Continuing to work doing real estate shoots; performing duties as secretary-treasurer for local non-profit — all electronically; taking rare assignments for Bethlehem Press (will pop in on City council meeting tonight for that and visit Main Street for possible photo ops); hiking and biking on D&L Trail and at various parks (my gym is closed); washing hands regularly; carrying hand sanitizer with me; cancelling lunch engagements; spending time on social media to stay in touch; doing photography on my biking/hiking jaunts to post on social media and promote good feelings; and staying in touch with people who are very dear to me. I’m staying away from crowds, reading a little bit more, and enjoying my Gracie cat’s company a lot.
A follower reports that her block is celebrating St. Patrick’s Day with a bit of an Italian flair: “We will all stay on our front porches, drinking and singing Irish songs.”
Out of an abundance of caution about the virus, Gadfly will not be attending in person. There goes his chance for the Perfect Attendance award.
Government regulations are changing seemingly by the hour, so look for updates about this meeting tomorrow.
We are not encouraged to attend per this note on the meeting web page:
Due to the COVID-19 public health emergency, we encourage you to watch the meeting on YouTube.
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Our next City Council meeting — the “face” of Bethlehem City government — occurs tomorrow night Tuesday, March 17, Town Hall, at 7PM.
These meetings are video-recorded and can be viewed LIVE or later at your convenience on the City’s website after the meeting at https://www.bethlehem-pa.gov/Calendar.
The YouTube channel for live or archive viewing is “City of Bethlehem Council.”
Find the Council agenda and supporting documents here.
But see here President Waldron’s Saturday communique about modifications in the agenda because of the virus. Reports from City officials on the virus are planned.
And there’s always the unexpected.
As long as he has flutter in his wings, Gadfly will always urge attending City Council live or virtually — one way or the other.
Bill Scheirer is an economist who grew up in Bethlehem, spent 40 years in DC, and retired here in 2003. He is a life member of the Committee of 100 on the Federal City and was on the Mayor’s Task Force for the City of Bethlehem Comprehensive Plan, Zoning Ordinance, and Zoning Map.
Gadfly:
It’s hard to find fault with the article in the Morning Call by Bethlehem Councilman J. William Reynolds on the North Side.
It’s nice that a priority is converting Linden Street between Church Street and Fairview Street back to a two-way street.
It would be even nicer if Center Street between Church Street and Elizabeth Avenue were similarly converted.
Center Street is the bigger problem, especially when cars jockey for position as they approach the single lane north of Elizabeth Avenue. NASCAR does not belong in an urban neighborhood. The city-wide accident statistics I have seen bear this out.
These two streets are not only among the most hazardous in the city, they serve to divide the North Side into distinct and separate neighborhoods.
Haven’t heard about Northside 2027 for a while. Good to know it’s cookin’. Once again tip o’ the hat to Councilman Reynolds, Mayor Donchez, and City Administrators.
Councilman Reynolds’ fond memories of Thomas Jefferson (the school, not the president — Reynolds is a young man) always taps Gadfly’s memories of the Highland Ave. playground in Lansdowne, Pa., where he literally learned the facts of life among a rich diversity of mates and where your three-pointer ca-chinged rather than swished because of the chain nets. It was a multi-ethnic crucible. A place that formed values just as surely as the home down the street and the church across the street.
Bethlehem is built on the places we share as a community. The Steel. Liberty. Freedom. Moravian, Lehigh and Northampton Community College. When one of these Bethlehem institutions comes up in a conversation, everyone smiles because we have something in common.
In January of 2017, working with the city administration, I launched North Side 2027, an investment and revitalization strategy for our north Bethlehem neighborhoods that surround Thomas Jefferson and William Penn Elementary Schools. These neighborhoods are wonderful places to live, but I thought they could be even more.
Which brings me back to our institutions. Our success in North Side 2027, as a city, will be determined by our ability to see our future through shared goals, experiences and identities. Those shared places are why we have a city that is special. “Yeah, my dad and his dad worked together at the Steel” or “Yeah, we know their family through church.”
Those connections are what make people love our community. Looking across America, the decline of our institutions has led to individualized identities that disconnect us from each other in ways that make it difficult to accomplish community vibrancy and growth.
