 million lost from the local food purchasing agreement, which halted contracts with 43 regional farmers. Um, and so I wanted to just say that as we're moving into the winter months and things are are um not only difficult for our unhoused
neighbors down on the Norfolk southern land, but all of the folks in the in the region who are struggling, um, we need to keep this in mind as well. So, just to add to the uplifting conversation we're having tonight, but very necessary as Miss Lar said, thank
you. >> Thank you, Councilwoman. Any other comments on Norfolk Southern? Mr. Callahan, >> my my only question is uh the information that was provided was was very helpful, but for the upcoming months um how many does it how many beds
is the current um housing um shelter that we have at I think it's center and market. How many beds are can they hold >> at B at BS? >> Yes. >> What what number seven >> 70 >> 70? Yeah. >> Is that enough for the temporary time
period until >> So, one of the things that >> we have down there. >> So, historically, a lot of the people I I'm using a lot, it's just a general number, but a significant portion of the people that choose in the winter, I mean choose in the summer or their
circumstance summer that they're staying outside, a significant number of them do stay at BS. the number of people that we are going to see, some of them are going to choose for BES, some of them are going to make a determination to go somewhere else, go maybe it's I'm making
this up, but like it could be that this person suddenly is going to live with their family or going to live with somebody else, but one of the things we're trying to determine right now is through our files, through all of our contacts. It's like what percentage of those people are intending to go to
bees? And I'll just add and there are some other shelters that have other criteria like there's shelters that you know for for women like Hogara for example and then there are shelters in you know Allentown and East as well >> and and I will also say in the you know
to give all the information is like some of the people that are unsheltered are not allowed to go to BS like a number for a variety of reasons maybe there was a disagreement maybe they just said this I this we're not comfortable with this person here um there legal reasons as
Well, so it's not like a one one as far as like every single person here is going here because and I don't know what that particular number is and I would say from a public policy point of view it's very difficult to come up with what that exactly what that number is. Um, but it will not be a one to one. But like I said, that's what Carissa and
everybody is doing right now is trying to determine what the what the number is there and if there is basically a a delta or an increase from the percentage of people that used to go as just part of the yearly kind of um uh you know
choice to to go to utilize BS services and whether or not that number will be higher or not this year. >> Thank you. Any other questions or comments regarding or more folks southern? Uh, I'll just conclude before we move on by saying thank you to everyone who had reached out through
that memo today. I believe it was a week ago today if I'm not mistaken that we were notified by Norfolk Southern. So, it's a lot of things happening quickly in a week. Mayor Reynolds, you referenced, it'll take some time to see kind of what is on the table and I
believe unfortunately some things are going to have to come off the table that we're considering a week in just based on, you know, financials, operationally, things like that. So, I appreciate everyone keeping council informed as we move through. We're about to get into a
busy budget season with budget uh meetings and and such, but if it would be a benefit just to get information out there to potentially have a committee meeting, then that's something we could discuss as a council with the appropriate committees and um schedule that to see and just really try to get
as many facts out there as possible because like we talked about that number could be a hundred people. How many of those hundred individuals of free will want to choose option A, option B, option C? And again, what's what are we going to be able to even offer or coordinate with our
partners to to be some solution to this? Hey, Reynolds. >> Yeah, just two quick things to follow up on Councilman Quiet's point too is like there is less money out there from the federal government than there has been in the past for this and we need to be honest about that. We need to name that there are just less funds available than
there used to be to be able to provide these services. So we want to we want to name that. But second thing is like it is really I do think that as part of and this is what you know Mark and everybody did such a good job of this is like we need to expand I'm saying this as we say with you not at you like we need to
expand the amount of people that feel responsibility for this across Lehigh Valley. So any emails, any letters, anything to anybody with the counties to basically say like look, this is a responsibility, like what are you doing to, you know, how are you helping to
pull in burrow or municipality or township X to help with this? Like the only long-term solution here across the Lehigh Valley is getting all 62 municipalities to understand this is a shared interest. And every single person in this room, if we agree and disagree on things, like we are doing everything
we possibly can in the city of Bethlehem, we need other people to chip in. So, anything that anybody's willing to do as far as advocating on different levels of government is is extremely appreciative. Reynolds, correct me because I may be misremembering, but
when one of our recent projects and partnerships to help tackle the issue was announced, are we not the only city that are aren't these projects typically done at the county level and not at the city level? >> Absolutely. >> And we're unique that we are if not one
of the only city Yes. that's trying to tackle it at the city level. also in that I think you're referring to that last grant that we talked about is I think there were like 42 awards and 41 of them went to counties and one of them went to a city. >> Um and so that is that is fact. So
objectively we are doing more than other cities but we can't do it by ourselves because as we talk about just like housing >> homelessness is a regional problem. homelessness does not know municipal
boundary lines. An individual looking for safety does not know this is where the city becomes the township or where the township becomes the burrow. So I I just appreciate that uh clarity as we discuss it and again moving forward 3 months is a long time
but at the same time it's not a long time. So I'm sure we'll have other discussions as we move forward. Anything else from council about Norfolk Southern before we move on? All right, I will open it up since there is another topic at hand that has made
news. Let's move on to that for members of council. Move on to the topic of our Lehigh County Commissioner, former city employee. Mr. Spur, did you want to say something before we open it up to members of council? >> Yeah, President Cologne. Um, regarding
this matter, there's really not much we can say as you know. Um, this arrest was part of an ongoing three-year multi-state investigating grand jury task force headed out of uh Lehigh County. Um, spanned several states and
has resulted in a number of arrests, but it's ongoing. And for that reason, the district attorney who's in charge of the investigation has because of his desire to protect the integrity of the investigation has revealed very little information.
Now along with that you have the fact that all court documents have been sealed pursuant to grand jury secrecy. Those are the things where you usually get the probable cause affidavit and the criminal complaint and the charging documents which are the things that show
you the the evidence and the facts and the underlying circumstances which which we don't have here and may not for a while. Um, so because of that, as you know, the prosecutor, the DA has given out very very very limited information to preserve the integrity of the ongoing
investigation. We support that. Uh we we speaking of that support, we we cooperate with that. And in fact, the DA in his press release did single out uh the Betham police for their continued cooperation and helping to make the whole investigation happen. And of
course that cooperation is continuing and that support is continuing and part of that is not going to share any details too much beyond what has been revealed by the prosecutor. Um there is however one thing that I have
been authorized by the prosecutor to state and that is that there is no ongoing investigation of the city of Bethlehem or its officers, officials, employees, city council members. There's no ongoing
investigation of that and I have been authorized to say that much. >> Understood. I will still turn to members of council. Anyone who wanted that being said, Chief Cot, did you want to add to just the general comment before council?
