Below is the agenda that resulted from Mike Fleck's first West Ward Summit with residents. Please read Mike's message and the agenda as described and post here with your feedback:
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Introduction
In my previous term on Easton City Council, I started on day one with a tentative agenda of what I wanted to accomplish in my four years. I was able to accomplish six out of the eleven visions for Easton. I found the agenda to be a useful guide for getting things done and for keeping me focused on what needed to be done.
After my re-election in early November, I decided I must do this again but instead of using a small group to write the agenda I decided to open it up to the West Ward community as a whole. I also decided to have regular summits to continue to refine and check the progress of the agenda. The first West Ward Summit was held at my home and over 15 people attended. The agenda below is the preliminary document that came out of that first meeting.
I don’t want to mislead anyone. In addition to the meeting, the agenda below has a big dose of my personal ideas and beliefs in the content. After all, this is a democracy but a representative democracy and the people chose me to help shape the agenda for the West Ward of Easton.
That said, I will not forget that I work for the residents of the West Ward in particular and the residents of Easton as a whole. I will continue to get public input to refine and update the agenda on a regular basis. I also hope that the community that helped write the agenda will rally behind the document when it is time for council to consider these items to insure that they pass and become a reality. Thank you again for the privilege to serve you on Easton City Council.
Public Safety
Short-Term Goals: Host community awareness events with activities and information from City Hall and the police department. This will get neighbors to know each other, which would be a significant step in beginning to reduce crime. Each event should be localized to a few block areas and some example of events could be clean-ups, block parties, and coffee klatches.
Medium-Term Goals: We need to create a citizens advisory board to the police department. This would make the community directly responsible for helping to create and shape policing goals and policy. This would lead directly to the second medium term goal which would be to incorporate more community policing into the Easton Police Department until the department was following a complete community policing model. This should mean more walking patrols, more bike patrols and the creation of neighborhood police sub-stations.
Long-Term Goals: The City of Easton needs to re-work and re-develop its long range vision of policing. We should create a committee of grass roots organizers and police professionals that develops the Comprehensive Crime, Intervention, & Re-Entry Plan for Easton. Easton should also consider traffic calming in the West Ward by changing the one way streets back to two way streets wherever possible. A traffic study should be done to test the feasibility of such a program.
City Finances & Budget
Short-Term Goals: Review the five year outlook for the City of Easton and the debt held by the City. The hope is to find potential savings.
Medium-Term Goals: Government must hold the line on taxes. There is no way that struggling families and seniors in the West Ward can afford any type of tax or service fee increases.
Long-Term Goals: When I was on City Council before we passed the admissions tax, which generates revenue from people who do not live in the City but use our services when they visit. This saves taxpayers as much as $75 per year. We must continue to look for new and innovative sources of revenue to keep the cost of government down for residents, while still providing full services. Some examples may be sponsorships, payments in lieu of taxes, and restructuring tax and fee classifications.
Community & Economic Development
Short-Term Goals: To get some current housing rehabilitation projects in the West Ward completed and on the market. There are a few projects that have not seen any significant work in the past year.
Medium-Term Goals: Easton needs to get the Easton Housing Initiatives back in working shape and funded to whatever degree possible. This should include promotional materials so that we can help attract new home owners to the West Ward. In terms of economic development, the West Ward needs a good mentoring or pre-apprenticeship program to teach job and trade skills to residents who either previously dropped out of school or who want to better their lives. There are many such programs and funding is currently available through the federal stimulus program. There is also a need for job creation in Easton and this will be discussed under a quality of life project later in the agenda.
Long-Term Goals: The West Ward needs a bank branch so that people have a place in the neighborhood to do their banking. Easton must create a most favored contractor status for Easton companies and those companies who hire or sub-contract to Easton residents. We also need to work on a plan to get large developers and contractors to re-locate to Easton or open offices in Easton as part of development projects.
Quality of Life Issues
Short-Term Goals: Many residents believe that painting lines for parking on the streets would result in more parking, cut down on frivolous tickets, and put an end to neighbor versus neighbor parking fights. A study should be done to present to the residents showing what lined parking would mean and the pros and cons of lined parking.
Medium-Term Goals: The City of Easton should develop a Clean Team similar to the program already in existence in Allentown. The program works with the chronically homeless to clean up the city, while at the same time developing long term skills and solutions to stop the cycle of continual chronic homelessness. In addition to the homeless, the Easton program should consider helping out of work residents by offering Clean Team jobs to those people along with long term job training and re-training. This program could work in concert with the pre-apprenticeship program. Again, there are funds available for this program through the National Recovery Act.