Bethlehem officials are organizing a number of committees that will include residents, small business owners, elected officials, representatives from the Bethlehem Area School District, Moravian College and other important community partners. The committees will meet regularly to implement the neighborhood priorities that have arisen from the North Side 2027 planning process including:
Fostering safe public spaces through streetscape improvements and traffic calming investments.
Increasing the economic vitality of small businesses through physical improvements to our Linden and Broad Street corridors including prioritizing returning Linden Street into a two-way street.
Supporting homeowners and renters through financial home improvement incentives and increased code enforcement.
Focusing on the priorities of our families, including increasing access to health care, healthy food availability and valuable neighborhood services.
So how are we going to accomplish these goals in the North Side 2027 neighborhoods? We have already begun. In the past two years, the city has funded projects in these neighborhoods including:
Over $2 million in public infrastructure spending including street paving and pedestrian improvements in the North Side 2027 area.
$100,000 for Friendship Park.
$350,000 for the Bethlehem Food Co-op project, a community-owned grocery store that has the potential to become a new place that we can share as a city.
I was fortunate enough to grow up on Linden Street and attend Thomas Jefferson Elementary School so I hold a special connection to these neighborhoods. I remember walking to school with my friends and my siblings. We would say hello to neighbors we didn’t know who were out early to work on their yards. We would see our coaches from North Central Little League who would remind us about practice after school. We would talk with our crossing guards, who made sure we got to school safely.
Bethlehem’s neighborhoods were special then and still are today.
At meeting after meeting, I witnessed neighbors who previously didn’t know each other share similar experiences about their neighborhoods and their lives in Bethlehem. It was remarkable to watch people nodding their heads in agreement with people they had never met before.
I like to think even putting neighbors in the same room to listen to each other was a small victory for our city. The common priorities that were shared became the backbone of the strategies laid out in North Side 2027.
It is my hope that North Side 2027 will serve as a blueprint for how Bethlehem can bring together our residents, public schools, small businesses and institutions of higher learning in an effort to strengthen our neighborhoods and our city.
Latest in a series of posts about Lehigh University and the Southside
Lehigh has bowed to the virus and decided to go online for the rest of the semester. The traffic study that began March 9 is scrapped for now. Interestingly, people such as Councilwoman Van Wirt suggested the study be put off till the fall while talks about use of the road space might develop. Ironically, that might happen now.
If the temporary closure of Packer between Vine and Webster is renewed this fall, these recent follower ideas and questions should be remembered:
A public meeting with the City/ Lehigh needs to occur during/ after the temporary closure. Notice of the meeting should appear on the electronic message board at Packer and Vine as well as in news and social media. (southsidenannygoat)
Wondering if Lehigh is going to take a look at the businesses along 3rd and 4th st, during, and after, the Packer ave closure, to see if there is an increase in business due to the closing. That’s one of Lehigh’s main talking points, that the closure is going to bring more foot traffic down to those businesses, and it’ll be more profitable for them. (Patrick Wirth)
Recently visited Marietta, Ga. I was interested that the town square was donated to the town by the first mayor John Glover, provided it was always used as a town square. If not the land would be returned to his heirs. Since apparently a vacated Packer Ave. would become property of Lehigh University, shouldn’t a similar provision be secured so they don’t turn it into dorms or some other unwanted use. (Jerry Diguilio)
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To complete the record so far, here, obtained by Right-to-Know, is the Lehigh memo to City Council just before the February 18 meeting in which Council voted to support the temporary closing of Packer Ave. The memo repeats the same basic three reasons for the test and details changes made as a result of the public meeting at Broughal School on January 28.
Addison Bross has been a member of Bethlehem’s Confederate diaspora since 1967. Like the Gadfly, he is a professor of English, Emeritus, of Lehigh University where he also administered and taught in a program in Peace Studies.
Gadfly:
Not so long back I served on LEPOCO’s Steering Committee.
At our monthly meetings and at LEPOCO’s monthly Popcorn & Politics film showings and sponsored lectures, in that tiny (25-capacity) room that has so long served as office, peace-promotion library, storage space for peace-&-justice buttons, bumper-stickers and banners — the thought has now and again struck me how sumptuous and well-appointed are the gathering-spaces for the many, many groups among us who promote and plan for war, inequality, and injustice.
And on the other hand, how meager and cramped a venue is likely to be available for any group amid this society who are intent on producing, by nonviolent methods, peace.
