Month: November 2020

Bethlehem City Council meeting tomorrow night, Tuesday, December 1, 7PM

Latest in a series of posts on City Government

Click for agenda and documents

See below for comment instructions

City Council — the “face” of Bethlehem City government — meets tomorrow night, Tuesday, December 1 at 7PM.

You can watch the City Council Meetings on the following YouTube channel: City of Bethlehem Council
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRLFG5Y9Ui0jADKaRE1W3xw

————

7PM: The regularly scheduled Council meeting

  • The Wage Equity Ordinance is up for final approval.
  • Retired Chief DiLuzio will receive a citation.
  • Nothing else of note visible from the agenda.

We may see a flood of callers from the Lehigh Valley Good Neighbors Alliance against any cuts to the police department budget.

And there’s always the unexpected.

As long as he has flutter in his wings, Gadfly urges attending City Council.

Be informed. Be involved.

———–

DUE TO THE COVID-19 EMERGENCY, TOWN HALL ACCESS IS CURRENTLY RESTRICTED. IF YOU WANT TO MAKE PUBLIC COMMENT, PLEASE FOLLOW THE PHONE COMMENT INSTRUCTIONS BELOW.

 PUBLIC COMMENT PHONE INSTRUCTIONS

REMOTE PUBLIC COMMENT PHONE INSTRUCTIONS. If you would like to speak during the City Council December 1, 2020 Meeting, please sign up per the instructions below or call into the meeting when the Council President announces he will take public comment calls.

If you would like to sign up to speak, email the following information to the Bethlehem City Clerk’s office (cityclerk@bethlehem-pa.gov) no later than 2:00 PM on December 1, 2020 (a) name; (b) address; (c) phone number; and (d) topic of comments. If you are signed up to speak, the City Council President will call you from (610) 997-7963.

After all signed-up speakers talk, the Council President will ask whether anyone else would like to make public comments. If you want to speak at that time, call the Bethlehem City Council public comment phone line at (610) 997-7963.

NOTES:

Calls to the public comment phone number will only be accepted during the designated public comment period with a 5 minute time limit.

If you call and the line is busy, please call back when the current speaker is finished.

As soon as your call begins, please turn off all speakers, computer speakers, televisions, or radios.

At the start of your call, please state your name and address.

A five minute time limit will apply to any public comments.

“Nearly 383,000 people suffering from serious mental illness were incarcerated in 2014”

Latest in a series of posts on the Arts in Bethlehem

Kimberly Schwartz is a student studying Sociology & Anthropology at Moravian College. She is passionate about criminal justice reform, equal rights, feminism, and climate change. This piece was originally written for a course at Moravian titled Writing as Activism, taught by Dr. Joyce Hinnefeld, in which students are encouraged to consider topics such as mass incarceration, migration, and how to change the world through writing.

What I Know, Right Now, About Incarceration in The United States:
A History of Learning Through Experiences and Exposure

part 8

According to the Treatment Advocacy Center, nearly 383,000 people suffering from serious mental illness were incarcerated in 2014 (Treatment Advocacy Center, 2016). 

I am 24 years old, and the world has just begun to change in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. I am following the news and have recently heard that Pennsylvania will consider releasing non-violent offenders from local jails and postponing trials in order to combat the spread of COVID-19 in jails and prisons. My boyfriend receives a call from his father, who tells him that his younger brother has just been detained on a warrant because he was not paying legal fines from a vandalism charge he acquired two years ago. His brother spends 5 days in jail because many courts are closed and legal processes are moving more slowly than usual. Once released, his job forces him to quarantine for two weeks. This job does not pay him for the days he is unable to work, and he is now in even further debt with less money to pay his fines.

eighth part in a series . . .

“I am hopeful . . . the citizens of Bethlehem have had enough of . . . inflammatory rhetoric”

Latest in a series of posts about the Bethlehem Police

Michele Downing is a Social Worker and RN, a grandmother of two, interested in social and environmental justice, a resident of the Lehigh Valley for fifteen years, the last six years a resident of West Bethlehem.

ref: The Lehigh Valley Good Neighbors Alliance gets air time to seek followers and rouse action

Gadfly:

Well, that is 10 minutes of my life I will never get back.

However, in all seriousness, I am hopeful the country, and even the citizens of Bethlehem, have had enough of that type of inflammatory rhetoric being cloaked in the word “new.”

No, Lehigh University is not a “hot bed of liberal marxists who have been lying to your children.”

NO . . . Dr Roy is not “in on the Marxist conspiracy.”

Paige Van Wirt is not “their leader.”

The people I have listened to calling in to Bethlehem City Council meetings have offered research and data, not rhetoric and fear mongering.

And I believe that will continue to be the case in spite of the best efforts of the “Good Neighbors Alliance” to divert attention from what is really important.

In full transparency, I have called in and will continue to do so, and I am definitely not a confused Marxist child as my good neighbors would imply.

Michele

The Lehigh Valley Good Neighbors Alliance gets air time to seek followers and rouse action

Latest in a series of posts about the Bethlehem Police

Greg and Carrie, co-founders of Lehigh Valley Good Neighbors Alliance, had a conversation with Bobby Gunther Walsh on his radio program today at approx 9:50AM, alerting the public about a concerted Marxist effort to defund the Bethlehem Police department and the need for the “silent majority” to make their views known at the City Council meetings this week.

Gadfly always recommends going to the primary source, so he urges you to listen to the show segment (11 mins.)

But his text are direct quotes.