Long-Term Goals: As a constant fighter for street-cleaning, it is nice to hear that the City of Easton is expanding alternate side of the street full street-cleaning to more neighborhoods in Easton. However, we must continue to expand the program until we are providing street-cleaning city-wide. Easton should also look to secure grant funding to get more curb-cuts done to make the City accessible for all residents and compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Parks & Recreation
Short-Term Goals: Work with the administration to get the ban on teenagers in the park lifted. Try to work out programs to encourage positive park participation by teens and support the Summer Nights program.
Medium-Term Goals: Develop programs for the youth in our parks that will be well attended, fun, educational, and self-supporting over time. Develop more parks in the West Ward at vacant sites by working with the organizations that own the vacant property to give them incentives to let them be used as parks/gardens until they are utilized in another manner.
Long-Term Goals: Develop a long range plan for the City of Easton parks system that is up to date and takes into account the needs and desired activities of an ever changing youth. This would include a strategy to promote more skate parks, spray parks and parks with electronic play equipment; just to name a few of the items that should be considered.
Social Justice Issues
Medium-Term Goals: Work to pass legislation for a permanent Project Labor Agreement in Easton for all projects in Easton that use any source of taxpayer money. This would ensure that quality work is done and that all projects that use Easton money pay a prevailing wage that can support a working family.
Long-Term Goals: Work closely with the Human Relations Commission to develop legislation that promotes equality in pay and benefits for all those who work with or for the City of Easton regardless of gender or sexual orientation.
Conclusion
I would like to thank everyone for their help on this tentative agenda for helping Easton in general and the West Ward specifically. I want to remind everyone that this will be a continual work in progress and that together we can effect positive change in our neighborhoods. The next meeting is January 28th at 7pm at Fuglee’s. If you have any comments or questions please email me at mpfleck1313@aol.com or call me at (610) 253-1068.
Thank you again for your continued help and support and I look forward to working with all of you in the upcoming year.
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Please post your comments on this agenda here to get a discussion going--Mike is your new rep on City Council, so this is a great opportunity to make your voice, concerns, and ideas heard!
Yours,
Noel Jones
Neighbors of Easton
Posts
16 comments:
Like that overall diverse and varied agenda! Of course, I'm 'biased' for equality, regarding city money being spent only where discrimination against people like me and my husband doesn't rule the day! Thanks for including that.
Wasnt able to make the meeting but I would like to register an issue that falls under Parks and also under Social Justice. THE most underepresented population, the one that has NO voice, is children, young children. We have an Urban Ecology Project underway here in the West Ward but despite this there are 40 children under the age of 5 years of age attending early age learning centers for 6 to 8 hours a day that have no accessible outdoor green space. The State requires that children in care have outdoor time. Our children, these children are limited to walking in tightly bunched groups around Northampton Street. There is a perfectly fine park nearby - Dutchtown Park - but there is no fencing between it and adjacent parking lots rendering it unsafe for everyone but especially for small children. Is there any way we can make this park safe for children so that they can use it for 30 or so minutes on a daily basis? This would not be for gross motor skills just passive story book reading on the grass type of thing.
Wasnt able to make the meeting but I would like to register an issue that falls under Parks and also under Social Justice. THE most underepresented population, the one that has NO voice, is children, young children. We have an Urban Ecology Project underway here in the West Ward but despite this there are 40 children under the age of 5 years of age attending early age learning centers for 6 to 8 hours a day that have no accessible outdoor green space. The State requires that children in care have outdoor time. Our children, these children are limited to walking in tightly bunched groups around Northampton Street. There is a perfectly fine park nearby - Dutchtown Park - but there is no fencing between it and adjacent parking lots rendering it unsafe for everyone but especially for small children. Is there any way we can make this park safe for children so that they can use it for 30 or so minutes on a daily basis? This would not be for gross motor skills just passive story book reading on the grass type of thing.
Oh no, please don't eliminate the age restriction on Centennial Park for teenagers and young adults to just hang out. I lived through the summers of 06 and 07 and let me tell you it wasn't pretty, talk about open air drug dealing and gangs. Please reconsider. Most of the other items I agree but many of them are already in process.
Also as a strong supporter of the State Theatre I don't like the admissions tax at all. and it doesn't come close to saving $75 per household.......try $35 or less.
Please just work with the mayor and other members of council to continue to fund the police and crime reduction efforts. I also attended one of the housing seminars for the money being given out and I will be applying for some of that money.
I like the idea of lined parking; I wouldn't even mind meters! there are people from out of the neighborhood who leave cars on my block for days at a time. some treat it like a park-n-ride parking lot. new renters don't understand their part to alleviate parking issues; if they see an opening where 2 cars can fit, they will park right in the middle so as to avoid being blocked in.
lines will show exactly how many spots there are and I won't get ticketed for parking 'too close' to a corner.