>> Yes, just to reiterate that this is very much a active investigation. We're very limited in the information that we can provide just because everything is sealed like Mr. Spur said, but that the Bethleam Police Department fully cooperated with the Lehigh County
District Attorney's Office, and we will continue to do so. >> Understood. Thank you, Chief. Let me add separate from that there is the personnel issue, the employment issue, the HR issue and as you know um as is
often the case um when you have a situation of employee personnel or you have a situation of expected litigation there's going to be very little to say about that as well. >> Understood. been working in HR by day. I
fully recognize the sensitivity of speaking on >> HR director has released statement that the employee is effective last Thursday no longer employed by the city of Bethleam and that's pretty much as far as we can go. >> Understood. I'll still allow council to
have the floor as they wish. Questions start with counciloman Leon way around. I understand that you're limited in what you can say. So if you can't, you know, um, so they have commended Bethlehem police for being active and engaged in part of it. When
did we become an active ga engaged part of this conversation? >> Can't answer that. >> Fair enough. Um, I guess the only other two things I'll say because I feel like everything that I have to say would be something you can't answer. Um, one of
the weird things that I found out about when you got on council is this thing called executive sessions. And I have a lot of questions and I would encourage council or the administration. We have that HR committee. We have executive sessions. If there's conversations that need to be had that are delicate, we have avenues in which to do those
things. Granted, it's not going to change what you can and can't tell us. Um, but there are avenues in which to have this conversation. Um, the last question that I have because I just know the other ones are you're not going to answer. And
I am a big believer in the United States. I love our country. Um, and I'm a big believer in innocence till proven guilty. So, I'm just curious as to why he was immediately terminated if he hadn't gone through the full due
process. >> Can't answer that either. No, I mean at some point if there's litigation reasons and >> that that process will >> okay >> subject to perhaps depositions, perhaps court hearings or something like that and and wish to
prejudice that process. >> Okay. >> When it comes out if it should happen. >> Fair enough. Thank you. Those are the only ones I have. President CL >> understood. Any other questions, comments from members of council? Councilwoman Crancy Smith. >> Thank you. Um, I know it's a really
delicate issue, but I just have two questions, I guess. I'm wondering, um, were any city council members alerted by administration or the mayor to this incident occurring? >> Was anyone in city council alerted by the mayor or administration that this
happened? >> No. >> Okay. Can you tell us why not? >> I mean, it was a newspaper story as soon as it happened. I know, but this is my concern that I was told that an employee was arrested, taken out in handcuffs,
and there's other employees and people in city hall. And I think that's traumatizing. You know, coming from a counselor's perspective, that's traumatizing for people. And we are a branch of government. And I could be wrong, but I feel strongly that as a
branch of government, we should have been informed of this. And I shouldn't have to read it in the paper or hearsay from people. That's, you know, truly how I feel. Um, the other question is, and and again, we may disagree on this, but I'm wondering why there was never any a
statement from the mayor administration regarding this just to reassure the residents of our community. If you look at the statement that Lehigh County put out, it was benign, objective, and it was reassuring. And I think that that is really important. I think the people in
the community look for the mayor or the leader to make a statement about something that is as delicate and concerning as this. >> I I guess one difference is he was an elected official in Lehigh County and
500 5,843 people. >> Well, the other side is he was employee in the city and he was arrested in city hall. So, I'm gonna ask we don't speak over each other. Everybody please Mr. Spur, if you want to finish your comments, but and then respond, please,
Councilwoman, I just ask we don't get in the habit tonight of speaking over each other. >> Yeah, I usually don't, but I just like to get to the point. Thank you. >> Do you have anything else? >> Finish. That's okay. I'm good. >> No, I guess what what I was going to say, and I'm sorry for interrupting, is that again, this person was an employee
and the arrest occurred in city hall. So I think that the residents of the city hall are due some kind of statement again just to reassure them because also um you know without getting into details they worked in the legal department and you know people are going to be concerned about what what really
happened and what's going on and again I know we can't get into details but we could have I think gave just a very benign neutral statement and reassuring that we're doing everything we can to make sure that the city of Bethlehem is still operating as efficient iently as we can.
>> And I I would just say as far as me personally is concerned, um it's that and Mr. Spur could tell you that you know there's been a lot more that I would like to be able to say that between Mr. Spur and our labor council which was the advice of the labor
council with the potential for employee litigation moving forward is don't say anything other than this person no longer works here. I have a whole lot of thoughts and I will tell you as a general comment is that one of the unfortunate parts of this job that I
didn't see coming was the fact that Mr. Haki or Chief Cot or somebody would walk in and say, "Look, this happened with this person in public works or this happened with this police officer. This happened with this firefighter. happened and there is a wide mix of emotions that
I think a lot of people are feeling um especially the people um that worked closely with this individual and I was my first inclination was was that I would like to say more than they want to let me say and Mr. Burke could be here
and he and he and I have had that conversation probably about five times in the last 6 days. But it is the advice of our labor council for us specifically to not say anything other than the fact that this individual is no longer employed here because as Mr. Spur said,
you don't know what's going to happen next. And you add that into what the district attorney's statement was, which is that it was ongoing. Um we appreciated his thanks to the Betham Police Department. We appreciated him as well going out of his way to tell Mr. Spurk that this is an isolated incident
as far as there's not anybody else that's being looked at here as far as the city of Betham is concerned. That wasn't something that he necessarily needed to do in my opinion. Um, but as far as like why I didn't have more to say personally, it's because they told
me that I should not make any comments. >> Thank you. I think it's unfortunate because I I understand um that you can't say a lot but I think just giving some level of reassurance to the to residents really um would have been very helpful and to the employees too.
>> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Are we going to continue? Okay. Because I have one more. >> We'll stay on this topic and then we'll kind of move on to our traditional new business. >> Mr. I I guess I would cite as reassuring the statement that there is no ongoing
investigation of the city of Bethlehem or its officers, officials, employees or city council members. I would cite that as reassuring. I found so. Thank you, Mr. Other comments from members of council. Mr. Callahan. >> Yeah, thank you. I, you know,
it's obviously a very sensitive uh situation and I understand I don't want to discuss any of the specifics of the arrest in city hall. I don't want to discuss anything about um his actions or anything like that. I have uh I have
questions about the process prior to him and and the arrest. I think uh Miss Crampy Smith's point is I think 24 hours went by before it was in the in the newspaper and I think it would have been you know I I'm not
picking on you mayor. I I was upset with uh Mayor Donz uh when I found out from a bunch of people that a individual who was under our custody hung himself in one of our cells. I think when things
like this happen, I think it's uh ultimately the responsibility of the mayor to notify his equal branch because we here are an equal to you. you need four votes to get anything done in this city. And I think it would be a common
courtesy that if something of this nature, I'm not talking about something small, but this is this is obviously um a big event that council members, elected officials should probably have have been notified whether you know you
you were I don't know if you're on vacation. I I don't know what was going on, but I just would hope that in in the future if something this big happens that at the minimum city council is reached out to and and and told of what minimal amount of information that you
could provide to us just so we know so we don't have to hear about it in a newspaper or get phone calls at 12 o'clock at night from from other people in the city. Go ahead. Um just to answer that and I do remember um and obviously I know we have a lot of disagreements but you are correct. I remember you
being frustrated at Mayor Donz's administration that didn't share that at the time. Um so I just want to acknowledge that as being I remember that um as well. It was a situation as well where we were in the process and I don't want to speak for Chief Scott and Mr. Spur,
but we were in the process of finding out information, including what was the Lehigh County District Attorney's plan as far as sharing information or not. And it was not a situation where we necessarily were going to get out
because, as Mr. Spur had said, information was sealed. So, we were also in the process of trying to find out what was going on. and we weren't sure whether or not there was going to be a press conference and things on Thursday or on Friday morning and things like that. So, it was one of those situations
where we're looking for information as well. The way that it got out as well from here was that people told other people not in city hall that this happened and rumors started flying and people started sharing those rumors and
people started telling other people and things like that and it just we didn't have the information and the extent of the information that we got happened after that press conference at Friday at 11:30 which is what Mr. Spur just
referenced as well. So we were also in the process and I believe it happened at the end of the day. So specifically the chief and other people were trying to figure that out. Um as far as this as far as that information was concerned if there was information that was clear to be able to share with city council at a
given time we 100% would have done that but also the information that we knew did get out as far as two hours later was concerned. And we didn't know necessarily what was true, what everything that was true and was not true at that particular point. So we were trying to gather information just
like I'm sure you happen. It's like, hey, I got to find out the story here before I necessarily am able to share with what happened or what didn't happen. So like that's what was going on necessarily in in real time was not like oh this one thing happened. It's like this one thing happened. We want to know
what else gives in here to be able to answer as many different questions as possible. And as that information, we didn't know what was happening on Thursday, Friday because as Mr. Spur said, it was a private private is the wrong word. It was a investigation that was not the information was not shared
in the way that often times these things are. >> What What time was the arrest made though? Was it was it in the morning? >> No, it was sometime in the afternoon, I believe. >> I mean, I just think that you know, Mayor, you you have press releases and press conferences for almost everything,
which which is a great thing. We want people to know what's going on in the city, whether it's a flag raising or um you know the Irish American flags going to get raised here or we're we're having some type of pray. It's about sharing information as much as possible. And in that situation is is as is as Miss
Crampy Smith said um Lehi County Commissioners made a statement and I think the head of the um Lehigh Valley uh community action she released a statement also and there was not there was I don't know the lady's name but she
she had released a statement that was in the paper within 24 hours. I just think that at the bare minimum, city council, we should have been told told told of it and I think at the bare minimum, you should have released a press statement just saying that, you know, at this
point that there was an arrest in city hall. Uh, as far as we know, we can't discuss any we don't know any of the information. Uh, a city employee was arrested. He was taken out in handcuffs and, uh, at this point he is terminated, but but something should have came out.