Tip o’ the hat to President Waldron for filling us in on the upcoming Council meeting in timely fashion.
We currently are still planning on having our meeting on Tuesday. Third class city code requires we have two physical meetings per month that are open to the public. The YouTube stream will be up and running. As long as we have at least 4 members of Council and a clerk the meeting can go on. We are doing our best to balance public safety and accessibility. We have eliminated our public speaking sign-in sheet but will have full public comment.
As of now, Director of Emergency Management Bob Novatnack and Health Bureau Director Kristen Wenrich will be at the meeting to give Council an update of the efforts the City is taking to respond to Covid-19.
The Creek Road rezoning has been pulled from the agenda by the applicant. We are also in discussion to postpone the short term lodging ordinance and zoning text amendment. This action would require re-advertising and starting the process over. We are working towards finding the balance of accessibility and safety. During such trying and unsure times Council, the Clerks, and all the city Administration are considering all prudent actions to remain operational, while minimizing risk and potential exposure to all residents and employees of the City.
But, since the City Council meeting is the “face” of City Government for residents, Gadfly wonders if the Health Director might be there to report and answer Council questions.
I just had occasion to greet a guy on my front porch whom I had not met before. His hands were deep in his pockets.
If you read between and under the lines in Gadfly’s last post, you understand that what he was really saying is that he’s going to have to focus his attention more in-house in the near future.
And that he’s hoping others will step up and keep the good conversation that builds community going.
But he, like you probably, is trying to wrap his sensibilities around our “national emergency.”
In Weiss market last night he witnessed a pugnacious alpha-male filling two shopping carts (two) with the last of the cases of water and nearly the last of the jug water. Gadfly wondered how he would navigate to check-out — probably hooking the carts together like those menacing double-bodied tractor trailers that you sometimes come upon swaying in the wind on the superhighways, and that you are afraid to pass.
He witnessed two gray-haired ladies eyeball wrestling over the last Sunbeam bread, small size loaf, looking like it had already been squeezed mid-section. Forlorn, like a fish on a dock that somebody forgot to throw back.
And he witnessed a shopping cart filled, and filled only with pretzels and chips. And tried to envision that family.
And this afternoon, Gadfly witnessed a pack of ravenous Walmarters tear into a cart of toilet paper, still boxed, on its way to the shelf aisle across from the prescription counter. He expected to see the clerk emerge from the fray bleeding, half-naked, clothes in shreds. It was a pack of urban wolves (one guy was in a suit) pouncing on their paper-goods prey. But no howling, only the sound of ripping cardboard.
And then, with those images in his mind, tonight there was Anderson Cooper mentioning similar social media images and likewise trying to wrap his sensibilities around how we should be acting during this national emergency in what Gadfly found a thoughtful exchange with a psychologist.
Gadfly invites you to listen through to the end of this short segment.
During which he started to think about how we each might perform, as Schmelzer suggests, seemingly small but non-trivial gestures that might turn the national emergency into an instrument for improving community.
Which is always Gadfly’s goal.
"Extreme stress… makes us narrow our focus," says author and psychologist Gretchen Schmelzer on stress associated with the coronavirus.
So what is our work? Yes, you need to wash your hands and stay home if you are sick. But the biggest work you can do is expand your heart and your mind to see yourself and see your family as part of a much bigger community that can have a massive—hugely massive—impact on the lives of other people. . . .
You can help by canceling anything that requires a group gathering. You can help by not using the medical system unless it is urgent. You can help by staying home if you are sick. You can help by cooking or shopping or doing errands for a friend who needs to stay home. You can help by watching someone’s kid if they need to cover for someone else at work. You can help by ordering take-out from your local restaurants. Eat the food yourself or find someone who needs it. You can help by offering to help bring someone’s college student home or house out-of-town students if you have extra rooms. You can help by asking yourself, “What can I and my family do to help?” “What can we offer?” You can help by seeing yourself as part of something bigger than yourself.
Gadfly gets much of the stimulus for his posts from being out and about, personally at meetings, and taking notes and recording what’s going on.
Gadfly himself is in reasonably good shape, but Mrs. Gadfly is one of those vulnerable, health-compromised folk who are at higher risk for contracting the virus and experiencing harsher consequences.
Thus, you may see less of Gadfly for a while till things settle down, lest a virus interfere with his care-giving or he carries the virus to her.