  • . . . leftists trying to totally trying to transform the city of Bethlehem, a small noisy, vocal group that are changing everything for all the citizens — wake up and smell the coffee because there is a Seattle brewing in our home town.
  • Bethlehem is being targeted, and the Bethlehem police department is under siege by a group of radical Marxists who are hell-bent on not only defunding but dismantling and entirely abolishing the Bethlehem police department, as absurd as that might sound.
  • In the words of their leaders, their self-proclaimed leaders, “I am 100% in favor of defunding and abolishing the police. They are not necessary, and their only purpose is to protect private property. I am not safer because some white guy with a gun is driving around my neighborhood.”
  • One of their self-proclaimed policing experts, who is a far-left Lehigh professor, and sadly Lehigh has become a hot-bed of this leftist, odd-ball Marxism, said, “the voters have told you . . . we do not want institutions who have not reconciled with their racist past to get more funding. We expect this Council to invest in anti-racism.”
  • So somehow this self-proclaimed policing expert also has the psychic ability to divine what the voters of Bethlehem want even though they haven’t voted on anything yet.
  • We are urging people who are concerned about public safety or losing the incredible public safety we have in Bethlehem [to contact City Council].
  • People in the Lehigh Valley who realize this concerted effort by Marxists that is happening all across the country . . . skyrocketing crime rate. It just doesn’t happen in those major cities, it is happening in the Christmas City.
  • It’s happening in our home town, and we have to fight against it.
  • At the last City Council meeting, one Bethlehem business person spoke against, he was outnumbered 10-1 by these Marxists who call in to every City Council meeting.
  • They started this summer, but now they are really pushing because this is budget season.
  • This is when City Council either approves or defunds the Mayor’s policing budget.
  • Here’s one of the ringleaders . . . I also had conversations with this woman, this Van Wirt . . . she’s a doctor, as if I give a blank, she did not like the news that I sent her, then lied to me about something that I already knew was a lie, she is one of the ringleaders.
  • They’ve indoctrinated your kids, colleges, schools, indoctrinated your kids to hate America, and they are this minority  . . . that is steering the whole City Council.
  • Tell Council something from a point of view they don’t want to hear but that they desperately need to hear from the silent majority, but if we are silent for too much longer, we’re going to be forever silent.
  • Dr. Roy, at the Bethlehem Area School District, is indoctrinating, using your tax money, indoctrinating your children, and we can see the logical result of this when you listen to these meetings because it’s the young people who are calling in, some of them admit that they have mental health issues, and these are the very people who are being manipulated by a well organized, very well financed PAC . . . using young people to lobby Council on a consistent basis and to infiltrate our government.
  • And one of the City Council members, Grace Crampsie Smith, who’s up for re-election next November, came right out and said we’re giving radical activists a mechanism to make changes to our police department and address systemic racism.
  • Activists are the ones who are going to navigate the process in all areas, including education, housing, economic disparities . . .
  • They have a master plan for us, and if we don’t get off our butts, and do something about it, well, then, you are going to be led by the nose.
  • A lot of people don’t even know this is going on.
  • That’s the way they want it. City Council passed a resolution without even hearing from any dissenting voice.
  • So most of the City Council or all of them are in the tank with these leftists?
  • All except one . . . except Bryan Callahan, who is the only one who had the guts to call out his other Council members.
  • For they are denying they are for defunding.
  • But we’ve traced highly placed sources who have told us that’s exactly what’s going on.
  • So most of the people on City Council are in the tank for it except Bryan Callahan.
  • Folks, you need to speak up.
  • Amendments will defund the police if we don’t speak up now.
  • This is our last chance.
  • Join our voices to repel this Marxist crusade to destroy the quality of life we enjoy in our home town.

The Lehigh Valley Good Neighbors Alliance also in full-court press as budget vote nears

Latest in a series of posts about the Bethlehem Police

“The Lehigh Valley Good Neighbors Alliance is a community of civic-minded individuals
who raise awareness about important local issues and coordinate
effective community action.”

Let it not be said that there is only one full-court press going on as the budget process heads to the goal.

Gadfly has reported on the full-court press being applied by Lehigh Valley Stands Up on City Council for modifications in policing and reallocation of the police budget.

The Lehigh Valley Good Neighbors Alliance is employing a counter-insurgent full-court press, as evidenced by their petition, their appearance on local radio today (in 40 minutes from the publication of this post), and their call for public comment at upcoming City Council meetings.




 

City budget doin’s this week

Latest in a series of posts on the City Budget

Mayor Robert Donchez 2021 Budget Address

View the Mayor’s 2021 Proposed Budget

There’s  a regular City Council meeting tomorrow night Tuesday December 1, and Thursday night December 3 is the final (#4) budget hearing.

There is a good chance that there will be significant public comment about the budget both Tuesday and Thursday.

Gadfly is not sure how much budget discussion by and among the Council members will take place Tuesday night, but Thursday is the time Council traditionally focuses on horse-trading, making amendments, and attempting to finalize the budget. There should be much discussion Thursday night. Gadfly urges you to join in.

Gadfly encourages you to “attend” the Thursday budget session for sure. You can expect to see all Council members in action. And that’s what we live for on Gadfly.

The final vote on the 2021 budget takes place at the City Council meeting December 15, and Gadfly supposes that there could be more discussion and amendment-making then too.

Gadfly reminds you that City Council has ultimate budget power.

What we will be seeing in the next two weeks is Council exercising its highest responsibility.

It is our responsibility to be paying attention.

———–

What are the visible budget issues so far?

Let’s face it — tough year financially. The Mayor called it a gut-punching year, the worst he’s faced in his two terms. Thank you pandemic.

Beside general belt-tightening, the Mayor is proposing to cut 4 firefighters, 2 Service Centerers, and raise taxes 5% ($46 for the average home owner).

Gadfly has not heard a dollar figure put on the personnel cuts, but he will guess the proposed saving is in the $500,000 range. He would welcome more authoritative figures.

The City’s financial rating has been excellent, and there seems general consensus that personnel-wise the City runs a lean ship.

So far, Councilman Callahan is the only one floating specific counter-proposals to the Mayor’s budget.

Cutting staff is always nasty, but it’s even more so now because the firefighters are on the front line of public safety. Will the cuts make us less safe?

Councilman Callahan has talked vigorously about the necessity to save the personnel cuts, most particularly the firefighters.

He has floated a plan to cut building inspectors in the Department of Community and Economic Development, though no dollar figures were attached to this proposal either, so Gadfly can’t be sure how far, if enacted, that plan would go toward saving firefighters.

Councilman Callahan also has taken aim at $40,000 matching funds to a state and county collaboration to fund a feasibility study for a pedestrian/bike bridge across the Lehigh — calling it a “luxury” and bad optics when families and businesses are struggling to survive in these hard pandemic times.

The police budget is a wild card in Gadfly’s mind.

There has been a steady drumbeat of pressure to reimagine the nature and duties of the police department, especially in the last several meetings by members of and supporters of Lehigh Valley Stands Up.

In early post-GeorgeFloyd meetings, some Council members seemed inclined to consider changes in the nature and duties of the department, though two said without equivocation they would not defund.

