Casino Commission Selected

Northampton County Council voted and approved the commission members who will dole out casino funds and the group included representitives from outside Bethelehem (read the article in the Morning Call here).

County Council Vacancy

The Northampton County Council has a vacancy and three have applied to fill it, including Lower Nazareth's Gerry Seyfried according to an article in the Morning Call (read it here).

Seyfried is a former Councilman and former County Executive. Also applying are Ron Heckman, another former Councilman and former NorCo Official, currently serving Lehigh County, and Bob Birk.

Casino $$$ Commission Controversy Continues

The Morning Call reports that the commission to determine which municipalities receive what portion of gambling dollars continues to be contested on the county level (read the article here).

Ron Angle has taken the position that municipalities outside Bethelehem should be involved including Nazareth and the Slate Belt.

Seems this has gotten far to over-complicated. Couldn't we simply assign two zones to municipalities in Northampton County - high impact and all others, then distribute based on population plus an additional factor for high impact?

Fight over Casino Dollars Continues

County Council continues to debate who should serve on the commission that will determine which municipalities should get money from the Casino impact fees according to an article in the Morning Call (read it here).

Emergency Alert Service

Want to thank Mr. Jeffery P. Steiert, ENP, Systems Manager, Northampton County, Emergency Management Services for forwarding to me information on a new alert service for county residents.

You can sign-up for the service on this site: Notify Northampton County

The EMS web site is available here.

WFMZ - Best Source for Local Election Information

Want to thank WFMZ for its election coverage and information. I may have missed it online, but couldn't find a full list of races in either Express or the Call and the County site had no information, but WFMZ had multiple counties with all race results and their tv coverage ran non-stop last night. Northampton County results are here.

I love local races because they can be so close and a single vote can make a difference. Case in point, Upper Nazareth Tax Collector was tied at 27 votes each for Amy Stoudt and Colleen Pulliam (special note - the % in indicates 50% so it may be that only one polling location reported of the two)

Court of Common Pleas

I received more mail from these eight candidates than bills in the past month and that isn't easy to do;-)

Each ticket had three spots available and everyone cross-filed leading the D ticket were Zito, Koury, and Hollenbach. Top R ticket vote getters were Dally, Zito, and Koury. Combining the tickets, Dally had 10,927 votes, Zito had 10,434, Koury had 9234, and Hollenbach had 6253.

County Council

Former school board member Deb Hunter finished 2nd in voting in the D primary, while incumbent and former NASD teacher, Peg Ferraro topped voting in the R primary.

Nazareth Tax Collector

Four candidates ran for tax collector in Nazareth and Pat Barlieb edged Renee Pfeiffer 184-125.

Stockertown Council

Four candidates vied for three seats and Wenzelberger, Zito, and Wenzelberger were top vote getters with 39, 31, and 24 votes respectively.

Line in the Sands

The Nazareth Area Council of Governments (COG) and the Slate Belt Council of Governments are both seeking seats on the County Gaming Revenue Authority that will disburse monies received when the new Sands Casino opens in May according to an article in the Express-Times (read it here).

County Council has currently established that the nine member authority will have eight members from the Bethlehem area in year one.

The two COG's would each like to have one representative on the authority.

The Authority is expected to receive $1.25M per year and the money is to be distributed by way of grants.

Dally for Judge

On Thursday evening Bushkill resident and current PA State Representative Craig Dally announced his candidacy for Northampton County Court Judge at the Holy Family Club in Nazareth.

Having attended myself, I'd guess there were close to 300 people on hand for the announcement. Preceding Dally at the podium were State Senator Patrick Browne, State Rep. Julie Harhart, State Rep. Rich Grucella, and Dally's campaign treasurer Sue Jarvis.

Also in attendance were two other candidates for Judge (you can vote for three) and among many others, I saw Northampton County Republican chairman Roy Shuman.

In fair disclosure, I worked for Rep. Dally as a legislative assistant when he was first elected some twelve years ago.

New Location for District Magistrate

The District Magistrate's office has changed location, but will remain in Nazareth according to an article in the Express-Times (read it here). The new court location is situated in the Borough Building on South Main Street.

Gracedale Repairs Over Budget

The Morning Call reports that repairs to the county home in Upper Nazareth have been received by three companies and all are approx. $500,000 over the amount budgeted (read the article here).

A recommendation is to be submitted to the county at its next monthly meeting.

New Voting Machines Coming

The Express-Times reports (read it here) that the County's new voting machines will be on display for the public at several locations including one in Nazareth - at the Nazareth Senior Center on 15 S. Wood Street (West end of town).

According to the article - 8:30-10 a.m. Thursday at the Nazareth Senior Center, 15 S. Wood St., Nazareth.

County Expected to hold line on taxes in 2009

The Morning Call reports that Northampton County officials are anticipating no tax increase for 2009 (read the article here).

County Council Candidate Debate

The candidates for Northampton County Council met for a debate last night at St. John's in Nazareth.

The Morning Call reports on the debate (read it here) and indicates it was fairly low key due to the format. The main issues were the perpetual healthcare for retired employees, the prison, and some discussion was had regarding the anonymous campaign calls against Ferraro and Angle.