I mean, that's just >> and I would say that our statement to every single media inquiry that reached out was that as I said before as far as filing a labor council's advice was that this person is no longer employed by the city of Bethlehem. Beyond that, Mr. Callian and Mr. Spur or Chief could
tell you is like we're also following that I we can't tell the Lehigh County what to do. We can't tell Community Action what to do, but we also, as we talked about, have a good relationship with the Lehigh County District Attorney's Office as far as the police
department is concerned, as far as the city is concerned. And there was it was not advised as far as talking about this information because as we probably saw too was the nature of how that information got out was like it was only one name out of the people that were
arrested. So, we were not going to like it was not in our space to tell the district attorney's office either the details of what's going on or how things fit in or things like that. So, I'm not saying it's an easy situation, but because of
the nature of how whatever some people might say, use the word leak got out as far as somebody calling people and saying, "Look, this happened and so on and so forth before all of the information was together." But we are always going to and I mean, Mr. Spur, you worked in Northampton County District Attorney's Office for a number of years, correct? like it just you're
going to listen to what the district attorney's office wants you to do, >> right? And and I appreciate that and and and I understand you're you're put in a position very sensitive, you know, you know, position not to reveal anything. I get it. But I think at the bare minimum
um you could have made a statement to us as council members or to uh the public just saying, "Hey, there wasn't because you I don't know who's whose idea. I'm sure it wasn't our police department. I'm sure who I don't know whose idea it was to arrest him in city hall in the
middle of the day, but whoever did that, I guarantee you knew that there's no way someone's being walked out of here. I don't know what floor he's on, but there's no way someone's being walked out of here in handcuffs. And within 15 minutes, the whole city hall's a buzz
about it. I mean, I started hear I started hearing things about four hours later. So, you know, you know, I'm just saying that a statement should should have been made and I would hope in the future moving forward if something like this happens again at the minimum council needs to be informed of it. That
that's just my opinion. Whether you file that, I don't know. But anyways, I want I want to move on from there. So, prior to him becoming uh the right to know officer, we had a right to know officer that was here for 5 years. And by all accounts that I've spoken to,
people did a hell of a job. Why was Mr. Borgi brought in at the beginning of your administration? >> We uh had a recommendation from um lawyer that I know and have worked with.
Um I had met him on a couple of occasions. Um brought in a lot of new people with my staff. Um which is what I did at the county when I became county solicitor. And >> does he work for you? He works better than you. >> He does. He's in my office. Yeah, that's
where he is. He's the right to know act officer. Whenever there's a request for information, uh that position fills that, processes that, gets the information, makes the initial determination of whether it can be released or not. And I think I think it
was only like three months after he'd been elected by 59% of the voters in in Lehigh County, District 3. So I took that as kind of a recommendation too that that people trusted him and that he would be trustworthy. So that's why I >> Is there a a yearly evaluation done on
him or on on employees? >> A yearly? No. >> So he's never had he's been there for what three three years now? >> Yeah. >> And he's never had an evaluation done in any way >> every day. I mean I'm I'm there I evaluate him. >> So
I don't know if this is true. It's what you know I know how rumors go. Um, I've I've heard that he was a um he was a a vacation planner pri prior to this job. He was and then he was a head
of the Northeast Community Center, which is a very small community center, I guess, in Marvin and Penrook. I'm not sure how that qualifies him to become a right to know officer in the city of Bethl. That that's that's what I'm trying to get at. like how did this guy get this position when we already had someone at that that was there in the
Donz administration for 5 years and did an unbelievable job? I I don't know >> what was that person's qualifications before they took that job. >> I don't know. I don't know. So I'm just I'm just I'm just puzzled at how a vacation planner uh becomes the
right to know officer in in in the city. So, I I just feel that if that person was in a position and Mayor Reynolds, you'll know this again, when Mr. Donz became uh mayor, he wanted a new police officer or police chief and fire chief.
I fought him on it because I I I felt that it was his right to bring in a new administration as far as anybody that he wanted. But as far as public safety was concerned there if there wasn't a problem with that current police chief and fire chief I
was against uh plain you know I'm in office now I'm bringing in my own administration and I get that you need a lot of all mayors need a lot of leeway and hiring the people that they trust to be part of their cabinet but I just felt
at that time that that that was not the right move to do and I I fought him on I wasn't on counsel at the time when Mr. Borgie came in and I and you know the the the questions I had about the you know the real estate uh businessman that got appointed two you know two weeks ago
or a month ago. I just think in there's things that are being brought up that are raising a lot of red flags to me and and I just think at some point the rest of council's got to step up. I mean it can't be me all the time and and Miss Crampy Smith quite we we have oversight
responsibilities. We do. That's our main job as council members. We're not here to rubber stamp everything and just let everything go. We're here to question things. And I'm not I'm not talking about the library board. I was talking about the planning board. I was just asking for a twoe
delay on it and we couldn't even get that over a $15,500 campaign donation. So, this is the kind of things I'm talking about. I'm just asking for us to start acting a as our our our dutiful right as elected officials to provide oversight. That's
our job. What uh what qualities of working for Northeast Ministries for a number of years would would you think that would bring? What what qualities in that person would you think would be working for a nonprofit for a number of years in Northeast Ministries? And do
you think those qualities and experiences would qualify him? >> Are you talking about Mr. Borgie? >> Yeah. Yeah. What is it about Northeast Ministries that would >> you know I don't know if it was Northeast Ministries. I thought it was Northeast Community Center. >> Northeast Community Center. Okay. Yeah.
>> Yeah. >> I don't know. >> Okay. >> I don't know. >> So my my question is this. So, and I this might be for you or or or or chief. Um,
he had access as as a right to know officer. He had access to a lot of different things as a right to know officer. One of the things that uh he had access to emails, everybody's
emails as a right to know, officer, does he have access to everybody's emails? I mean, I'll just interject that >> only if somebody files right to >> Right. I I was going to say only if there's a right to no request and actually >> How about So So the police department
also has There's all these different things that I I have questions on. The police department has it's called Mark uh what's the police reports system? >> Mark 43. >> Mark 43. Did he have access to that also?