The police department itself is instituting a pilot program aimed at addressing some of the goals of the “reimaginers,” and, though generally deemed inadequate by those “reimaginers,” Gadfly’s sense is that Council generally sees that program as a positive step. The police initiative might take the steam out of other plans for change.

Thus, in regard to the police department Council has, to public view, so far kept its powder dry.

However, the Lehigh Valley Good Neighbors Alliance — a Back the Blue group — has said it has heard from two highly placed sources that a Council defunding plot is afoot, and LVGNA is mobilizing members and the general public to resist it. Their petition to “defend” the police department has 7,000+ signatures.

And, hence, as Gadfly just posted, their appearance on the WAEB Bobby Gunther Walsh radio program (790AM) at 9:40 this morning.

But, as indicated already, all Gadfly can say is that he has seen no definite visible signs of such a Council plan in regard to the police.

An interesting and important week ahead, my followers.

Drop everything and get to your radio at 9:40 this (Monday) morning!

Latest in a series of posts about the Bethlehem Police

The program note: “A Spokesman for Lehigh Valley Good Neighbors – They are fighting a Radical Leftist Agenda to Defund the Police in Bethlehem. They want to make you aware of upcoming City Council Meetings and Budget Meetings surrounding the defunding of the Police.”

On “Giving Tuesday” support public art on the Southside

Latest in a series of posts on the Arts in Bethlehem

“it’s a cool and eclectic and kind of funky place. So keep South Bethlehem funky.”
Kim Carrell-Smith

Southside Arts District Public Art project

PLEASE  DONATE HERE

Each year we work tirelessly to create opportunities for local artists to transform the streetscape of South Bethlehem into their canvas. Over the last three years the Southside Arts District has completed the following projects:

  • artistic designed flowerpots
  • downtown murals
  • Greenway ArtsWalk
  • artistic designed bike racks
  • public piano

 

 

PLEASE  DONATE HERE

 

 

 

 

“I am sure this experience had no positive effect on his alcoholism or mental illness”

Latest in a series of posts on the Arts in Bethlehem

Kimberly Schwartz is a student studying Sociology & Anthropology at Moravian College. She is passionate about criminal justice reform, equal rights, feminism, and climate change. This piece was originally written for a course at Moravian titled Writing as Activism, taught by Dr. Joyce Hinnefeld, in which students are encouraged to consider topics such as mass incarceration, migration, and how to change the world through writing.

What I Know, Right Now, About Incarceration in The United States:
A History of Learning Through Experiences and Exposure

part 7

Nandini Sikand’s documentary INSIDE/OUTSIDE is especially eye-opening in the way it portrays the effect incarceration has not only on the person incarcerated but also on that person’s children. A particularly poignant scene shows one formerly incarcerated woman’s teenage son struggling not to cry when describing the time he spent away from his mother while she was incarcerated (Sikand, 2019).

I am 23 years old and working at a local gas station while attending community college. A local homeless man is outside panhandling for the third time this month. I go outside and ask him to leave, a request he normally listens to. Today, however, he responds belligerently, suggesting I call the police if I really want him to leave. I tell him I will, hoping I won’t actually have to. Ten minutes pass and several customers have come inside to complain. I call the non-emergency police number and report that a man I had asked to leave is refusing to do so. I make sure to include that he is not violent and likely mentally ill. The dispatcher informs me that an officer will arrive shortly. Another ten minutes pass and two police vehicles approach the homeless man, who is standing in the parking lot and smoking a cigarette. The officers immediately handcuff him, pushing him up against the wall and patting him down. The man remains in cuffs for nearly an hour before an officer comes inside to question me. I tell him the situation, and he takes down my information. They finally release the homeless man, who scurries away as fast as he can. I am told that I will be called as a witness and that he was charged with criminal trespassing. I never see the homeless man again (my witness testimony was apparently not needed), but I am sure this experience had no positive effect on his alcoholism or mental illness.

seventh part in a series . . .

“58% of the average daily jail population is either in custody for a parole or probation violation or a new charge”

Latest in a series of posts on the Arts in Bethlehem

Kimberly Schwartz is a student studying Sociology & Anthropology at Moravian College. She is passionate about criminal justice reform, equal rights, feminism, and climate change. This piece was originally written for a course at Moravian titled Writing as Activism, taught by Dr. Joyce Hinnefeld, in which students are encouraged to consider topics such as mass incarceration, migration, and how to change the world through writing.

What I Know, Right Now, About Incarceration in The United States:
A History of Learning Through Experiences and Exposure

part 6

Though there is a shortage of data needed to definitively state the percentage of the jail and prison population who are incarcerated because of some form of probation or parole violation, a 2020 article published by the Prison Policy Initiative explains that the data that is available suggests that they make up a significant percentage of the incarcerated population. For example, in Philadelphia County 58% of the average daily jail population is either in custody for a parole or probation violation or a new charge while also on parole or probation (Sawyer, Jones, & Troilo, 2020).

Six months after my experience at court, I am visiting Derek in jail. I sit on the other side of a glass screen and watch as guards lead my friend to the bench on the other side. His once full head of hair is shaved, he has acquired several DIY tattoos, and he is somehow even scrawnier than I remember. There are dark circles under his eyes and when he smiles at me, I notice two of his teeth are beginning to rot. We talk about his two sons, both of whom are under three years old. I ask if his girlfriend has brought them in to visit. He shakes his head and fights back tears as he explains he doesn’t want his family to see him this way. In another six months, Derek is released. He is unable to keep a job and quickly turns to hard drugs like methamphetamine and heroin. He has another son with his girlfriend and, soon after, they break up. He takes his eldest son to Florida, where his mother lives, and gets sober. He no longer sees his younger sons, but he has a job and is finally able to pay off the remainder of his legal fees. I often wonder if his family would still be together if he had not been forced to spend a year away from them.

sixth part in a series . . .

George Floyd’s America (6): “the police were omnipresent in his life”

Latest in series of posts in the wake of the George Floyd murder

“This is something you talk about, the systemic racism, which is part of the problem in this country, and it’s embedded in criminal justice, housing, and a lot of other things. . . . what you’re saying is exactly what the Captain has said, the Deputy has said, we talk among ourselves. It may not be here in the City, but it’s in the overall system.”