Lehigh Valley Ramblings also has a description of the event (read it here). While entertaining, it appears from reading both accounts that very little was learned from the candidates to help voters.

Also on the political front, I received an email announcement that the Northampton County Republican Committee Chairperson, Bob Kilbanks will be having a press conference today at 1:00 p.m. at the County Courthouse to address, "Campaign law violations, Campaign finance and questionable campaign practices."

Council At Large Seat

The Morning Call has an article on the County Council at large seat featuring Peg Ferraro and Anthony Branco (read it here).

The article discusses their reasons for running and stance on some issues, but fails to mention the ugly underbelly of this campaign being waged by an anonymous anti-Ferraro faction.

I wrote previously about the illegal campaign call I received last week (read it here and listen to the call).

Bernie O'Hare of Lehigh Valley Ramblings (post, follow-up, and part III) reports that he contacted Branco and learned that Branco has enlisted Tom Severson and Precision Marketing of Easton as a campaign consultant and has prepared automated calls, but not the one in question. Branco told O'Hare he would not end his relationship with Severson and O'Hare noted that the illegal calls continued on Saturday.

To me, Branco's failure to stop the calls demonstrates silent consent of the tactic.

O'Hare also rightly notes that Branco has violated election law on his own blog by indicating "re-elect Branco" when Branco was never elected in the first place, but was appointed.

Now retired, Ferraro could easily give up politics and enjoy life, but for her a part of that enjoyment is serving the community. It is a shame she has to go through this type of smear campaign to serve and it is no wonder we often have such trouble finding quality candidates for our elected offices.

County Council District 3 Candidates

Representing Lower Nazareth and Nazareth in the Nazareth area, the County Council's District 3 candidates are featured in an Express-Times article today (read it here).

Republican Mark Schwartz of East Allen Township and Lamont McClure, a Democrat, from Bethlehem Township are vying for the seat.

Council Candidate Debate at St. John's

The Express-Times has announced (read the post here) that the candidates for Northampton County Council will debate at St. John's UCC on October 29 beginning at 7:00 p.m.:

• 7 to 7:45 p.m. in Room 1: Anthony Branco and Peg Ferraro;
• 8 to 9:30 p.m. in Room 1: Ann McHale, Tom Dietrich, William E. Wallace and J. Michael Dowd;
  
• 8 to 9:30 p.m. in Room 2: Lamont G. McClure, Mark H. Schwartz, John F. Maher and Ron Angle.

County Halts Tax Incentive Request

The Morning Call reports (read it here) that the request to provide reduced tax to developers in Lower Nazareth at route 33 and 248 has effectively ended with Council's 5-4 vote against it.

In opposition to the TIF:

Councilman J. Michael Dowd said the financing districts should be reserved for projects that would not otherwise succeed, in most cases in cities and boroughs.

The proposed land development was the retail shopping center that might be anchored by a Target store.

County Council Election

The Express-Times has an article on the candidates running for County Council (read it here).

The article notes that the at-large seat is being contested by Tony Branco and Peg Ferraro.

Ferraro, of Bushkill, has previously served on Council from from 1989 to 1997 and 2001 to 2005 and that Branco, of Hellertown, served when appointed to fill a vacancy from 2006-2007.

Wind Mills, Bottled Water and Prison

The Morning Call reports (read the article here) that Northampton County Executive John Stoffa, while speaking to a group at Northampton Community College addressed the situation the County faces related to prison over-crowding.

He noted:

'One of the things that you have to realize about the Lehigh Valley: A lot of people are moving here. They're not all good people who come here,'' Stoffa said. ''We've got gangs now. We have drug problems. We have murders. A lot of these people end up in the prison system and right now our prison is busting at the seams.

Stoffa believes Easton can't house the prison alone, other communities will need to have prison facilities and the County may have to work jointly with Lehigh County.

On a more speculative, out of the box thinking, part of the presentation Stoffa is reported as saying:

He said he's looking into whether the county can put electricity-producing windmills at its 275-acre Gracedale complex in Upper Nazareth Township. ''It would be wonderful if we could have windmills up there that would power the whole complex. I don't see windmills anywhere in the Lehigh Valley. I don't think they are that bad-looking,'' he said.

''We have excellent water in some of the land that we've acquired. I've wondered if we could sell the water and keep the proceeds to support our parks,'' he said. After the meeting, Stoffa said a recently acquired property in the Totts Gap area in Upper Mount Bethel might be a source for the water.

County Budget Presented by Stoffa

County Executive John Stoffa submitted a proposed 2008 budget that held the line on taxes according to an article in the Morning Call (read it here).

The biggest news for homeowners, in addition to there being no tax increase (each $50,000 in assessment is roughly $540 in tax), is the statement by Stoffa that there will not be a countywide reassessment next year because there is not enough Council support for it.

The big news for future employees of the County is that after 12/31/08, new hires will not be given lifetime health care benefits. While Lehigh County ended the practice 20 years ago, Northampton continues to provide the benefit.