City Hall Building
(Side entrance of Crayola Building--5th Floor)
This Wednesday there will be an important City Council meeting that we in the West Ward should attend regarding proposed cuts to Community Block Grant Development (CDBG) money requested by public services like the Salvation Army's $6,065 request, a $3,000 request from Adult Skills Quest and a $10,000 request from the Lehigh Valley Center for Independent Living.
They are proposing to only cut the Greater Easton Development Partnership's request for its Ambassador Program from $50,000 to $43,500, which is for picking up litter Downtown (this after telling us repeatedly that we cannot use CDBG money to pay the Ambassador Program to pick up in the West Ward, and telling us that the GEDP pays for the Ambassadors with private funding only, not CDBG money).
They are also cutting the Easton Area Neighborhood Center's $69,950 request for programming to $20,000, when we have asking for more positive youth programming to keep kids from joining gangs.
Council members also proposed cutting the city's $80,500 community policing request to $55,000, which totals the amount requested to pay for overtime to conduct saturation patrols
in the city's West Ward. This, unfortunately means that the City will be continuing its arrest-only strategy of handling the crime problem in the West Ward, rather than engaging in more progressive methods that have worked in other U.S. cities with similar challenges. (Stay tuned for a resident meeting we will hold in mid-November to get broad resident input in the development of a comprehensive strategic plan that we will eventually present to the City and County).
The city also requested $175,000 for recreation -- primarily for work at Heil Pool on the South Side-- which council proposes cutting to $101,333. Frankly, I feel we have much bigger fish to fry with limited CDBG money than fixing up a pool. $100K could go a long way in paying for more progressive community policing initiatives.
It also looks like they are canning $31,000 for streetscape improvements and street trees as well:
Express Times Article by Ed Sieger on Proposed CDBG Cuts to Public Services
Since this is an agenda item, we all have the right to speak up during Citizens Right To Be Heard, prior to the Council's vote on these proposed cuts. Council is supposed to take our comments into consideration before voting. Whether or not you think the mayor and City Council really listen, it is important to show up and be counted, and even better if we speak up during Citizens Right To Be Heard, to demonstrate the growing political will in the West Ward.
There is an election coming up next month, after all.
Here is the agenda from the City Web Site:
City Council Agenda for Wednesday, October 14th
Stand up and be heard. Or just come and be counted--watch our elected officials in action and see other residents speak up. I hope to see you there!
Yours,
Noel Jones
Neighbors of Easton
Posts
13 comments:
FYI -- The building's name is the Alpha Building, not the Crayola building and the entrance to City Hall is in the front of the building. The building is fronted on South Third Street. Just look at the big eagle.
Alpha refers to a previous owner who sold the building to someone else who sold it to someone else and so on and so on.
The building is referred to as Easton City Hall; don't know if it was ever officially adopted.
Using Alpha would be like referring to Valencias as the Sweet Shop building, hardly appropo
Ha ha--Good to know.
I think over time most people have come to think of it as the Crayola bldg--the only reason I say that is that often when I talk of City Council meetings to residents who aren't in tune with local politics, if I say "at City Hall" they say, "where's that?" But if I say, "at City Hall in the Crayola bldg, they say, "oh! ok."
Ask if they know it as the Alpha Building rather than as City Hall.
In addition, City Council meetings take place in Council Chambers, located on the fifth floor.
When CBDG funds are up for grabs it’s like throwing a wounded tuna into shark infested waters.
Everyone fights for a chunk and by the time the thrashing and tearing is done, no one’s appetite is quite satisfied.
This pattern repeats itself every year and once again, because of politics and self-interest and the unwillingness to change, Easton has lost an opportunity to use the CBDG funds in concert with a well orchestrated plan.
I agree with Mayor Panto, the city has to wean off the CBDG. In the mean time though, it seems to make sense to use what funds are available in a context of a common goal rather than individual organization and city goals.
What do the programs promoted by Adult Skills, Salvation Army, EPD, Easton Ambassadors, Recreation Department and the Easton Area Neighborhood Center have to do with each other? How is what they are doing with the money fit into the long-term goal of clean and safe—not just independently but strategically? What are the common threads that bind them together?
How are these funds set in a framework where the organizations will be required to cross-pollinate their programs and services, leverage resources, be accountable to the public and wean off the funding?
Are the funds being used to fuel ‘best practices’ demonstrated, researched and recommended by state, federal and independent organizations? Who is doing the homework to determine if an organization’s request is even effective in its stated purpose or if there are better options?
Using funds in a coordinated fashion rather than parsing them out was recommended to the city by an independent consulting firm under the Mitman administration. The point was to manage the funds in such a way to maximize use.
As an example, is it possible for an organization to create a ‘youth entrepreneurial’ or employment program with one of the inaugural jobs being to clean the city streets—trained, uniformed and in cooperation with the Easton Ambassadors?