Mark DiLuzio, Bethlehem Chief of Police, 2014-2020

———–

George Floyd died 6 months ago this week. The Washington Post’s six-part series, “George Floyd’s America,” examines the role systemic racism played throughout Floyd’s 46-year life. Gadfly would like you to join with him in reading one part of that remarkable series each day this week.

———-

“A knee on his neck: Police were a part of George Floyd’s life from beginning to end, an experience uncommon for most Americans, except other Black men”

HOUSTON — From the day George Floyd moved to Texas as a child to the day he was killed in Minneapolis, the police were omnipresent in his life.

They were there when Floyd and his siblings played basketball at the Cuney Homes housing project, driving their patrol cars through the makeshift courts. They were there when he walked home from school, interrogating him about the contents of his backpack. They were there when he went on late-night snack runs to the store, stopping his car and throwing him to the ground. They were there, surrounding his mother’s home, as his family prepared for their grandfather’s funeral.

They were at the bus stop, on the corner, and on his mother’s front porch. And they were in Minneapolis — 1,200 miles from where Floyd first said “Yes, officer,” to a patrolman — when he took his last breath in handcuffs.

The frequency of Floyd’s contact with police during his 46 years of life is an anomaly for most Americans, except for other Black men. While the majority of public interactions with police begin and end safely in the United States, according to 2015 survey data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, for Black Americans, those encounters are more likely to happen multiple times in a year, more likely to be initiated by police and more likely to involve the use of force.

continue . . .

———-

the sixth and final part in a 6-part series

“He is now legally allowed to carry the same amount of marijuana he received a felony for years ago”

Latest in a series of posts on the Arts in Bethlehem

Kimberly Schwartz is a student studying Sociology & Anthropology at Moravian College. She is passionate about criminal justice reform, equal rights, feminism, and climate change. This piece was originally written for a course at Moravian titled Writing as Activism, taught by Dr. Joyce Hinnefeld, in which students are encouraged to consider topics such as mass incarceration, migration, and how to  change the world through writing.

What I Know, Right Now, About Incarceration in The United States:
A History of Learning Through Experiences and Exposure

part 5

Earlier this year, my now ex-boyfriend applied for and received his medical marijuana card. He is now legally allowed to carry the same amount of marijuana he received a felony for years ago on his person or in his vehicle.

I am 21 years old, and I’m sitting outside of a courtroom, awaiting a preliminary hearing in which I am meant to act as a witness for the defense. The man on trial is a friend of mine, Derek. He is charged with aggravated assault after a drunken fight between him and another friend ended in a stabbing. He has spent the last several months awaiting trial in Northampton County Jail after being unable to post bail. He is facing a felony charge which could result in up to 10 years in state prison, and he is prepared to take a plea deal. Before the hearing starts, the prosecutor pulls aside our other friend, the one who was stabbed. She asks him if he remembers who started the fight. Every person in the courtroom hears him answer, “I don’t remember, it might have been me, I was drunk.” The prosecutor promptly drops all charges, and the court is dismissed as soon as the trial begins. Derek is no longer facing charges, but he remains in jail for the next year. This occurs because his involvement in the fight is considered a violation of his probation, which he was given after being charged with simple possession of marijuana.

fifth part in a series . . .

Lehigh Valley Stands Up applies full-court press as budget vote nears

Latest in a series of posts about the Bethlehem Police

City Council, November 17, 2020 video
begin min. 14:40

Lehigh Valley Stands Up members or residents supporting them dominated the public comment period at the November 17 City Council meeting, criticizing the budget plan to insulate the police department from cuts and calling for reallocation of resources to Health areas.

Such arguments were generally based on needs generated by the pandemic, and, for the first time, we see such specific proposals as a hiring freeze in the police department, elimination of school resource officers, and cutting — 16% — a specific amount that would double the Health Department budget.

Interesting.

One caller — the final caller — Bruce Haines provided the “other side,” indicating that the police department has been understaffed, that social trip media indicates Bethlehem is not a safe city, and that therefore the police are very important to the business community and others. He also suggested that he has no argument with mental health as a need but that the defunders should explore other options rather than the police department for the necessary funds.

As always, Gadfly points out that his text is paraphrase and incomplete and that he hopes you will take a little time to listen to the voices of your fellow residents as they make their cases.

Public participation. Democracy in action.

Always good.

There are two more meetings where the budget will be discussed, amended, and voted on.

What are you thinking about the issues raised here by community members?

 Jon Irons (4 mins.) (min. 14:40)

Lot of needs in the City: pandemic, economic crisis. The Mayor’s budget is planning for this but leave the police department budget untouched. If there are cuts in personnel anywhere, there should be cuts in police. It’s the biggest slice of the budget and the primary driver of the pension costs. How to cut? School resources officers might be cut. Also a hiring freeze. Hopes in future years for serious divestment in the police department. Health Bureau, for instance, has a lot of needs. Could expand the new social worker program immediately. More public accountability in regard to discipline hearings and firings. Any new training should be within existing budget not new funds or new grants.

W. Market St. lady (2 mins.) (min. 18:35)

Increasing evidence that policing is not working in the way we expect it to. Think strategically and creatively about ways in which we can keep our community safe and healthy.

Michele Downing (3 mins.) (min. 20:20)

Short time to address the impending catastrophes. Mortgages, evictions, housing crisis, student loans, covid, food insecurity, child care, online learning = our social worker program is inadequate. We are not looking at all at what the needs of the City are going to be. We all need to tighten our belts and redistribute as necessary. Videos of cars in line at food banks, and we’re not removed from that. Need discussions of where resources actually belong.

Glenn Nelson (3 mins.) (min. 23:38)

Immediate hiring freeze, and future defunding of police. Reallocation of 16% of police budget would double the Health Department budget, which seems reasonable in the middle of a pandemic. A common sense move when you realize how underfunded the Health bureau has been. It makes sense is a pandemic and financial crisis to see where money is really critically needed. Police department budget has gone up every year a bit, leading to large amount over decades. Unjustifiable in financial crisis not to look at the Police budget, plus we know it’s not working. Putting issues with people of color and with mental issues at higher risk. Hoping for cuts in police officers and addition of mental health personnel.

Cherokee St. lady (3 mins.) (min. 26:25)

Mental health crisis long before covid, now made worse. Worrying about your talk of increased police presence on Southside because knows from personal experience because police re not going to help here, and she is not alone in this belief. These crises in mental health, substance abuse, and covid have shown how deep inequalities are. We need sacrifices everywhere, and the police department is the obvious place to look. Police are not what we need. Part-time social worker and bias training will not help.