>> He did. Yes. So he has he does every right to know officer get access to that? >> Yes. >> Okay. So do we know so he has the ability to go into the police reports at any time? >> Not anymore. >> Yeah, I know that. But my my question is
and I think this needs to be addressed. I don't know if you address it or if we need to send a letter to the district attorney. Did he ever do we know if he if he ever access the police reports the Mark 43 police report program? Did he ever access it for
something other than if it's a right to know request? I get it. He has to go in there to do some research on this. But did he ever go in and and research things and log in? I'm assuming he had a password. Did he ever log into that Mark 43 police reporting system
where all the police reports are in there? Right. All the >> Well, that that's clearly part of the investigation, right? That would certainly be something that would be part of the investigation. >> Is that something that we're investigating or is it Lehigh County District Attorney investigating? >> I can't comment on that. If I were a DA
and I were prosecuting somebody I that that I arrested, I'd look at that and I would expect that the prosecutors >> because my my my concern is if does that if he has access to that, does he have access to state to other police departments reporting systems also or
just Betham Police Department? >> Just the Bethlehem police department. >> All right. So I would just I I know that um we can't talk about it here. I would highly um encourage you and and you, Mr. Spur, I don't know who what dealings you
have with the the FBI or whoever's running this or Lehigh County DA. >> It's Lehigh County DA. >> Yeah. That that there's some major things that I think have to be addressed. Was he using that system outside of any right to no request? Because if he was, that's I believe
criminal that he he I mean, if he has a right to no request and he has to go in, no problem with that. That's his job. he was doing his job. But if he was going in and looking at police reports of individuals, maybe people that um that he liked or disliked, that needs to be
addressed. And my second question is if he did do that >> Well, it's been addressed. He's not there now. >> Right. >> That that's been addressed. >> No, you're right. >> Not doing it now. >> I know. But that needs to be addressed that yes, he was going in and accessing this this police reporting system for issues and and data that had nothing to
do with any right to no request that that was asked of them. >> Again, I'm sure that's part of the grand investigation. >> And I I'd appreciate it if you made sure that if you pass that on, right? The second thing is is um the the the
uh what's the RMS system? >> Mark 43 >> that oh that it's just a different name. >> Management system. >> It's just a different name. >> Yes. >> Okay. And then the um hold on a second. So, and then if he did do that, is there
any civil liability on the city? >> Yeah, I'm not going to speculate or do hypotheticals on if >> All right. Yeah, I would just ask that question. >> What if there is? That would be another reason not to discuss it because it would be potential litigation, >> right? But he does not outside of the
Betham Police Department reporting system, he has no other access to the state police or an town. >> No. >> So, there was no way that he could access this stuff and tip off people that were in his his um I don't know I don't know what you call it group or
excuse me um >> I I'll just remind everybody because I know we're kind of tiptoeing around it these are there's a presumption of innocence and and we have to be mindful and Mr. count. I appreciate your question. So, please, I'm going to give you the floor back in a moment, but that
there is an ongoing investigation. >> Uh, there there were some charges that were mentioned, you know, publicly. There is a presumption of innocence. Everyone has a right to a fair and impartial trial. The district attorney is tasked with running a fair prosecution. So, I I just
don't want us to get into the world of hypotheticals. If this, then this, what about this? Uh I do think there will be, you know, adequate time moving forward at potential dates to kind of talk in greater detail as other things maybe are, you know, released, come to light,
information is shared, things like that. I would just be mindful of um speculation at this point relative to the employee. >> I'm trying to tiptoe around it. I'm really I'm seriously not trying to ask any questions that pertain to the investigation. I'm just asking about uh
this the city's role and liability in this. That's it. But there's liability on the city too depending on how we answer some questions. >> Right. Right. Um the other thing that that that came up and uh Miss Jockey, I don't know if you
can help me out with this or not, but or Mr. Reynolds or Mr. Spur or or Chief. Um we all know how rumors fly, right? Uh so I don't know. I've I've heard this from several people within city hall that
called me that a he very rarely showed up for his job in city hall and number and b he had an overabundance is what I was told of right to no
request sitting on his desk that he never handled. >> Yeah, we're not going to discuss his job performance or anything related to that. it's a personnel matter and if someday there's litigation over the fact that he's no longer an employee then I'm sure that'll all be the subject of
performance things like that and those will be in depositions or somewhere but but not here >> as an HR matter. >> Yeah. But we can't verify that we can or we can't verify that he showed up to work on a regular basis. >> Yeah. I'm not going to uh discuss his
work performance or anything about that or anything that went into any decisions that were made. That's uh something that I think is a personnel matter, an HR matter, and something that's a potential litigation that will best be addressed. Then, >> was there a clock? My my my reason in
asking this is because if he was not showing up for work on a regular basis, who was supervising him? Why wasn't he reprimanded? And then secondly, can there's a potential of a claw back of us taking back if he wasn't
doing his job and showing up. and there's a huge uh backlog of right to no requests. There's a potential of us backlogging uh pay from him. >> That was about half a dozen ifs and I think that therefore their hypotheticals if this if that what?
>> Right. But is this something that you will look into as time progresses or do we have to bring this up again or is this something that I can assure that you're going to look into? >> You're welcome to bring anything up at any time. No, no, >> I know. But can can you can you look
into this for us? >> Was he showing up on time and after after his trial's done or whether he if he's found guilty at that time, then we can discuss this? >> Well, I think I know a lot about his job performance, but I'm just not able to share it. >> All right.
Um, so, so again, my main questions are, was he shown to work? And, and I guess this is something that we will have to look into later, uh, after the trial or whenever we're permitted to discuss it. Was he looking at records outside of his
scope of of of his job as a right to know officer? And um was he showing up to work and then the backlog of the request? And those are my my main three things. My last question is and and I'm I'm sure you're not going
to be able. I think we need to have a full accounting um a full and fair accounting of whe on of of also of his cell phone. Was he making phone calls from uh during work
hours to any of the associates? From what I was told or what I read, it was a sevenst state uh 40 or 80, I don't know if it was 40 or 80 people involved with his drug ring. And was he contacting anybody in
that any of those associates while he was working here at city hall? I think those are things that the council needs to know and the residents of the city need to know and I think that's a fair question. >> I'm certain the district attorney wants to know and I'm certain that's part of his investigation and therefore not
something that I'm going to discuss. >> Um is it is it possible for city council as a whole to write a letter asking the district attorney um for the phone records of the individual
to check and see if he was talking to any of his associates in the seven state drug ring. Is that a a is that something that council could do or the mayor the administration could could do? >> Council has separate their their se I'm
not the solicitor for council so I wouldn't want to address that. I would say that's something that any uh outreach to the Lehigh County DA's office you ought to do, Mr. Calhan should facilitate through our solicitor Stewart. >> I will. Thank you.
Um, last question is, and this is important. I'm not trying to play gotcha on it. Was he involved with your campaign at all, Mr. Borgi? >> What do you mean by involved in my campaign? >> Did he help you out with the campaign at
all? Did he work with the campaign at all? Did he >> uh I think he voted for me, but as far as assistance is concerned, I had one employee. So that was that was all I had. >> So you he he at no time helped you out
with your campaign at all. I don't know what he told people to do as far as voting is concerned, but he's a city employee and as far as, you know, I wasn't doing campaigning here and the one person that helped me out out of here that I was paying to knock on doors
with me and things like that occurred outside of here and that's that's not something that I ever did with him. >> Did he at any time give you any donations on record? >> I don't believe so, but I would have to I'd have to take a look in that. But I believe the answer is no.
>> All right. All right. For now, I guess that's it. I'm uh I listen uh it's a sad day. I mean, this is uh this is the third uh um Betham City employee that's been arrested in the last three years. We had
Mr. Civc and then I believe there was a police officer um over in East Hills uh middle school and now this. And uh I can only hope that I know nobody wants to be grilled ever. I don't want to be grilled
in front of people. I'm sure you don't either. And but it comes with the position. And I think that there's some reflecting that has to be done on not only on you as far as not notification to council of the of these things, but also to council that we start acting in
our role as as uh uh an oversight uh and and and a a council that's supposed to be asking questions on a regular basis and not just rubber stamping everything. So until um I get more information um I'm I'm done with this. Thank you.
Counciloman Quitech. >> Um, yes. I actually uh wasn't going to say anything but was um kind of alarmed to listen and consider the idea that there are uh people uh in positions of
trust uh in parts of our city that are um spreading rumors and speaking to people about things which they shouldn't be speaking about. Um, one of the things that occurred to me was, uh, this is not just an ongoing investigation here in
Bethlehem, but it is a multi-state investigation and they were executing a lot of warrants kind of simultaneously. And for us to spread the information about an individual and name that person would have impacted the proceedings of
the um of the serving of the warrants of the you know there was obviously it was a culminating moment in this investigation um not just here in Bethlehem but in in several states. And um so uh I guess uh
is is there recourse for I can't imagine I mean I worked in HR for um almost 15 years and I can't imagine talking about uh someone's firing uh outside of the walls of the office of human resources.
Um that was just not something that you did. So um I and you know we had people who were let go within HR that you know to this day I don't know why um because
that's how closely held this information is supposed to be. So, I guess I'm actually just more expressing a concern that um you know, yes, it's good in the fullness of time to get as much information as we can to hopefully
prevent things from happening again. I'm quite confident that um you know the the actions of uh the officer who recently I believe plead guilty to horrible uh activity and behavior uh is not a
reflection on uh anybody else but that officer. So I I'm not sure where that's relevant. But putting that aside um and again with the presumption of innocence uh that all um people who are arrested and charged with crimes have in this
country I believe still you know checking uh the latest executive orders. Um I think I'm just expressing my concern about the fact that um that uh that this information may have been
inappropriately shared. And I hope that um you know I mean there are there are times when it's appropriate for a whistleblower if there is something uh truly that is to you know have a whistle blown. Um but just uh calling people to
tell them things that you're not supposed to tell anybody uh seems like something that maybe should be followed up on with whatever department that um this took place in. So, no, no question, just a comment. >> Thank you, Councilwoman. Any other
Councilwoman Lair? >> Yeah. Um, I have three general policy questions because I do not want to um say anything that could potentially impact any investigations or whatnot or somebody's fair trial. Um, general
policy, uh, is there a written policy on employment status if you are subject to criminal charges or arrest for any employee in the city? Like, is that in the handbook or anything?
No. Okay. Um, so it's a case byase situation. Okay. Um, and then, uh, is there a policy, a confidentiality policy, uh, referencing what
Councilwoman Quitech just said, where if somebody who is a city employee, inappropriately shares information about someone else's employment status or about, you know, anything that is confidential within our city, um,
that outlines uh the ramifications or you know in black and white prohibits people from discussing people's employment status etc. that would fall under the code of ethics and expectations for employees but not specifically if you do this.