For instance, he didn’t attend follower Ron’s talk at First Pres that he so much wanted to hear.
And he may end up watching Council on tv with a beverage in hand rather than his camera.
So let me invite less-at-risk followers to pitch in, take up slack, by initiating posts, and recording (audio/video) meetings and events he doesn’t get to.
Gadfly had always hoped that followers would kind of take over the space and The Bethlehem Gadfly would live forever.
Now would be a good time for people to try on their wings.
The Gadfly invites “local color” photos of this sort
Cold hearted orb that rules the night,
Removes the colours from our sight,
Red is grey and yellow white,
But we decide which is right,
And which is an illusion.
Pinprick holes in a colourless sky
Let insipid figures of light pass by;
The mighty light of ten thousand suns
Challenges infinity and is soon gone.
Night time, to some a brief interlude,
To others the fear of solitude.
Brave Helios, wake up your steeds,
Bring the warmth the countryside needs.
Latest in a series of posts about Lehigh University and the Southside
hmm! back to the drawing board
A Message from [Lehigh University] President Simon:
Dear Members of the Campus Community and Lehigh Families,
As of Monday, March 16, classes will be taught remotely and students are expected to return home or remain home to continue their coursework for the next two weeks. We will continue to assess developments during this time and provide further guidance. We are taking this extraordinary step in an effort to protect the health and safety of our community and to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. To be clear, the university will remain open, and we are confident in our ability to continue to deliver on our educational and research mission during this time.
While there are currently no suspected or confirmed cases on campus, given the uncertainties about the spread of the virus, medical professionals have advised us that it is prudent to take precautions and act on the assumption that the virus will reach our campus. The Governor of Pennsylvania signed an emergency disaster declaration late last week. Our decision is consistent with the “social distancing” recommendations from health experts, and we continue to follow guidance from the Pennsylvania Department of Health (PA DOH), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the City of Bethlehem Health Bureau.
We understand this decision presents challenges, and we are confident our community will call on their collective resourcefulness, flexibility and creativity to adjust. In-person discussion and personal relationships are an important component of our rigorous academic environment. We thank our students, faculty, teaching fellows, teaching assistants, graduate assistants, instructors, and staff for their adaptability during this time.
Final 15 minutes of the February 25 Human Resources Committee meeting Councilwoman Negron quote at min. 9:50
Councilwoman Negron raised her voice, and raised her voice to a man. We know how certain people feel about that.
Councilwoman Negron told Councilman Callahan to shut up. In public. At a meeting. In front of one spectator (the delicately eared Gadfly larva). And a tv audience. Forever archived.
That’s not good. Not good at all. That’s bad, in fact. Bad. That is not proper behavior for a Councilperson at a Council meeting. Councilwoman Negron should not have said that. Gadfly will not defend it. Gadfly must condemn it. Councilpeople should not ever talk to other Councilpeople that way. Not ever.
Council-watchers are well aware that Councilors Negron and Callahan have a “history” that might well have fueled the Councilwoman’s outburst. But that is no excuse. In the past she has occasionally walked away from the Head Table in quiet but unmistakably pointed rejection of her colleague. Not this time.
We live in a soundbite culture. You can’t deny that “You have to shut up, ok?” was the soundbite of the night, the headline if the traditional news outlets had covered the meeting, the topic of conversation around water-coolers and in the blogverse the following day.
But instead of starting with the “obvious,” Gadfly has taken five or six posts and five or six days to get to it. Why?
Focusing on that simple soundbite is much too simplistic a response to the interesting and revelatory interpersonal gender dynamics at the meeting. So Gadfly has asked you to walk slowly through the meeting up to the last 15 minutes in the video above. Which he now encourages you to watch.
Listen to the Councilwoman’s calm voice in the beginning of the video selection supporting the motion to postpone, laying out reasons for needing “more time” to have a “beautiful” ordinance that the Councilman proposed. No sign of anger.
Listen to the Councilwoman’s engaging voice using potential examples from a Bethlehem business and real examples from her own life to highlight problems with the current ordinance and to justify postponement so that they can be resolved (4:03). No sign of anger.