Patricia (3 mins.) (min. 28:53)

Supports calls for increased health services in the midst of a pandemic. Affordable public health services have been incredibly helpful to her. Calling 911 for mental health issues — cf. Walter Wallace — is not the answer. Police not trained to deal with such things. I ca sleep easier because of the Bethlehem Health Department but not because of the police. Need to put funds where they help people. People are really concerned as second wave of covid comes in, evictions, student loan payments. Not easy working with budget but keeping things as is will not be a benefit.

Anthony Downing (4 mins.) (min. 32:01)

Concerns of the disabled. Wants to remind people of a time when they were united in regard to caring about health because now cutting fire and other place as well as putting a 5% tax on is going in opposite direction. We should be spending this money in the midst of a global pandemic to bolster our public health, and more police or not cutting police but cutting elsewhere is going in opposite direction. You’ve done the right things before and hope you will be cutting money from police in favor of mental health services now.

Alexander Fisher (3 mins.) (min. 35:52)

Supports cutting police budget and reallocating to mental health services. Not safe calling police for mental health issues. Police department very overfunded. No empirical evidence that shows more policing leads to less crime. Myth that without big police force we would have an unfit society. Not hatred for police but growing move to reimagine the police and their function. Reallocation would make people of color and women feel a lot safer.

———-

Bruce Haines (3 mins.) (min. 39:26)

LV Stands Up has one agenda, to cut the police budget, and using the idea of a national agenda to do that. But that is not a majority position, rather a minority position. Agrees that the police are not meeting needs of the community but reason is that they are understaffed. Department only now fully staffed which gives business community a sense of safety about bringing tourists to Bethlehem. See Trip Advisor — we are considered an unsafe community. Police are critical in Bethlehem putting its best foot forward. No issue with concern for mental health but need to refocus on other options to funding mental health instead of taking money from police. Our police problem is not excessive. We don’t have a major police problem. LV Stands Up tries to make it a problem. I’m here to defend the police and funding for the police and speak for a whole lot of people who haven’t called in because the Mayor’s budget did not cut the police. Speaking for the other side and the safety of our community.

Reimagining the Rose Garden

Latest in a series of posts on the Rose Garden

7PM DECEMBER 1 MEETING: REIMAGINING THE ROSE GARDEN

If you would like to participate in this public meeting, for the zoom link please email 18018mana@gmail.com or cmroysdon@gmail.com.

Help us celebrate the anniversary of the 1931 historic Bethlehem Rose Garden as we reimagine it for the next 90 years.

Meeting agenda items include:

1. Grant details and updates
2. Possible design plans: presentation by consultant Pam Ruch
3. Feedback from meeting participants

The historic West Bethlehem Rose Garden, created in 1931, will celebrate its 90th birthday next year!

Ideas for updating and revitalizing the garden will be shared through a Zoom presentation and discussion on Tuesday, December 1 at 7PM.

A grant from Lehigh County to MANA (Mount Airy Neighborhood Assn, west Bethlehem) has enabled the development of a plan and new plant list.

Presenter Pam Ruch, a consultant for the grant, will share beautiful examples of environmentally friendly rose gardens, near and far, to inspire the work going forward.

A group discussion will follow.

Pam Ruch, a garden designer and writer based in Emmaus, maintains the gardens at the Glasbern Inn in Fogelsville and is the garden director at the Nurture Nature Center in Easton. She recently retired from managing the historic gardens at Morven Museum & Garden, in Princeton, NJ. She holds a BS in horticulture from Temple University, and presents programs throughout the region.

Postcard below dates from 1953!

Info from from the Bethlehem Environmental Advisory Council and Christy Roysdon’s Facebook pages.

San Francisco D.A. when charging police officer: “No one is above the law”

Latest in a series of posts in the wake of the George Floyd murder

“[The officer] was doing, the union argued, what he was trained to do.”

Gadfly keeping an eye on subject shootings. This may be the first time San Francisco charged a police officer with homicide. In the post-GeorgeFloyd era officers are being held more accountable. We need to review training for “first contact” situations among other aspects of officer conduct. That the unnecessary death occurred from the actions of an officer following his training is precisely what needs to be reviewed. It’s increasingly clear that officers will no longer get a pass in such situations.

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The District Attorney describes the incident (3 mins.):

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Selections from Paulina Villegas, “In a possible first, San Francisco charges an officer with homicide over fatal on-duty shooting.” Washington Post, November 24, 2020.

A former police officer was charged with manslaughter by the San Francisco district attorney’s office Monday, three years after he fatally shot Kita O’Neil during an alleged carjacking incident.

District Attorney Chesa Boudin announced that his office had filed homicide charges against former San Francisco Police Department officer Christopher Samayoa, a decision that appears to be the city’s first homicide prosecution against a law enforcement officer who has killed someone while on duty.

“I hope the message people take from this decision is my commitment to follow through on my campaign promises, the recognition that no one is above the law, not even police officers, and that we value the Black and Brown lives impacted by police violence,” [D.A.] Boudin told The Washington Post on Tuesday.

“We recognize that the vast majority of the police officers are doing the job well, but when an officer violates the law, there will be consequences,” he added.

The charges come amid mounting public demands nationally for greater accountability in cases of alleged police abuse and in police killings.

Boudin argued that cases such as the police killings of George Floyd in Minneapolis and Breonna Taylor in Louisville, cases that sparked protests across the country, reflected “the failures of our legal system to hold police accountable for the violence committed against the very members of the public they are entrusted to keep safe,” he said.

“This lack of accountability for police who abuse their power has created great mistrust, particularly for communities of color,” he said.

On Dec. 1, 2017, Officers Edric Talusan and Samayoa followed a person thought to have carjacked a state lottery van in the residential neighborhood of Potrero Hill.

When the van reached a dead-end street and other police cars blocked its path, O’Neil, 42, jumped out of the car and ran past the police car where Samayoa was seated in the passenger seat.

Samayoa, who was just out of the police academy and four days into his field training, fired his gun through the side window, killing O’Neil.

Samayoa’s body camera showed that O’Neil did not have a weapon, and O’Neil’s manner of death was determined to be a homicide, according to the district attorney’s office.