>> Okay. So I'm just repeating because of the microphones. >> Mahaki if you if you respond again if you don't mind doing so at the microphone >> to repeat that would fall into the code of ethics is what the answer was. Um and that that is distributed to every employee
>> correct upon employment. Yes. >> Um okay. So, uh, if it were to if it were to come to light that someone did inappropriately share information that wasn't to be shared about this or any other situation, then there could be disciplinary measures taken um, in
accordance with that code of ethics. >> Correct. >> Okay. Thank you. Um, and then this one is uh, more on communication, but in this regard uh, is HR. So, I don't know who the right person to answer it is. Um we've talked before about communications
planning for the city and that um there's future work to be done or just getting underway uh about communications plans to the public from the city. Um is there a communications plan for the
administration to city council and or to other government officials? like if something were happening that the county needed to be notified of um you know could be an emergency, could be a big happening, could be an event. Um is there an
official uh plan for how who is the start of a phone tree? Whatever it whatever it is, you know, is is there something on paper about how that happens? >> Yeah, I mean as far as the public safety emergency services, like absolutely. And Captain Griffin could tell you about
that extensively if you'd like to about kind of like what happens there as far as like who contacts who at what particular situation and stuff like that. So, so that is absolutely the case. >> I think at my seat I on that front I would be curious like who calls city council, who who's you who should I be
answering the phone for if there's an emergency. But um okay, so that is in that plan. Beyond official emergencies like uh that would fall under that plan. Is there a communications uh method or that or structure for notifying uh city
council or anybody other elected officials? >> No, I mean I would tell you is like let's say that there's a fire or let's say there's a police event or something like that. Um it would be pretty much up to the discretion of the department head with the conversation I guess with the
mayor's office um if there was an appropriate update at some point as far as city council was concerned. Um but that's generally been a there's a lot of different mitigating factors there as far as what that process looks like depending on when it is what happens
what's in the news. Do we have different information from then? Like this is kind of how it is. There something that's kind of up in the air like where people don't know what happened if there was like a fire and 37 people were displaced. It's like have we found a place for all 37 people. So it's it's
kind of an ongoing situation, but there's not like if a happens then tell them at this point because in any type of situation that rises to that level, there's always different mitigating factors as far as the chief being like we can't say anything about this yet or Michelle
saying uh m I'm sorry, Mr. Hockey saying this is an HR matter like we shouldn't do that. Or it also could be a situation where it's like we're trying to also figure out where Mr. hockey, I was always like, I got to talk to Mr. Spurk and then we got to call our labor council and then we got to call this
person and like all of those different factors like are weighing together um as far as like necessarily when somebody is is told about something or or not. Or also one of the things sometimes that's a trigger is city council members. So
like if a couple of members reach out to the mayor's office and say, "Hey, what's going on with this?" sort of reach out to the chief and then they say, "Okay, two council members asked about this, so we're going to send this to this is we're going to send everybody information." >> Um, yeah, and I I do certainly recognize
that there are individual circumstances that impact all sorts of communications. I guess I was more wondering about um you know and it it does not exist it seems but like um could there be then perhaps a
framework recognizing nuance um that says whenever this type of thing happens or whenever this type of event is coming up um or you know because maybe it's not an emergency maybe it's a planned thing right uh that would say here are the
things that we always communicate to city council and here are the things that you know we don't feel the need to specifically every single time reach out to say there's a pothole or whatever. um just you know some level and I I do
recognize that's not a very straightforward question but since the city is looking at communications planning in general >> I'm thinking that um communicating with other >> you know specifically our council but it could go the other way too like a county or whatever >> and and we we absolutely can have that
conversation. I think one thing that we have been pretty good about as well um is when there's a topic that's talked about extensively at city council meeting whether or not it's Miss Collins or Mr. Tulo or Mr. Alcohol or somebody following up with more information. >> Um, as far as like this was something
they talked about for 45 minutes. Let's spend two hours tomorrow putting this information and getting it out. Um, and then obviously forwarding thing to the city clerk's office to get out there as well. As far as these like real-time things, I think that would also be a conversation as far as like what you know what would be able to be shared at
some point. Um, I will be honest with you is that at some point as these there's always that determination that you have and I'll just on my personal life like if something happens at home with the two-year-olds, I'm like I'm going to let this thing play out over the next 40 minutes before I call my wife and tell her what happened because
like she's going to have these seven questions that I can't answer now but I can answer in 40 minutes or maybe I can answer and like she needs to meet us at the hospital. I don't know. Um, but like the you you understand it's like there's always that in between. >> And I will also be completely honest
with you is I'm not talking about you specifically, but one thing I've learned in this job too is that like sharing it's like whisper down the alley times 100 by which somebody tells. So if I tell you something and then you post
something on Facebook and then somebody shares it and then this happens and then somebody calls me like I heard this happened and I heard you're going to the moon or something and it just so far away from that. So there also comes down to the sharing with information and this is why so many people here ask good questions because about everything
because then once we talk about what is true I know all six of you go out there and repeat everything that's actually factual to everybody and then other people in our community are like you know what I did not understand this and then I had a conversation with this council person who found out the answer from the administration and now I'm
going to make it my mission to go out and share the proper information with people so therefore misinformation is not shared. So like I am very appreciative of the fact that all six of you do that. It's something though that we're going to have to think about in the future though as far as some of these situations are concerned um about
like what should be shared. But we are also open to having that kind of communication channel as far as like you know what is it that people are looking to hear now versus something that can wait for the council meeting or wait for whatever it might be. >> Yeah. And I I do recognize that whenever
I've reached out with questions um or many times proactively I have received uh any information that I'm looking for, I've never been turned away. Um I was just thinking that sometimes it makes things easier when there are big things come up if there's a framework to start with
>> um to point to as as a baseline for how things operate. Um so th those were my questions. Thank you. Any other questions or comments regarding this topic? Mr. Callian, >> I just want to add that, you know, I think in in this situation that that
happened with him being arrested here in his office and walked out of city hall, um, everybody had to probably at some point realize this is getting out. It's not something that like uh an employee uh felt something wrong was going wrong
in the department and went to the mayor or went to a council member or went to Miss uh Chiaki and explained something. This was something that multiple people saw and within 15 20 minutes words running all over the city hall. That's
the only reason why I was thinking that there should have been a phone call to council so we didn't hear this from other people. And that's and and and as um as uh C councilwoman Lair said, you know, it's a delicate thing. We don't need to know about every pothole and everything like that, but there are
certain things that we we would hope that you you as an administration would say, you know what, this is something that the council needs to know about because we're an equal branch of government with the mayor. And I would just hope that in the future and and I
want to tell all city employees uh this and I hope they they hear it loud and clear. Um if you see something wrong or or you feel something's not right, it's your duty and your job to either go to a council member, the mayor, or Mr. Jaki
and inform us about it because we're we're the people that are in in charge of uh the city. We're the elected officials. And if you can't go to a council member or the mayor or Mr. Haki, then go to a department head.