Listen to the Councilwoman’s temperature begin to rise when she responds to the Councilman’s rather condescending plan — totally and inexcusably misreading her position, as if he were not listening to her at all — to have women’s groups lobby her to vote for an ordinance she is already in favor of: “I don’t need to talk with anybody else, I want to pass this, I like it, I just need to be sure that it’s right” (8:20).
Listen to the Councilman’s — in Gadfly’s opinion — totally off-point response to her, returning immediately in a kind of non-sequitur to one of his repeated attack points about the fault of the Councilwomen in not communicating with him, ending with his oft-repeated line “I’m good with it [the ordinance proposal] as it is written,” which indicates he is not at all swayed by the new ideas that have been raised (9:05).
So what set the Councilwoman off?
Let’s look beyond the sensational soundbite.
Let’s look first at the immediate context of that line.
It comes at the end of this passage:
“So if you want to respect a woman in the City of Bethlehem start with your two colleagues. Please, respect what we are trying to tell you, and don’t be talking down to us. ‘You didn’t call me, you didn’t . . .’ It’s your ordinance, and we want to pass it. No, you listen to me, because you are used to speak on top of us. And I am tired, I’m not going to let you. You have to shut up, ok? Respect us.” (9:50)
What’s the key word in the passage? Respect. The Councilwoman feels lack of respect. And she blows!
There’s a devastating irony here. Think about it. The male creator of this ordinance to respect the equality of women, and who says incredibly pious things about helping women, especially minority women, and who stresses the urgency to do so as a reason to pass the ordinance as is and immediately on to the full body of City Council, feels himself opposed by the three women on Council and charged with lack of respect by one of them, while implying that they — the females — might be stalling an ordinance designed to address an abuse of females and an abuse they themselves have experienced.
Deargod — as they say, you couldn’t make this up!
Is there any truth to the lack of respect charge?
Gadfly thinks there is.
Without excusing Councilwoman Negron’s behavior, Gadfly understands it.
The Councilman devalues women’s ideas (about the enforcement hole in the ordinance), denies women’s experience (about salary sharing, about needing a lawyer to face a judge), continually blames women for the failure of the relationship (not coming to the meeting prepared), ignores their offer to help (with investigating enforcement options), finds them incomprehensible (almost literally saying, “what is your problem?”). He calls the enforcement question about his proposal a “minor tidbit,” infers “stalling tactics,” suggests that someone didn’t do her homework, considers the major objection to his proposal “made up.”
In an alternate universe, “minor tidbit” for the serious and clearly articulated enforcement problem would have been the soundbite of the night.
Toward the very end of the evening, a cordial Councilwoman Crampsie Smith breaks in to a verbal gnarl between the Councilman and the two committee members to offer him clarification and to offer him help: “Bryan, I think what we talked about is that the other cities have the Human Relations Commission, we don’t. . . . I can help you with this, we can see what other avenues there are. . . . I know a lot of female attorneys that are real advocates for women, maybe they would be able to do something pro bono. There are some things we could check out. Does that sound good?”
But the Councilwoman’s cordial offer of help is ignored with a brush-offing “Sure, sure.” And the Councilman immediately turns instead to a man, the Solicitor, for advice: “Mr. Spirk, do you have any suggestions for a solution to this as far as getting any women that have a complaint against an employer, I mean, what would you suggest?” (14:55)
Gadfly gets the lack of respect.
Gadfly would like to say that Councilman Callahan explained to him the serious reason that he checks his cell phone at Council meetings, a practice Gadfly called attention to two meetings back.
Question: What according to Robert’s Rules should follow a motion to postpone?(Councilwoman Van Wirt made a motion to table, but Solicitor Spirk recognized that what she meant was a motion to postpone.)
Answer: Nothing.
Nothing, that is, except set a date for reconsideration and everybody get out of Dodge.
Nothing, that is, except “limited debate” on “whether the postponement is appropriate.” Debate should be “restricted to the pros and cons of postponement, and to what time the question should be postponed.” “Debate may not go into the merits of the main motion.” (Quotes from Gadfly editions of Robert’s Rules)
What happened after the motion to table/postpone at the Human Resources committee meeting on the wage equality ordinance February 25?
The discussion continued, wandering to and fro over already well trodden ground for another 15 minutes — and ended up regrettable.
In Gadfly’s (admittedly non-expert) opinion, a chair familiar with Robert’s Rules should have “limited debate” to agreement on a date to meet again and called it a day. Committee members familiar with Robert’s Rules could have called for the same with Robert’s Rules as authority.