In March 2018, the officer was fired from the SFPD as a result of the shooting, prompting outrage from the police union, which argued that Samayoa’s firing was unfair given the fact that he was doing, the union argued, what he was trained to do, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

“This prosecution is an important, historic step towards showing that Black lives matter and that unlawful police violence will not be tolerated,” [Boudin] said.

George Floyd’s America (5): “Being Black in America . . . is its own preexisting condition”

Latest in series of posts in the wake of the George Floyd murder

“You and me, we had hurdles [speaking to Councilman Reynolds], but we were able to get over them. But everybody doesn’t go that same route. I’m in agreement with what you’re saying. I don’t know how we change that whole system.”

Mark DiLuzio, Bethlehem Chief of Police, 2014-2020

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George Floyd died 6 months ago this week. The Washington Post’s six-part series, “George Floyd’s America,” examines the role systemic racism played throughout Floyd’s 46-year life. Gadfly would like you to join with him in reading one part of that remarkable series each day this week.

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“Racism’s hidden toll: In Minneapolis, the physical and mental strain of a lifetime confronting racism surfaced in George Floyd’s final years”

MINNEAPOLIS — George Floyd came to this city with a broken body and wilted dreams, his many attempts at a better life out of his grasp. He was left with no college degree, no sports contract, no rap career, not even a steady job. At 43, what he had was an arrest record and a drug problem, his hopes hinging on one last shot at healing.

So in February of 2017 he decided to board a bus in Houston and ride more than 1,100 miles on Interstate 35 almost straight north to Minneapolis. Waiting for him was his friend Aubrey Rhodes, who had taken the same journey a year earlier. Rhodes was now sober and working as a security guard at the Salvation Army.

“Damn, bro, it’s cold,” Rhodes recalled Floyd saying on what was, for Minnesota, a balmy 50-degree winter day.

“You ready for this?” Rhodes asked him. “You can get yourself together here. You can find a way to live.”

Finding a way to live has never been a sure thing for Black men in America, who are taught from an early age that any misstep could lead to a prison cell or a coffin. They have higher rates of hypertension, obesity and heart disease, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They are twice as likely as White men to die of a cocaine overdose, twice as likely to be killed by police and, in Floyd’s age group, 10 times as likely to die of a homicide.

Public-health researchers and scientists once held that these disparities were the result of poor choices — bad diets, lack of exercise, being in the wrong place at the wrong time. But experts are increasingly pointing to another culprit: systemic racism. Being Black in America, they have found, is its own preexisting condition.

continue . . .

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the fifth part in a 6-part series

“The incident left many of us feeling uneasy, angry, and ashamed”

Latest in a series of posts on the Arts in Bethlehem

Kimberly Schwartz is a student studying Sociology & Anthropology at Moravian College. She is passionate about criminal justice reform, equal rights, feminism, and climate change. This piece was originally written for a course at Moravian titled Writing as Activism, taught by Dr. Joyce Hinnefeld, in which students are encouraged to consider topics such as mass incarceration, migration, and how to  change the world through writing.

What I Know, Right Now, About Incarceration in The United States:
A History of Learning Through Experiences and Exposure

part 4

n the summer of 2020, several highly publicized cases of police brutality ending in the death of unarmed black citizens led to mass protests around the world. I attended several peaceful protests in the Lehigh Valley. During one of these protests, I witnessed the police attempt to detain a young black male for being disruptive. Representatives from the local chapter of the NAACP stepped in and were able to prevent an arrest from occurring, but the incident left many of us feeling uneasy, angry, and ashamed.

I am 20 years old, and I have just moved out of my father’s house in the suburbs of Macungie and into a townhouse in downtown Bethlehem with my boyfriend and two of his friends. I am awoken in the middle of the night by my boyfriend tossing and turning violently. I shake him awake and ask what’s wrong. He has tears in his eyes as he explains that he was having a nightmare about his time in jail, specifically the week he spent in solitary confinement after a corrections officer found Seroquel in the cell he shared with three other inmates. For a moment, he believed he was back in solitary confinement and that he would never again be free. He explains that he has nightmares like this often and smokes marijuana in order to sleep through the night. As the years pass, I learn more and more about his time in jail and how it has negatively affected his mental and physical health. This man spent several months in jail and an additional year and a half on parole after a police officer searched his vehicle and found half an ounce of marijuana, a few plastic bags, and a scale. This search was conducted because the officer claimed he could smell marijuana.

fourth part in a series . . .

George Floyd’s America (4): “The Texas prison system’s mission was to end the type of recurrent incarceration that Floyd experienced by rehabilitating inmates and returning them to society with skills”

Latest in a series of posts in the wake of the George Floyd murder

“A young kid should expect to grow up in a good family, go to high school, go to college, have a good paying job, but there’s a lot of hurdles placed in front of certain kids, and they can’t get over those hurdles. You and me [speaking to Councilman Reynolds], we had hurdles, but we were able to get over them.”

Mark DiLuzio, Bethlehem Chief of Police, 2014-2020

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George Floyd died 6 months ago yesterday. The Washington Post’s six-part series, “George Floyd’s America,” examines the role systemic racism played throughout Floyd’s 46-year life. Gadfly would like you to join with him in reading one part of that remarkable series each day this week,

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“Profiting from prisoners: Communities and companies made money off George Floyd’s imprisonment. Inside, Floyd withered”

BARTLETT, Tex. — The prison transport to this tiny city north of Austin took George Floyd past ranch land and cotton fields — worlds away from his home in Houston. But for the then-36-year-old Floyd, the spring of 2009 was another turn through a cycle of incarceration that would be both familiar and futile.

Floyd had been through stints in jail for drug possession since his 20s, spending up to several months at a time behind bars. But Bartlett State Jail was his first taste of extended time. He was sentenced there after pleading guilty to an armed robbery in Houston in 2007 and would spend nearly two years at the 1,049-bed facility.

He was one of several men accused of holding a woman at gunpoint and ransacking her home for money and drugs until they realized they had the wrong house and hustled away — but not before pistol-whipping the woman in front of her children. Floyd was arrested months later, driving what witnesses had identified as the getaway car. He is the only person who has served time for the incident, records show. The victim says she remembers Floyd’s face, and a police report states that she “tentatively” identified him in a lineup — though the photo lineup techniques investigators used are no longer approved.