But I can I can tell you um and everybody that your confidence I've never ever I I have people stop by my house on a weekly basis or and and tell and tell me things and I've never ever mentioned anybody's name. So I your our
city employees are our ears. I can't know everything that's going on in every department, but I I want to know if something's wrong, and I I hope you continue to reach out to myself and other council members um to make us knowledgeable of of what's going on in
this city. Thank you. >> Anything else from any other members of council? I'll just conclude by thanking everybody for your discretion as you ask questions and look for answers that this isn't really an appropriate venue to to
discuss. There will be a I'm sure a long timeline as it relates to these matters. Uh I know member council had referenced an executive session. Should it be the will of council or someone interested in discussing that in the future? I'm about
to relinquish the seat in the middle in a couple months, but that's something that um depending on the timing, either myself or I'm confident the next council president could at least have that discussion. But again, we're working with unknown timelines and these are things that are handled sensitively
because they should be handled sensitively. and and as it relates to kind of notifications and things like that, one of the things people hear me repeat as I repeat a lot of phrases is it's always good to know more than to know less. I appreciate information, but
at the same time, I recognize as it relates to what we're talking about that there are certain things that we just have to be very mindful of and I going back to the previous topic as it relates to Norfolk Southern. Um um I'll say the administration reached out to me before
it was released to the press and we had a little bit of back and forth and I had some preliminary questions that were answered and I appreciated that and then shortly later that day when I actually had time to myself it had already been been made public and everyone had a chance to see it. So uh you know if
there's ever ways that we could do anything better of course I invite them but at the same time I recognize that things have to be handled case by case depending on what it is that we're talking about. So, I'm going to move on from that topic, but I will we're still on new
business. Councilwoman Camy Smith. >> Okay. Um I just have a a committee um report, but I also wanted to say on that subject, I remember we used to have and I don't know if we could look into it. Um I think it was every year, every two years, an executive session to get a um update on if there's any legal issues
like lawsuits. And I think it's been a while. So, I don't know if somebody could look into that and see if we're within that time parameter that we should be doing that. >> Yeah, definitely something we could look into. I mean, if my memory serves me correctly, we've had kind of general updates available in the clerk's office,
I believe, at one point for council to review. I could be misremembering, but long story short, we'll look into it. >> Okay. Because I thought there was a time frame that it's like every year, every two years, but I'm not sure. We would have executive sessions to talk about pending litigation against the city and get updates on where we were at with
those. >> Okay. I just have a um um announcement of the finance committee. The finance committee will meet on Tuesday, September 16th, 2025 at 6 PM in town hall, a proposed budgeted transfer to support the World Heritage Program will be discussed. Grace Crampsy Smith,
Chairwoman of Finance Committee. >> Thank you, Councilwoman. And as as I jog my memory, I think I'm thinking of audit results that we had our audit results >> available in the clerk's office to review at our at our leisure.
>> Again, I could be conflating things. >> I remember just it was on like pending lawsuits or litigation within the city. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> Anything else on new business members of council? All right. We're going to move on. Thank you everybody. Thank you, Mayor Reynolds, Mr. Spur, Mr. Haki.
Communications Communication 6A an >> August 13 2025 memorandum and proposed resolution from business administrator Eric Evans. Mr. Evans recommends an agreement with Engel Hambrite and Davies Incorporated of Y missing to provide
self-insured workers compensation program management services. Contract period would run from January 1st, 2026 through December 31st, 2029. An annual cost of $60,000. There are no renewals.
And resolution 10A is on the agenda tonight. 6B was withdrawn. 6 C an >> August 27th, 2025 memorandum from solicitor John Spark Jr. with an attached use permit and resolution. Permit is humanitarian social
innovations and subperity is Arts Quest. The event is the Bethlehem petas one-year celebration. The parade will be held from 1:30 to 2:00 p.m. on September 21st with the celebration to follow from 2 to 6:00 p.m. Duration will be 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. for the parade and
noon to 700 p.m. for the other celebration events. Premises will include the sidewalk at the corner of West Church Street and New Street for a parade check-in table and First Street from Founders Way to the Eastern Terminus for the rest of the celebration activities.
And resolution 10 C is on the agenda 6D, >> an August 21st, 2025 memorandum from business administrator Eric Evans regarding the 2026 budget for the pension minimum municipal obligations. Act 205, the pension reform law requires
chief administrative officer to submit for 2026 purposes the financial requirements of the plans and the minimum municipal contribution to the plans of the governing body of the city based on the most recent actuarial valuations and payroll data. The minimum
municipal contributions that will be need to be budgeted for 2026 are as follows. Police 7,65,459 fire 2,942,151 and PMRS 3,6,699. >> Thank you, Mr. Miller. And that memo is
for information only. No votes will be taken. Nothing to vote on. Reports. I have nothing to report this evening, Mr. Mayor. >> Just two quick things. One is uh we have a world heritage community celebration on Saturday from uh 12 to 7. Uh I want
to thank Miss Aello and uh Miss Stein who have been working a lot on that. Um and also with our other partners HBMS and Central Moravian and Marian University. Um so weather looks good for now. So then um but yeah 12 to7 community celebration on Saturday and
I'll just briefly talk about how we are very much committed at the beginning here of our experience with world heritage to make this a true community celebration. As I've said before we are honoring our historic Moravian heritage but not everybody in this city is a Moravian. That is not where everybody
is. Um and so we want world heritage to be representative of everything within our community and the ideals of who we are. Um so it is uh it's been very much designed with that in mind moving forward. And then the only other update I have is next Wednesday um over at the
Fowler Center um from 6:30 to 8 we have our next opening doors meeting. Um uh so we'll be giving our updates on kind of where we are uh with some of the housing initiatives. Miss Satulo will be leading that and those are my only two updates for now. Mr. Clone, thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Moving on to
ordinances for final passage. Mr. Miller, Bill 41, 2025, >> an ordinance of the city of Bethlehem, counties of Lehi and Northampton, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, amending the non-utilities capital fund budget for 2025. Bill number 41, 2025 is
sponsored by Miss Quiet and Miss Wilhelm. >> Discussion. >> Call the RO. >> Miss Crampy Smith, >> I. >> Miss Quiet, >> I. >> Miss Leair, >> I. >> Miss Leon, >> I. >> Mr. Callahan, >> hi. >> And Mr. Cologne.
>> I passes 6. Moving on to 8B. Please read the salo. >> An ordinance of the city of Bethlehem counties of Lehi and Northampton, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, repealing and replacing part 13 of CODFI ordinances related to subdivision and
land development. Bill number 39205 is sponsored by Miss Crampy Smith and Miss Leon. >> Discussion. Councilwoman Counciloman Crampy. >> Okay. Thanks. Um, I just have a couple questions regarding this because I was able to review it more in depth and I
know we talked about this before about the um it being applicable with the new salo or the previous one, but can you can you tell define the difference between plans that are in the sketch stage versus preliminary plans? Because
um with the new sala says any plan filed um within the sketch stage will follow the new ordinance but the plan preliminary plan stage they can follow either ordinance. Correct. >> I'm not Can you tell me where you're reading from? Are you reading
specifically from the document? >> Yeah, let me see. It is um okay. I only have it I think it was on page 27. I just had the page printed, but I think it was on page 27. >> We talked about at the last meeting that
um the developer could have a choice if they're in the I believe preliminary plan stage that they can do they can use either the previous salo or the current one whatever is more beneficial. Remember >> so my my understanding I just I'll back up and clarify. So there's there's a doctrine called the pending ordinance
doctrine which applies generally outside of the land development context. So you know if there's a do like an ordinance proposed typically and Mr. Spur canen correct me if I'm wrong. I'm just generalizing, but you know, typically if it's proposed, like if there's something
that's coming up, you know, while that is proposed, there's sort of like an assumption almost that it's going to be passed and and you do need to follow like the the will that is moving forward with it with the council. In the land development process, that is not the case under the MPC and under case law.
So when I'm saying that like a a project that is proposed while the salo is the new salo is proposed it's not subject in in my understanding to the pending ordinance doctrine and Mr. Dashler talked about this when he was here and I
kind of am generalizing repeating what he said at that time. So, I was just saying that a new plan that is proposed currently, not not under the pending ordinance doctrine that you might typically know of as a legislator because it is a land development under
the MPC which does not follow pending ordinance. So, if you've got a plan proposed, you you can take advantage of the existing salo even before this one, >> the previous or the current >> the current one. Correct. What do you mean by can you tell me >> if you have a plan proposed now and then
tonight you pass the salo and somebody who's got a pending plan is like oh actually I >> really want to I don't even know I I really want to plant all those extra trees like they can do that I mean they can they can take after you pass it like
it is it is law now >> I guess I'm confused I guess I just want to differentiate between like proposed or sketch plan and preliminary like at what stage in the planning like what stage of the plans can then would be
applicable to either the previous or current salo and where where would you be at in your planning that you only can go by the previous salo I I I do I would want to take each case and probably run it over with the law bureau I I mean >> like if they went to planning commission
and now maybe they're at zoning would that be considered what do you think that would be considered >> yeah I mean so right so a sketch plan is is early stages. It's not a full land development set. So when you do land development, there's full design,
there's full engineering. A sketch plan is not that. It might be, you know, if if a full land development plan is 100%, a sketch plan could just be 10, 15%. It doesn't have all the dimensions. It doesn't have all the details, the engineering worked out. It's just a sketch of what they would like to do on
the site >> to get some preliminary feedback. That's what >> So probably that like a sketch they may not even be a planning yet. They may not even planning board yet or >> a sketch plan would go to the planning commission. It's an option that a developer could take. They could submit a sketch plan and say, "Hey, I want to
give you some of my basic thoughts and ideas and I want to get feedback from various departments. I want to get a general sense of are there any zoning issues here? You know, before I move forward and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars for full design and engineering, I want to give you this
sketch and get some preliminary ideas of what direction I need to go in." That's what a sketch plan is. If I may, generally um no votes or recommendations come out of formal recommendations come out of a sketch plan review. It's really just an opportunity for a developer to
come before the planning commission and get some feedback so that they can maybe make changes to the plan that they then present for preliminary and final review. So, you know, the salo the procedures apply in terms of when you
submit a sketch plan, you know, submit x number of copies and this is what we're going to do with it. Um, but ultimately where you know decisions are being made and recommendations are being made is in the preliminary and final review stages.