What about Solicitor Spirk, you ask?
Gadfly is not familiar with the protocol in such circumstances. He is not sure that it is the place for the Solicitor to intervene uninvited. He is not sure the Solicitor plays umpire if he’s not asked to.
If he can intervene to make a call, however, Mr. Spirk probably decided that there was just enough talk about the appropriateness of postponement sprinkled throughout this period for discussion to continue. When Councilman Callahan finally did address the Solicitor after the formal vote on postponement was taken in yet another attempt to keep discussion going, Mr. Spirk definitely indicated that the vote to postpone ended discussion, and the meeting was finally adjourned.
Gadfly is reminded of his recent “modest proposal”that every Council member be required to attend a training seminar in Robert’s Rules of Order every year.
If discussion had ended soon after Councilwoman Van Wirt’s motion to postpone, we might have been saved much unpleasantness.
The case for postponement is that Councilwoman Negron asked for further research by Solicitor Spirk and Councilwoman Van Wirt wants to do research on adding a “salary sharing” component. Both want Councilman Callahan to address the enforcement issue.
The case against postponement is that the ordinance is fine as is, it is exactly the same as ordinances successfully adopted in other cities, there has been plenty of time for Councilwomen Negron and Van Wirt to bring amendments for discussion now, and that changes can be made before the ordinance reaches Council and even at Council.
A few posts ago, Gadfly asked you to watch a long — 30 minutes — section of the February 25 Human Resources committee meeting on Councilman Callahan’s proposed wage equality ordinance.
The reason: that final half-hour of the meeting does not break up easily into discrete chunks, and you can’t really understand it unless you hear the whole sequence and know the whole context.
There is a kind of rhythm, a kind of crescendo movement that you have to experience to understand what Gadfly sees as the significance of this section of the meeting as part of his goal to help you understand our elected officials better so that you can be the most informed voter you can be.
This section of the meeting has been talked about and written about, and Gadfly feels that it is susceptible to some distortion if sound bites are lifted out of context. Gadfly hopes you did listen to the whole 30-minute section or will return to do so.
For now he’s going to try to explain what he meant in a previous post by seeing in this section “a kind of rhythm, a kind of crescendo movement.”
In Gadfly’s view, Councilman Callahan exhibits a kind of repetitive stubbornness in that last half-hour of the meeting that escalates tension among committee members to a point that produces some generally regrettable behavior.
See if you agree.
Here is the first 11 minutes of that 30-minute stretch. It begins with Councilman Callahan, at the request of Councilwoman Van Wirt, seeking input from Councilwoman Crampsie Smith and ends with a motion by Councilwoman Van Wirt to table (later modified to postpone) action on the proposal:
The repetitive movement Gadfly sees is each Councilwoman making some suggestion or comment and, in response, Chair Callahan basically repeating his same unbudging position, as if not deeply listening to or understanding the women, creating a kind of pressure that was bound to blow.
1) mins 0 – 2:30: Councilwoman Crampsie Smith, in a very calm voice, indicates her support for the ordinance but focuses on the question of enforcement and wonders if it is appropriate to table the proposal for two weeks or so and come back and “wrap our heads” around the enforcement aspect, offering suggestions to see what other cities are doing or to discuss options again with the City. Councilman Callahan’s answer is not directed to the enforcement issue at all but to aspects of his proposal that will insure the business community knows about the ordinance: letters along with business licenses, a one-year delay, information on the city web site, information in the city newsletter.
2) mins 2:30 – 4:00: Councilwoman Negron, in a very calm voice, indicates her support for the “wise” suggestion to table by Councilwoman Crampsie Smith, to give time to benefit by Solicitor Spirk’s research on her enforcement suggestion, to give Councilwoman Van Wirt time to do research on “salary sharing,” and come back and pass the ordinance. Councilman Callahan wonders if you are not comfortable with some “minor tidbit” (a particularly incendiary phrase!) whether they just can’t pass it through to Council as a whole, giving a whole month for additions to be done. Councilman Callahan does not register a sense of the gravity of the concerns and exhibits only a desire to pass the ordinance through to Council.
