The latest in a series of posts on City government 
Dana Grubb is a lifelong resident of the City of Bethlehem who worked 27 years for the City of Bethlehem in the department of community and economic development, as sealer of weights and measures, housing rehabilitation finance specialist, grants administrator, acting director of community and economic development, and deputy director of community development.
Thanks for your research, Gadfly.
In my mind, the City still needs to explain how it will achieve low/mod benefit. Job creation/retention was another possibility, and that is generally done through economic development loans. The DCED director did indicate that there is an economic development loan pool available. Whether CDBG is involved with that, I don’t know. In my time it was called FRED (Fund for Revitalization & Economic Development). If a loan was made and 51% of the jobs either retained or created were either offered to or filled by low/mod income individuals, compliance with the statutory objective was met. Of course everything was documented to support that and reported to HUD on performance reports.
I think it’s still important for the City to explain how it will achieve compliance on this allocation.
A low-interest economic development loan through the city’s DCED removes ethics and conflict of interest (real and perceived) from the equation.
Dana