>> Okay? So like possibly if you have the plans and you're already at zoning and maybe they made recommendations and you're going back and going to redo the plan or would that make sense that that's more preliminary because you have the plan but you know or either zoning >> well well zoning is under the zoning ordinance
>> and then once you get any required zoning relief you're >> proceeding for preliminary and final review and approval of your plan so that you can go ahead and move forward with your subdivision or land development.
>> Okay. And I know I brought this up before, but it says that it would be the developers that then have the option to if they're in the preliminary that they can use either ordinance, whatever is more beneficial to their plans or their development, right? And I asked them,
what about residents or people who are opposed to the plan? Can they also have that equity as far as applying either ordinance? But I think last time I was told not is that I think is there any way around that or is that just the way it is?
>> Looks like >> Go ahead. Go ahead. >> I was um essentially the the Seldo applies to the plan. So, somebody who was coming in and expressing
um an opinion, you know, or had a concern about a plan would have the opportunity to make public comment, >> but they're not going to have an opportunity to they their the plan doesn't really
I mean, the salo rather really doesn't um affect that that it's their ability to make public comment at public meetings that is their power >> right okay and but they cannot they don't have the choice like the developer
does to say you know I'd like this applying the new salo or the old salo is more beneficial to my case let's put it that way >> there's no way around that okay >> all right and then the other one is um
and I think this might fall under zoning if if it's not in the sauo. Um then it's, you know, it's just staying as it is. It's not being amended like if it's not newly listed. But um what about the dimensional requirements? Is that more that that goes under zoning or are they
staying they're staying the same? Is that under the zoning ordinance or under salo? Because I didn't see that in >> dimensional um requirements are under the zoning ordinance. So the zoning ordinance dictates what uses of land, things like lot and then also
dimensional requirements like lot area, lot size, those sorts of things. Those are all found in the zoning ordinance. They were before and they still are currently. >> Okay. Okay. So that makes sense. Um the other thing I I asked about was I know it came up before um a lot of it is which is great that the climate action
plan and EAC is more um input into this. What about we talked about the one area where it talks about landscaping and privately owned trees where it says shall we're practical. Can you define where practical means? If there's an issue with a tree and um you know what
in what scenarios will the city truly enforce the requirement to save it? Like what does it mean by when practical? My understanding, you know, I'm not an expert on on each of the provisions of the zoning ordinance and I might even have to turn to the forester for something like that, but I my
understanding is that like, you know, if just because we we we like a tree on somebody's internal property, we don't have the ability to tell them that they must preserve it. Like if you have a tree interior to your property, you you are able to cut that down. Okay. And
what about like does the climate action plan or especially the EAC I mean do they have any say? I mean I'd like to say power but I'm assuming they don't in these situations. >> My understanding is we are not allowed to by law tell people that they cannot
cut down trees on their own unless they are street trees >> recommendations. >> It's my understanding. >> Okay. All right. Um, and then I know a lot of people or several people commented in the public about that um the new Salo is going to cost a lot more as far as housing because of the new
requirements. Can you can you comment on that? I mean, is it really going to increase the cost of um developing? >> I have said before that no, our assessment is is not, you know, and I'll just I'll back up once again and describe what these salo changes are generally. I because I I think we're
kind of misunderstanding. We adopted the salo over 50 years ago and we have not revised it since then. The majority of the changes that you're seeing in the salo are just aligning basic processes and procedures with longstanding practice and existing you
know MPC municipalities planning code uh provisions. That is what the majority of the things that are in the new salo are. They are not major changes. It's things like how do you record plans? It's things like what is a sketch plan and and who does it and what's the process
for doing that and those are all processes that we've actually been using in practice for quite some time. We just didn't have them clearly spelled out here and that actually causes confusion and that actually makes development more difficult rather than more more easy
like it's more difficult when you don't have things spelled out very clearly. So my argument would be that these changes that we're adopting for the most part are actually helpful in that they set out more clear standards. They help people understand what they need to do from the beginning. They cut down on
confusion and these are all actually generally wellrespected principles in helping make uh development less expensive, less costly. Then as it relates specifically to the alignment with other plans like the climate action
plan which is one component of changes you know we've looked where we can and we've added provisions in related to um you know encouraging bike paths or you know requiring that Atlanta bus stops be a consideration in traffic counts like
that's a shall for example you know but but on the whole you know a A lot of what is in there again has already existed in our regular land development process. We've talked to developers for many years about you know these different um goals of ours with respect
to climate action and we're just basically codifying them here. But in our assessment there's not any provisions in here that are raising cost drastically like you know that we're not requiring you know we're not requiring EV charging stations everywhere. We're not requiring solar panels everywhere.
we're not, you know, making these widespread requirements on new development that would add substantial costs. >> I think that I could be wrong, but I think that's the assumption because there are environmental recommendations. People think it's going to cost more, but unfortunately, we're not going to have a lot of weight to make them really
happen. >> I'm done. Thank you. >> Thank you, Councilwoman. Any other comments? Councilwoman Leard? Yeah. So, um I really appreciate uh I you sent me a lengthy response to uh some of the
questions that I had posed at our last meeting. Um and also uh the website link to the ordinance was fixed like 12 hours later at most. So, thank you for that. Um,
I just wanted to like highlight a couple of the things that you said and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but we've got like 20 people watching online and hopefully there's some of the people who asked questions at our previous meetings and uh we're awaiting the answers. So,
um, in terms of housing, um, Councilwoman, uh, Kremcy Smith just talked a little bit about the, um, you know, asked about the housing costs and you explained, uh, effectively how, um, you know, this might, uh, actually
improve if not but not hurt, uh, housing costs. Um, I did my own research also in the interim and was reading about how like the municipal planning code updates also are designed to help improve efficiencies in these processes. So hopefully they can speed up building
affordable housing um, etc. So thank you for that information. Um, in terms of the teeth and the weight, um, you outlined a few different incentives, uh, that I'm sure are well, this is my
question, I guess. Um, how are the incentives communicated to people who might be considering developing within the city so that they're aware of the options for um, for example, the Southside Lerta 2.
You said there's additional tax abatement for lead certified projects or for the climate action plan um incentives that are outlined. How do people find out about those if they're looking for a project in Bethlehem? >> Well, so the the two that I mentioned
specifically that came to mind um in in terms of incentives again city council passed the southside two and added the lead certification. So, if we have a project that comes forward that is in one of those um that's on one of those
parcels that's in the Southside Lerta 2, our planning letter will flag that you're in the South Lerta 2. So, that would be the first step for a develop potentially the first step for a developer to know that they even have LERA as a possibility. Then if they're
interested, they would likely reach out like to our economic development office and work with our economic development folks on, you know, whether or not that's a good incentive for them. At which point, you know, we would probably highlight, you know, here's how LERA works and, you know, here's affordable housing component if you're doing
residential or here's, you know, the the lead certification component if you're interested in taking advantage of that. So, usually that would be like on a case- by case basis. But again, the first time it would be flagged as, you know, if a plan comes forward in a sketch plan or a preliminary plan. Um, you know, we would flag that it's in one
of those districts. The other example I think I gave was I think our zoning ordinance has some incentives for green roofs. So, that's, you know, again, something that would probably be explored on a case-byase basis. If somebody came forward and said that they were interested in doing green roofs, we would talk about, you know, okay, the
zoning ordinance has, you know, this incentive whereby I think, you know, you don't you don't um count the building area covered by the green roofs, which, you know, helps you from a zoning perspective. So, again, that would usually be like a case byase situation. >> Okay. Um, so that's part of the
conversation in the the planning process. Yeah. Okay. >> And and one of the things I pointed out Yeah. Well, if the salo is outlining the doom process and you're kind of stepping through that with a developer, then I would imagine that would open the door for some of those conversations, too. If
somebody says, "Oh, well, yeah, sure. I'll do these things, except like what do I get out of it?" Then you'd be able to point to them. Okay. Um, in terms of I I had asked about what the key performance indicators are for the new ordinance and how uh it moves
local development trends and I understand that it's not a tool for tracking specific development outcomes. I guess um I do hope that there can be some check-ins as and you did mention that um you know
there's a housing dashboard in development with the housing plan. Um but even beyond the affordability part of it um with an ordinance this big that will likely be in place as is for many many years to come.