3) mins 4:00 – 9:00: Councilwoman Van Wirt, with clarity and firmness, indicates that Councilman Callahan is “underestimating” the “gating event” — the aggrieved women marshaling resources and getting a lawyer, describing her own experience and a $5000 cost. She points out the Human Rights Commissions that other cities have and we don’t, the support of the three women on Council for a short delay, and the need to “get it right.” Councilman Callahan doesn’t see the need to hire a layer for that kind of money, indicates violators would probably be doing this with multiple women (relevance?), and that he wants to get the ordinance to full Council where perhaps it would be tabled. He focuses on the ample time before it comes to Council to consider amendments, indicates everybody had ample time to bring amendments to this meeting and raises the notion of “stalling” without direct accusation (again incendiary!). Councilman Callahan then raises the possibility of throwing the enforcement back to our Human Relations Commission or our Human Resources department — both ideas effectively discounted by the other Councilors.
4) min 9:00 – 9:50: Councilwoman Crampsie Smith, in calm voice, suggests exploring such options as Legal Aid, women’s groups, a Washington Human Rights campaign. Councilman Callahan does not respond to or acknowledge the Councilwoman’s points at all.
5) min 9:50 – 11:15: instead, Councilman Callahan addresses Councilwoman Van Wirt about the idea of drafting more citizen volunteers and then, returning to his main desire, asking her again for amendments now.
6) min 11:15: Chair Callahan moves toward calling for a vote on the proposed ordinance, but Councilwoman Van Wirt beats him to it with a motion to table (later amended to a motion to postpone), seconded by Councilwoman Negron.
We’ll stop our analysis right here for now.
Do you see the troubling rhythm to the discussion that Gadfly does? More on that later.
For now, grab your well worn copy of Robert’s Rules.
What should follow a motion to table or a motion to postpone (which Solicitor Spirk sees was truly Councilwoman Van Wirt’s intent)? C’mon, look it up.
Gadfly thinks what should have happened at this moment didn’t happen — and thus the agony of the rest of the meeting.
Latest in a series of posts on Airbnb and short-term lodging
Alan Lowcher, Esq. concentrates on real estate and land use law, speaks on the life of Abraham Lincoln, presents history-themed “lessons for lawyers” through the NJ Bar Association, and is a member of several associations promoting a deeper understanding of American history.
Gadfly:
The proposed Short Term Lodging Facility (STL) ordinance eliminates “whole house” short term rentals, which practice is what brought this issue to the attention of residents and City Council.
My concern with the ordinance is that the off-street parking requirement is too restrictive for the Mrs. McVey’s of the City: good neighbors with an unused bedroom (or two) to rent out in order to help with upkeep, or just to be an ambassador of good will to travelers to Bethlehem.
Instead of 4, 5 or 6 bedrooms that could be used for short term stays, each bedroom equating to a automobile vying for a parking space, now it is perhaps one or two automobiles.
Many otherwise qualifying STL facilities do not have two (or three) off-street parking spaces.
The proposed 2-bedroom limitation adequately addresses the parking concerns.
I would encourage City Council to re-consider the off-street parking requirement.
If there is only a fine, and it requires the aggrieved individual to pay for and initiate the prosecution, something seems missing. John Rothschild
Forcing people into magistrates’ courts greatly increases the initiative required by the employee and makes it more difficult for them to pursue justice. . . . Legislation that is not coupled with meaningful implementation is generally ineffective and
tends to be discriminatory. Peter Crownfield
On the surface, Councilman Callahan’s proposed wage equality ordinance is a no-brainer.
The basic idea is that this ordinance (which is gaining nationwide acceptance) hopes to free women from the spiraling financial trap of beginning their work careers at a low salary while they progress in their careers. Employers will not be able to ask a female applicant her past salary and low-ball her salary-wise on the new job.
But it seems that in other cities the enforcement element of a wage equity ordinance aimed at protecting women from this kind of financial exploitation has been handled by a City Human Rights Commission. In Bethlehem, however, our Human Rights Commission (one of our volunteer ABC’s) has previously indicated its inability to handle a projected number of cases that will arise from this ordinance.
Thus, Councilman Callahan, after discussion with the City administration and the Solicitors, has modified what’s done in the legislation in other places to make the magistrate court the locus of enforcement here. The aggrieved employee would, on the basis of this ordinance, bring a case before a magistrate, one in which, Councilwoman Van Wirt avers (with the agreement of Solicitor Spirk), she would most likely need (or be best served) to retain a lawyer.