At Bartlett State Jail, Floyd bunked with childhood friend Cal Wayne, who said Floyd long contended that he was innocent of that crime but took a plea deal out of concern that a jury would unfairly judge a man with previous felonies. He accepted a five-year sentence rather than risk decades in prison. He paroled out in four.

The Texas prison system’s mission was to end the type of recurrent incarceration that Floyd experienced by rehabilitating inmates and returning them to society with skills that would help them live law-abiding lives. But Floyd’s time in Bartlett State Jail only furthered his downward spiral. Behind its walls, Floyd found few opportunities to better himself, friends and relatives said, and the experience only exacerbated his depression, drug dependency and claustrophobia — the very issues that would play a role in the final moments of his life nearly a decade later.

continue . . .

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the fourth part in a 6-part series

“I am hopeful that this might be a turning point in the United States”

Latest in a series of posts on the Arts in Bethlehem

Kimberly Schwartz is a student studying Sociology & Anthropology at Moravian College. She is passionate about criminal justice reform, equal rights, feminism, and climate change. This piece was originally written for a course at Moravian titled Writing as Activism, taught by Dr. Joyce Hinnefeld, in which students are encouraged to consider topics such as mass incarceration, migration, and how to  change the world through writing.

What I Know, Right Now, About Incarceration in The United States:
A History of Learning Through Experiences and Exposure

part 3

According to the most recent data from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention’s Statistical Briefing Book, 41% of juveniles in correctional facilities are black (Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 2017).

It is the summer of 2014, and I have just turned 19 years old. Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager who was around my age, was recently shot to death by a police officer in the streets of Ferguson, Missouri, and protests are being met with a militarized police force. I am watching the chaos unfold on the TV at my father’s house. I am disgusted and appalled, and I can’t help remembering the way my friend Trevor was treated by an officer all those years ago. I am hopeful that this might be a turning point in the United States. That society might awaken to systemic racism and police brutality. This is the summer I begin to conduct my own research regarding mass incarceration and the racial and ethnic disparities present in the criminal justice system. In this moment, I am determined to do what I can to educate myself and help expose others to the oppression and violence people of a different skin color and from different socioeconomic backgrounds face at the hands of law enforcement and the larger criminal justice system. I am still ignorant and naive. I have much more to learn.

third part in a series . . .

The pandemic makes sense trying a CSA

Latest in a series of posts on the environment

Alison Steele is a Liberty High School alum who traveled the world looking for adventure and purpose before finding it in Pittsburgh.  She has made it her mission to help others make more informed decisions around how they interact with people and the planet.

Community Supported Agriculture, Part 1

I’ve done it again. Every few years I think “oh, I’ll sign up for a CSA. It will be fun. I’ll cook with fresh, local, and in-season produce, all while supporting local farmers.” While I completely agree with Community Supported Agriculture in concept, I have only signed up for a CSA twice in the past 12 years, and I have been sorely disappointed in myself (not the subscription) both times.

No matter how small a box I order, no matter how infrequent the deliveries I request, my default dinner usually involves going out or ordering in, rather than cooking. Consequently, I never seem to make use of my fresh, local veggies before they go bad, and the result is very expensive compost.

It made sense to try it again this year because Christian and I have gone out together for food exactly twice since the shutdown began in mid-March. On top of that, almost all takeout and delivery options near our house (except pizza) include some kind of plastic packaging, reducing my desire to order food. Could this third time could be the charm? . . .

continue on Alison’s blog

Community Supported Agriculture, Part 1

Callahan not bursting the bridge’s balloon, just blowing it up slower

Latest in a series of posts on the pedestrian bridge

Bruce Haines is a Lehigh graduate who returned to Bethlehem after a 35-year career at USSteel. He put together a 12-member Partnership to rescue the Hotel Bethlehem from bankruptcy in 1998 and lives in the historic district.

Gadfly:

I think Councilman Callahan made a valid point about the timing of funding this [pedestrian/bicycle bridge] project.

He was clear that he generally supported this project, but at this point there were likely more urgent needs for the $40,000.

He also pointed out that the matching funds would likely still be there next year as well so that this project could be funded when times are better.

Businesses are deferring expenditures & reallocating scarce funding during this period.

Government should also be doing the same thing.

In this particular case, I think Mr. Callahan was not being unreasonable.

He was not bursting the balloon for the bridge but only blowing it up a little slower than originally planned to address more critical needs.

I don’t think he got a fair hearing quite frankly from his fellow council members.

Bruce

Pedestrian bridge politics

Latest in a series of posts on the pedestrian bridge

Bud Hackett is a Bethlehem resident who raised 4 kids in the City. He recently became very interested in quality of life issues in the city and hopes to offer a balance to the approach City Council is taking.

ref: The budget dance (3): the pedestrian/bicycle bridge

Gadfly:

It is all about who is pandering to which constituency.

It would appear that Mr. Reynolds is looking for votes from the liberal democrats that want the City to give them a free $4-5 million bike and walk bridge across the river.

Who doesn’t want a “free bridge”?

Just look at the list of people and organizations sending letters of support for the project. A treasure trove of progressive voters.

Mr. Callahan seems to want to distinguish himself as a democrat from Mr. Reynolds and seems to be more aligned with “working class” moderate Dems that may feel the bridge is more for tourists and a benefit for the Southside at the expense of the taxpayers north of the river.

Politics is not about doing what’s best,

it’s about doing what best for the politicians.

Yes, we all want “free stuff” paid for by others.

We are currently in crises financially.

Aren’t we taxed enough already?

No need to be dreaming up new ways to spend the taxpayer’s money.

Bud

George Floyd’s America (3): “How do you get a George Floyd to think beyond the walls of that housing project?”

Latest in a series of posts in the wake of the George Floyd murder

“You and me [speaking to Councilman Reynolds] had one path in life, and we got to where we are because of that path. There’s other people who don’t have that path, don’t have those opportunities.”

Mark DiLuzio, Bethlehem Chief of Police, 2014-2020

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George Floyd died 6 months ago today. The Washington Post’s six-part series, “George Floyd’s America,” examines the role systemic racism played throughout Floyd’s 46-year life. Gadfly would like you to join with him in reading one part of that remarkable series each day this week,

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“Segregated from opportunity: Nearly three decades after George Floyd first left Cuney Homes, another generation tries to make it out of Houston’s oldest housing project”

HOUSTON — The last time Kimberly Gibson made a cake for her son was on his first birthday. But she knows 18 is a milestone, especially for a young man on his way out of the projects, destined to play college football.