>> 50 >> Yeah. 50. Right. It's It's going to take a while till anybody takes this one on again. Um I'd like to know that it you know that it's it's doing something right like we're passing a big ordinance that should have an impact even though a lot of it has been in practice for a
while. Um, so I do hope that there's some way, even if it's not as specific metrics, to be able to point to, hey, we've seen a general trend in increase in XYZ thing in the Aldo. Um, or hey, nobody's taking us up
on this recommendation. Maybe we need to look at it again um in some other area of legislation or policy. Um, so I that's not a specific question, but just a comment on I I do hope that there can be some thoughtfulness as this rolls out
to how to see uh what impact it has. Um, and then the uh in terms of data on the costs of construction uh projects, um I do understand that you're not able to
play out hypotheticals specifically. Um, I guess that would be part of the general, you know, as as this, uh, ordinance takes effect, um, seeing if you're starting to get feedback from people saying, "No way. Like, this is
going to raise my cost by XYZ, and I'm not doing it cuz you can't make me, uh, or whatever." But um yeah, because like I said, it it it is good to know that when we pass something, especially this big uh up here, that it has effect um and be able
to point to what that effect is. So, um but again, thank you for the the research you put into this and the conversations and the work of your team, uh and following up with me on my questions. >> Any other discussion for members of council?
>> Thank you, Miss Collins. Mayor Reynolds, do you want to add something? >> Just wanted to quickly to Councilman Larard's point is I I also when I had said 50, I'd said in Jess because hopefully some future administration does this and follows and so on and so forth. But the answers to the these
questions as far as like those costs and looking at them and I remember having these conversations with Darlene Heler for years. A lot of those type of numbers that shift that affect housing are in the zoning ordinance and not in Salo. And I would say it's from this is
just me not being Mr. Dler or Miss Collins, not being a lawyer, not doing land development. It's infinitely more in the zoning ordinance versus the Salo ordinance as far as parking minimums, as far as density incentives, as those type of things that like like I said, I used to
have these conversations with Miss Heler all the time where we would spend all of this time in 2009 or 2011 talking about like, well, if we tweak this, what's going to happen? And then I'm like, I'm coming back to meet with you in two years. and she comes back and she's like, "Nobody's done anything." Like, nobody's taken advantage of it. >> Just going to say, so in two I've got
two years left on my term to tackle the zoning ordinance is what you're saying, right? >> I'm not all I'm just saying is like that's where a lot of the different um that's where a lot of these issues are of a much more um and that's what you
would hear from from people that develop homes and build. And like I said, the one that when we reduced the parking minimums in some areas, like some people didn't think that was like a big thing, but people be like, "Yeah, because parking is expensive to build." I think when we last, you know, rightize the
Wall Street garage, it was like $50,000 of space. Uh, so I mean, that's that's where that conversation is much more so than in the Salo. But everything we do, Mr. Alco and I talk about this, it's like you hope people are constantly thinking about this from like a data driven point of view, like is this working or not? and then future
administrations have the patience and the intelligence and the sophistication to spend like we are going to spend our time in this because it didn't work and we need to continue to tweak it. >> Thank you. >> Anything else for council? >> Mr. Miller call the role. >> Miss Crampy Smith >> I.
>> Miss Quitech >> I. >> Miss Leairard >> I. >> Miss Leon >> I. >> Mr. Callahan >> I. >> Mr. Cologne. >> I pass 6. There are no new ordinances this evening. Resolution 10A >> be it resolved by the council of the city of Bethlehem that the mayor and
controller and/or such other city officials is deemed appropriate by the city solicitor are hereby authorized to execute an agreement with Engel Hambrite and Davies Incorporated to provide self-insured workers compensation program management services. Resolution is sponsored by Miss Leon and Miss
Crampy Smith. >> Discussion. >> Call the role. >> Miss Crampy Smith >> I. >> Miss Quitech >> I. Miss Leairard >> I >> Miss Leon >> I. >> Mr. Callahan. >> Hi. >> And Mr. Cologne. >> I pass 6. There is no 10B. So moving on
to 10 C. >> Be it resolved by the council of the city of Bethlehem that the mayor and controller andor such other city officials deemed appropriate by the city solicitor or hereby authorized to execute a use permit agreement with humanitarian social inter innovations
for the Bethleam patas one-year celebration. Resolution is sponsored by Miss Leone and Miss Crampy Smith. >> Discussion. >> Call the role. >> Miss Crampy Smith. >> I. >> Miss Quitech. >> I. >> Miss Lair. >> I. >> Miss. Leon. >> I. >> Mr. Callahan.
>> Hi. >> Mr. Cologne. >> I pass 6. I'll accept a motion as a second to consider 10D through 10H as a group. >> Some moved. Second. >> Uh. Motion by Councilwoman Leard. Second by Councilwoman Leon. Discussion on the
motion. Mr. Miller call the role on the motion. >> Miss Crampy Smith >> I. >> Miss Quiet. >> I. >> Miss Leairard. >> Hi. >> Miss Leon. >> Hi. >> Mr. Callahan. >> I. >> Mr. Cologne. >> I pass 6. The harb coas are grouped together. Mr. Miller. Read them please.
>> Certificates of appropriateness under the provisions of the act of the Pennsylvania legislature. Bethlehem resolution are hereby granted for 10D 446 Main Street to install 1/2 inch thick by 12x 24
square ft PVC double-sided uh projecting sign using existing squirrel bracket 10E 241 East Market Street to convert a garage into a one-bedroom dwelling and construct a second story addition to create a second
one-bedroom dwelling 10F 404 Center Street to replace the roof with a synthetic slate roof and place the gutters and downspouts with half round gutters and round downspouts. 10G 518 Main Street to remove the existing Tiger
Hall lettering and install new signage for Healing Hands as well as replace water damage trim repaint the first floor facade. Replace two existing gooseeneck light fixtures, install an access panel in the porch ceiling, and replace two existing lighting fixtures
in the porch ceiling. and 10H 81 West Broad Street to replace the existing logo on the existing 10- foot by three-foot high awning. Resolutions are sponsored by Miss Leon and Miss Crampy Smith. >> Any discussion on the group? >> Call roll.
>> Miss Grampy Smith. >> I miss >> I. >> Miss Leairard. >> Hi. >> Miss Leon. >> Hi. >> Mr. Callahan. >> Hi. >> Mr. Cologne. >> I pass 610. Certificate of appropriateness under the provisions of the act of the Pennsylvania legislature Bethlehem resolution is hereby granted
for 305 East 4th Street to conduct various ex exterior renovations to the front side and rear facades. The resolution is sponsored by Miss Leon and Miss Crampy Smith. >> Discussion call the roll. >> Miss Grampy Smith >> I. >> Miss Quiet.
>> I. >> Miss Leairard >> I. >> Miss Leon. >> I. >> Mr. Callahan. >> Hi. >> And Mr. Cologne. I pass 6 and last 10 J. >> Certificate of appropriateness under the provisions of the act of the Pennsylvania legislature, Bethlehem resolution is hereby granted for 307
East 4th Street to conduct various exterior renovations in the front, side, and rear facades. Resolution is sponsored by Miss Leon and Miss Grampy Smith. >> Discussion. >> Call the role. >> Miss Grampy Smith. >> I. >> Miss Quitech. >> I. >> Miss Leairard. >> I. >> Miss Leon.
>> I. >> Mr. Callahan. >> Hi. and Mr. Cologne. >> All right, that concludes tonight's agenda. This meeting is adjourned. Get home safe, everybody.