Councilman Callahan would like our HRC to handle enforcement as it does in other cities, but in their absence he is satisfied with magistrate enforcement, calling Councilwoman Van Wirt’s objection a “minor tidbit.”
Let’s think about this “minor tidbit.” It’s important.
A hypothetical situation:
You are a young woman working at an entry-level position at a minimal salary. You have gained work experience, you have gained more education or training, you have gained confidence in your ability, you have good references — you apply for a job that would be a “step up” in a career path. You know that Bethlehem has an ordinance that forbids a prospective new employer to ask your current salary. In compliance with the law, there is no such “ask” on the employment application forms. But in an interview, you are unexpectedly asked that question. What do you do? Do you risk blowing the interview by “calling” the interviewer on his or her illegal activity? Suppose the interviewer apologizes — do you go on with the interview? Or do you wait and see what happens? If you get a job offer, you may be glad to get it, even though the salary might seem low to you, and you just swallow the illegality. If you don’t get a job offer, you might be angry enough to “stick it” to the employer or reluctant to “waste time” getting your pound of flesh through the legal system.
Role play. You might envision the situation options differently. Gadfly might not have outlined the variables exhaustively or as you see them.
So suppose you do want justice. What happens then? Role play again.
Would you go yourself to a magistrate, or would you look for a lawyer to represent you? What would be the variables, the criteria in such a decision? Do you even know who your magistrate is or where he or she is located? Do you have personal confidence to make your claim in court before a judge, with the employer and (probably for sure) the lawyer’s attorney challenging you? Do you have familiarity with the court system? Have you ever brought a case or ever been in court? How are your language skills? What would your evidence be? Suppose the employer said it didn’t happen? Or that you mentioned salary in a way that opened the door to the question? Do you have money to hire a lawyer? Have you ever hired a lawyer? Would you even know about how to find a lawyer, and a lawyer specializing in wage issues? What would you feel you would get out of going to court — a moral victory? striking a “Me too” kind of blow for the cause of women?
As always, as followers know, Gadfly is always open to correction and criticism (and even a disciplinary slap upside the head as administered recently by the Parkers),
but he has to say,
that the weak enforcement objection to the proposed ordinance
is also
to him
a no-brainer.
Which makes the chair’s attitude at the February 25 Human Resources committee meeting all that much more puzzling.
Gadfly thinks 4 current City Council members will be on ballot in 2021: Callahan, Negron, Crampsie Smith, Waldron.
But the big enchilada is the mayoral election.
Councilman Callahan has had occasion twice in recent months during City Council meetings to remind us that Mayor Donchez won’t be in office when certain things come to fruition — and that we don’t know who will be.
Now Mayor Donchez is only in the 7th inning — lots of time to do good left. So it’s too early to render him invisible.
But with about a year left before candidates have to file for the primary, you have to believe that some people are thinking about running for mayor. And maybe more than thinking. Planning. Organizing. Fundraising.
Gadfly doesn’t have his ear to every ground, but it’s been said that Councilmen Reynolds and Callahan may run for mayor, maybe even Councilwoman Negron.
That thought reminded me that I had not looked at the Council financial disclosures for a while. Did you ever do that? Go here.
Some interesting things to see there. Take a look. Agree?
Gadfly was pleased to support everybody in last year’s Councilperson-ic primary and plans to do so again. Was fun. Gadfly wants to help people be informed voters. He’s in the business of providing information. And he thinks that all the coverage as well as the candidate participation in the Gadfly 8-week mini-essay series during last year’s primary was helpful in that respect.
But Gadfly really looks forward to the mayoral race next time. He hopes it is competitive. More on that later.
The May 2021 primary will be special because we will obviously want to select a great mayor. But it will be extra-special for Gadfly because he thinks it will mark the climax of his project. A good time to fold his wings.
So while there are most likely people right now thinking about entering the 2021 primary for mayor, he hopes that some people also might be thinking of donning the gadfly wings.
Every town needs a gadfly.
And he hopes that followers will be paying attention to the Council dynamics he lays out for you.
For one or more Council members may be running for mayor sooner or later.
Which brings Gadfly back to the wage equality meeting on the proposed ordinance.
Latest in a series of posts on the coronavirus 
The Gadfly invites 