I like your list. demonstrates some real thought and vision.
just some points. homelessness-Megan's list for Pennsylvania shows a person who gives safe harbor as an address. We don't need that facility if it is going to be used for that purpose. West ward and downtown have too many people on that list.
finances-we are buried with taxes and fees. Too many people are leaving and not being replaced. I fear that census numbers will show a big decline. lose federal funding?
Northampton Street-It was a big mistake to separate this important road from the Main Street program. It has shown the effects of neglect. empty storefronts and decay. downtown and the west wards need to be one. downtown needs the support of west ward residents to survive. it was an insult to trolly people to the farmers market from Forks before offering that service to Easton people including west warders.
Anon,
i did not know that there was a trolley to the Farmers Market from Forks--that's a great point. Has anyone else heard of this?
Most interesting to me is your point about the West Ward and Downtown, and this issue may deserve a post of its own. There has been much discussion in the community about this over the years--whether it's best to focus on the West Ward as a neighborhood with its own issues, and try to foster revitalization of this area and neighborhood pride along with it, or whether the focus should be to integrate the West Ward as part of Downtown. I have heard strong arguments on both sides of this issue and would like to see it discussed openly here.
there is an effort to get a grant for a trolley from the west ward.
I do see the point, why would the west ward be second to out of town.
Yeah I would see the sign posted on sullivan trail saying that there was a trolley to take Forks residents to the farmer's market.
I just figured they didn't include a trolley for West Ward residents because we are so close to the market and could just walk it.
There is no way we should have meters in front of resident's homes. That's just stupid and ridiculous. Why should a home owner who lives in a residential area have to plug a meter every hour...I wouldn't mind having parking lines, that would make it easier to park on the street
I wouldn't mind meters, as long as residents got free permits, so that only visitors taking up our parking were being charged, and then I would want to see that money reinvested in our neighborhood...
Nikkita,
meters in front of homes is not a new or foreign idea; all the homes up to 5th have parking meters in front of them. residents in those areas buy parking permits so they don't have to plug the meters all day. the city should be all over this! it's another revenue stream, and gives that parking enforcement lady something else to do besides eat donuts.
if buying a parking sticker keeps all the riff raff off my block, well then bring on the meters!
I would, however, like to see a LIMIT as to how many passes can be purchased. there are apartments on my street that have 3 or more cars each. that really impacts the available parking (by contrast, I'm a homeowner w/ ONE car). transient renters should not be allowed to have that kind of impact (as the city should also enforce occupancy limits).
Speaking of trolleys there used to be a way to get to Hugh Moore Park from the city center - just a few years ago. We really missed it this summer trying to take groups of children to Hugh Moore Park - no public transportation goes there! Also, note NY Times article on Waldorf school children spending three hours a day outdoors. This is what the best education is doing with children these days. Once you have had an experience of joy in nature - you don't forget it. How sad I was in the recent past going into daycares on a summer day and finding children rolling toys around on linoleum floors under florescent lights. Every 6 year old will someday be sixteen. But that sixteen year old wont ever be six years old again. Point being, when you invest in the child you are also investing in the youth.
I hate to say this. I have a friend who works at Crayola. She says that kids stay in the Crayola area and do not even venture into the Canal Museum. It's really ashame because of the investment in all the exhibits. It demonstrates that people are not willing to go to other sites when they are visiting Crayola. There probably wasn't much interest in going to the canal. That kind of explains why Weller closed. Kind of a warning to other planned buildings.
Hugh Moore Park is much more than the canal. There is an extensive bike path that meanders through the woods to the falls. After the Canal House there is unpaved trail that leads into a vast wildlife community. Alot of beaver work going on there, plus some actually tropical looking birds, a blue heron or is it two, rabbits, turtles, deer, moles, etc. Sorry to say, its way more amazing than the Bushkill trail which I walked with a committee in the Fall surrounded by the intense and inescapable sounds of route 22. I myself would not walk there again with that noise and pollution.
Anonymous 10:51:
that's not surprising. it's kind of hard to get kids excited about canal history (or any history). Crayola is all about uninhibited recklessness; the canal museum is, well, a museum.
the canal history of the area is interesting to discuss, but cannot be much of a draw, really. it's like restored coal mines and coal towns. it's interesting if you're into that sort of thing.
Hugh Moore Park IS a great place. my kids love to go there to explore (and we've never even gone for a canal ride!)
Easton was suppose to get a nature museum built at the entrance of Hugh Moore as part of a DCNR program. Dont know what happened to that. Easton tore down the old canal museum building to provide space for construction. I don't doubt that there are worthwhile things in Hugh Moore or along the Bushkill, but the point was that the typical Crayola visitor is not interested. That's why the trolly failed. Those natural aspects are important but just don't make it with the Crayola set.
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