Something similar was done successfully in Los Angeles. The city also employed youth to run summer programs in crime-infested parks. In coordination with city, police, businesses and youth organizations the partners gave youth ‘ownership and responsibility’ for the parks and provided employment.
What would happen if the city, EPD and youth organizations leveraged CDBG funds in cooperation with local businesses and perhaps Lafayette College to craft something similar for our parks?
Youth ownership just may lead to less need for saturation patrols it could cultivate trust between youth and police, demonstrate proper and maximized use of park facilities, provide jobs instead of illegal activity as an alternative and instill pride and self worth.
If we are not willing to change how we do business, next year the chum will churn up the same frenzy and another opportunity to do something in context of a cohesive plan will be lost.
Anonymous,
The name of the building is still officially "the Alpha Building." It is also known as "Easton City Hall and Business Center."
The building was originally the headquarters of the Alpha Portland Cement Company, which supplied the concrete for Hoover Dam among many other projects. The building exhibits Beaux-Arts detail, with fluted pilasters and egg-and-dart ornamentation.
If you look closely, the stages of construction are still evident from the slight differences in surface color and design. Although it now houses the city hall and a Crayola outlet store, it is still known as the Alpha Building, and remains the outstanding commercial structure on the Easton skyline.
The west portion of the building was built from 1901-1903. Additions brought the height to 9 1/2 stories by 1912. The eastern portion at the corner of 3rd Street was added on from 1926-1927.
You may enter the building from a side entrance on Pine Street.
Reminder: the meeting is TONIGHT (WED) 6pm in the Alpha/Crayola/Easton City Hall/Business Center building.
I don't want any public money (my tax dollars) going an organization that would discriminate against Americans created like me.
From Wikipedia:
"The New York Times reported that the Salvation Army believed it had a firm commitment from the White House to issue a regulation that would override local antidiscrimination laws.
A disclosure of The Salvation Army's request "outraged some civil rights groups and lawmakers," and resulted in an immediate reversal of a previous promise to honor the request.
The Salvation Army maintains that they were "not trying to get permission to discriminate against hiring gays and lesbians for the majority of its roughly 55,000 jobs and merely wanted a federal regulation that made clear that the charity did not have to ordain sexually active gay ministers and did not have to provide medical benefits to the same-sex partners of employees.
The Salvation Army's position is that because it is a church, Section VII of the U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1964 explicitly guarantees its right to discriminate on the basis of its religious beliefs in its hiring.
To reinforce its position, it threatened to close all soup kitchens in New York City when the city government proposed legislation that would require all organizations doing business with it to provide equal benefits to unmarried domestic partners."
The Washington Post
-- Religion News Service
Salvation Army's Hiring Rules Upheld
Addressing a key aspect of President Bush's faith-based initiative, a federal judge has ruled that the Salvation Army has the right to hire employees according to its faith principles, even when the charity receives government funding.
"The notion that the Constitution would compel a religious organization contracting with the state to secularize its ranks is untenable in light of the Supreme Court's recognition that the government may contract with religious organizations for the provision of social services," U.S. District Judge Sidney H. Stein said in a Sept. 30 opinion issued in New York City.
The opinion dismisses parts of a case filed against the Salvation Army and New York officials in 2004 by current and former Salvation Army employees who said they were victims of religious discrimination.
George Washington University Law School professor Ira C. Lupu said Stein's ruling helps the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, which has argued that acceptance of government funding should not change a religious group's hiring policies.
"This opinion very much reaffirms what people in the White House office have been saying," he said.
-- Religion News Service
Tim,
It would seem to me that the court's decision in favor of the Salvation Army's (and all church's)
rights to direct their religious "business" as they see fit, at least in some vague ways, represents the constitutional protections against religious persecution that the framers saw fit to include. The problem is really in the Bush plan's agenda.
Did they really just want to get the government out of providing social services that the religious community could provide better (thus saving federal dollars) or was it more sinister? For example, by placing a religiously biased choke hold on those in need of specific services that Bush's Christian Evangelical doctrine couldn't abide with, thus allowing Bush's religious bias to stymy those in need while not having to take responsibility for it at the policy level? As in..."Well, it was the church's right...what could we do about it?"
I'd think it the latter.
DRL
Churches are protected from religious persecution under the Constitution, it's true, but it's a completely different matter in my mind, when that church is asking for federal funding.
I don't want my tax dollars going to churches at all, quite frankly--personal religion is a private matter--unless they are doing some sort of unbiased outreach that is good for the community at large. that should not include religious assimilation in exchange for help, nor should it protect prejudicial hiring practices.
Thanks for the information, Tim!
I went to the meeting last night and will post my take on it later as I'm headed into NYC and will be back later today.
Nikkita, if you get a chance, please post your take on it here, and I'll catch up when I get back!
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