(The latest in a series of posts on the Southside and Neighborhoods
and Affordable Housing)
Contact for the Bethlehem Residents for Responsible Development is Seth Moglen: moglen@lehigh.edu. This group is open to all, not just 1st Terrace area residents. The more membership, the greater the power. And the issue here is not limited to one neighborhood.
Continuing here the thread started with the May 22 letter from the South Bethlehem Historical Society and reinvigorated Saturday by Gadfly Antalics’ essay in the Morning Call.
“Our neighborhood now faces an existential threat.”
Gadfly quotes from Seth Moglen’s presentation at City Council July 16 in which he describes the situation in his Southside neighborhood, describes what he and his neighbors want from the Mayor and City Council, and announces the formation of Bethlehem Residents for Responsible Development.***
Gadfly wants you to listen to Moglen. No pulling soundbites to make it easy for you this time. Always go to the primary source. Listen. Takes but six minutes.
Gadfly is depending on you to have listened.
He wants to focus on and play off one element.
The assertion of political power.
“What we are asking you for now is this. We want you . . . to develop the tools that City government requires in order to stop this kind of predatory real estate speculation. . . . That’s what we are asking you to to do now, not years, months. There are dozens of us who have joined in an organization [Bethlehem Residents for Responsible Development], we hope there will be hundreds of us soon. We will vote in the next election. . . . We are not going away.”
The nascent Bethlehem Residents for Responsible Development has thrown down the gauntlet.
“We want . . . We will vote . . . We are not going away.”
Sounds like the BRRDers are telling the politicians that action on this Southside “existential threat” may determine the way they vote.
Gadfly urges you — wherever you live in the City — to email Moglen (moglen@lehigh.edu) as an act of solidarity and to get your name on their mailing list.
Bodies on board count.
And have you emailed the Mayor and City Council? Sent a letter to the Morning Call?
*** Gadfly focuses on Moglen’s presentation here, but that City Council meeting featured a half-dozen moving resident comments. Please find complete audio here.