So on a September afternoon, Gibson dumped two boxes of Betty Crocker vanilla cake mix into a bowl, added eggs, water and oil, and stirred the lumpy batter in her cramped galley kitchen.

Baking hadn’t been an option for birthdays past, when she was exhausted by the daily tasks required to simply keep her son out of trouble and alive in a neighborhood ridden with violence. In this part of Third Ward, where Black men are referred to as an “endangered species,” each untimely death is memorialized on the orange brick wall of the corner store. The “ghetto angels,” as they are collectively known.

The most prominent of those is now George Floyd, the former Cuney Homes kid who has become the embodiment of police brutality and systemic racial inequality in America.

For Gibson, Floyd’s death has been more personal, an unsettling reminder that the future for her son Daniel Hunt remains precarious. His goal of making it out of Houston’s oldest public housing project on a football scholarship echoes Floyd’s journey nearly three decades ago. She knew Floyd as a “gentle giant,” and his face, now emblazoned on neighborhood murals, serves as a solemn warning of the obstacles ahead for Daniel.

“Sports was supposed to have saved him,” Gibson said of Floyd. “I told my son: ‘That is you. That is you all day, every day.’”

Daniel had been accepted to a historically Black Christian college a three-hour drive away in Tyler, Tex., on the prospect of an athletic scholarship. But the novel coronavirus halted those plans. With college turning to virtual classes until at least January and the football season canceled, so, too, was his chance to escape a neighborhood that, by design, remains segregated from opportunity.

Decades of government-sanctioned housing discrimination reverberate through this city. In one of the nation’s most diverse metropolises, much of the housing occupied by low-income Black families is segregated into the shape of a backward “C” around the city center, pierced by wealthier, Whiter neighborhoods to the west that form the shape of an arrow.

The pattern, formed by Jim Crow-era policies dictating where African Americans could live, is cemented today by state law allowing landlords to discriminate against Section 8 voucher holders, weak enforcement of federal civil rights laws promoting integration and White residents’ objections to the construction of affordable housing in affluent communities.

continue . . .

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the third part in a 6-part series

“Instead of driving me to the police station, the officer opts to call an ambulance”

Latest in a series of posts on the Arts in Bethlehem

Kimberly Schwartz is a student studying Sociology & Anthropology at Moravian College. She is passionate about criminal justice reform, equal rights, feminism, and climate change. This piece was originally written for a course at Moravian titled Writing as Activism, taught by Dr. Joyce Hinnefeld, in which students are encouraged to consider topics such as mass incarceration, migration, and how to  change the world through writing.

What I Know, Right Now, About Incarceration in The United States:
A History of Learning Through Experiences and Exposure

part 2

Ava DuVernay’s 2016 documentary 13th provides important historical context and contemporary commentary on the use of mass incarceration as a new form of slavery, segregation, and discrimination used against people of color in the United States (DuVernay, 2016). According to the Prison Policy Initiative, Black Americans make up 40% of the nation’s prison population (Sawyer & Wagner, 2020).

I am 15 years old, and in the midst of my rebellious phase. I bought marijuana for the first time at school earlier in the day and was smoking behind the church in town with some people I had just met. I begin to feel odd, my heart racing and my vision blurring. The group I am with announces they are going back to the concert we had been attending earlier in the night. I attempt to follow them across the street but suddenly I am frozen in fear. I cannot cross and can no longer move my feet. The group leaves me behind, and a police cruiser stops in front of me. The officer exits his vehicle and begins to question me. I cannot understand what he is saying, and I recite my mother’s phone number over and over again. He pats me down and finds paraphernalia and a bag with marijuana in my purse. I am handcuffed and led into the back of the cruiser. Instead of driving me to the police station, the officer opts to call an ambulance. I spend the night in a hospital room with the understanding that I’ll have to face legal consequences eventually. The next day, my father drives me to the station. I meet with the police chief, a woman who ran the DARE program when I was in elementary school, and she informs me that I will be enrolled in the Impact Program which is offered to co-operative minors charged with misdemeanor offenses. Pending the successful completion of this program, all charges will be dropped against me and I will face no further legal consequences.

In the decade since this incident, I have met countless people charged with similar offenses as juveniles. Not one of them had even heard of the Impact Program, and many faced crippling legal consequences which directly affected their ability to successfully graduate from high school and pursue higher education. A few had even spent time in juvenile detention for less serious offenses than those I faced. The main difference between these people and me? They were not raised in the suburbs and most of them were not white.

second part in a series . . .

Bridge process: a model of democratic citizen engagement plus an equally vigorous response from city government

Latest in a series of posts on the pedestrian bridge

Doug Roysdon is a member of the Bethlehem Pedestrian-Biking Bridge Committee.

Dear Gadfly :

There has been some unfortunate controversy raised over the proposed feasibility study of the pedestrian/biking bridge. After a resounding 6-1 affirmation of the proposal last week, it seems that this decision is still being tested.

So, perhaps it’s time to put the bridge aside for a moment . . .

Let’s address a subject quite unrelated to economic, transportational, and social issues. That is, the remarkable, possibly unprecedented, democratic process that yielded the feasibility study in the first place.  The public record of that citizen-lead process stands on its own:

Six public meetings at the IceHouse and City Hall.

A citizen financed Vision Statement facilitated by national consultancy firm Neighbours Inc.

A twenty-five page report documenting our community conversation on the bridge.

Two Lehigh University architecture courses exploring the design of the bridge.

Thirty endorsements including the City Health Bureau, The Bethlehem Chamber of Commerce, ArtsQuest, and Discover Lehigh Valley.

These citizen-initiated actions were met with an exemplary response by Bethlehem city government and the Mayor. The city’s contribution to the study includes voting almost unanimously two times in support of the feasibility study, generously following and supporting the process by the City Planning Department, and engaging in four interviews with nationally recognized design firms.

In short, a model of democratic citizen engagement was met with an equally vigorous response from city government. Together, this dual response to a possible pedestrian/biking bridge marks a progressive means of addressing new ideas and public decision-making. In many ways, this is more important than the bridge itself!

Thanks, Doug