Good evening everyone. We're going to start tonight's meeting. I ask that we all rise for the pledge to the flag. The flag is to the flag of the United States and the United States. And to the Republic for its expansion, one nation under God and in New Zealand, with every nation just as the world. So we're going put it on there. I'll stick to the clerk to call the roll. Ms. Prensy Smith, Dr. Greenitz. Present. Ms. Prensy. Present. Ms. Leon. Dr. Ben Wuerk. Present. Ms. Prensy. Present. Councilwoman Cramsy Smith will be here shortly. She had something unforeseen come up but she will be joining us as soon as she can. We have one citation tonight for a reseller's hired officer Moses Miller. I don't believe officer Miller is here unless he's out in the hallway. We will see two of that Mr. Miller receives the citation from council. Prior to consideration of our regular agenda items, City Council will conduct a public hearing to accept public comment on the request for the inter-munistical transfer of restaurant license number R, DAF17711 from PA O'Rollock, LLC, formerly located at 42.85 North Delaware Drive and Mount Bethel, Northampton County to Wawa, and corporate 770 Hellertown Road in the city of Bethel, Northampton County. This public hearing is for informational purposes only. There will be no vote during the public hearing. Public hearing is called forward. I'll start by recognizing representative from the applicant to address this matter. Good evening. My name is Ellen Freeman. I'm an attorney at Flare de Indo Hara. We are a law firm based in Pittsburgh. And all we do is liquor licensing. So if you guys have any questions about liquor license operations that we have you respond to them tonight. But of course I'm here tonight on the half of my client, Wala Inc. And I have with me a representative from Wala. This is Mike Redell. He is a project engineer at Wala. If there's something that I might not be able to answer, I'll have him sworn in so that he can testify. But otherwise I will be giving you a presentation tonight on their proposed operations at a new store that's being built at 770 Hellertown Road. And this hearing this evening I know that the city has had these before, but this is just pursuant to 461 B3 of the liquor code. That section of the liquor code simply mandates that a public hearing be held in order to discuss the proposed operations of Wawa at this particular location. And of course to allow for comments and recommendations from residents within the city of Bethlehem. While currently has 24 other stores in Pennsylvania that operate liquor licenses, so this will not be their first operation within Pennsylvania. And this is actually not really Pennsylvania, they came into the game a little bit later than all of the other convenience stores and grocery stores that currently operate liquor licenses. But while it has been selling alcohol and other restricted items at their stores in Florida and Virginia for a number of years and they sell that at over 100 stores in those states. And I mentioned that because they have good experience under their belts. They've been able to figure out what works at those stores, the policies and the procedures that they could put in place with those stores in order to ensure that they're selling alcohol in the safest manner. Certainly in PA, Wawa has built up a very proud reputation in each of the communities that they serve. You know, I often hear customers talk about, this is my Wawa store, they're very possessive over the store that they patron. And in order to protect that reputation and in order to keep their customer very loyal customer base happy, they have to make sure that they are operating the safest manner possible. So I'm very pleased to report that the 24 stores that currently operate within Pennsylvania, Alicare license, they have an exceptional record. They've never been cited for any sales to minors or any sales to intoxicated persons. It's a record they're certainly very proud of. I'm very proud to be able to state it in front of municipalities that we frequent and the reason that they have these is because of the policies. There are 24 stores operate in the same manner that they would bring to the city of Bethlehem if they're approved this evening. So one of those safety policies is that they have a 100% carting policy. No matter what your age, you're going to be carted by one of the associates. Those associates are at least 18 years of age and each of those associates have gone through not only the responsible alcohol management program training, but also Wavas internal training. And the reason for internal training is because Wawa goes above and beyond what the liquor code requires. This 100% carting policy is not something that the liquor code requires. In addition to that, their internal training teaches them what happens if they fail to meet any of these policies or institute any of these policies and that would be termination. So the associates know that there is high risk if they want to work at one of the stores that operates a liquor license in Pennsylvania. In addition to the 100% carting policy, there is of course security cameras that are monitoring not only the registers that are going to capture every single sale of the alcohol, but there will be cameras that are monitoring all of the alcohol within the store. So in a few moments I'm going to be casting out the only exhibit that I have this evening, which is a floor plan, to give you an idea of where the alcohol will be located within the store. And then in addition to another safety policy is that they have a limit on how much a patron can purchase in a single sale. If you've ever been to any of the grocery stores within the area that sell liquor or sell alcohol, they are limited to 192 fluid ounces of beer, just roughly two six packs, and 3,000 milliliters of wine, and 3,000 million liters of wine, which is roughly four standard bottles of wine. If a customer wishes to purchase any additional alcohol, they do have to take that alcohol out to their car and then come back in and make a separate purchase. While it must, because they operate a restaurant liquor license, they must allow for on-premises consumption. It is not their desire to sell for on-premises. However, the liquor code, or the Pennsylvania liquor control board, has instituted a policy that they do have to allow it. They are permitted to restrict it, though. So what was policy is that a patron can only consume on premises in the seating areas, the old-use seating area there, and they're only permitted to consume one 12-ounce bottle of beer in a single setting. Because Wawa has instituted this at their other 24 locations and they've been operating these 24 locations anywhere from two to four years. They've been able to see what this policy is put into effect and how easy is it for their associates to ensure that the policy remains in effect. They found that they've not had any issues at any of their other stores. Wabba corporate has interviewed a lot of the managers at the stores that operate liquor licenses to get their opinions on the policy. They said based on where the seeding is at each of the stores and that there's signage to the effects of the policies that they really not had any issues with anyone attempting to consume that second 12-ounce bottle beer. There's not much on the WALB premises that would keep anyone there for that long. There's of course no running happy hours. There's no large TVs that's broadcasting anything, so unless someone's really into people watching, no one's sitting in the seating area for longer than to consume a meal. With that, I will go ahead and pass Alphay exhibit for tonight so you can take a look and we can go over some of the features of the store. Why are you doing that? We'll recognize Councilwoman Clancy Smith that is also with us now. So while Lawa is going to be operating in restaurant liquor license, they will only be selling beer and lime. There will be no sales and just still spirits at this store. And so once you have a floor plan in front of you, you can see that there is an entrance vestibule that leads directly into the seating area on the left. There will be seating for 30 in that area. And there's also where the cold beer, which is basically your refrigerated beer, will be situated. Just across from the seating area to the right of the festival are the registers. So those registers will be manned at all times with someone who is at least 18 years of age, as well as someone who has been trained, to ensure that every sale is conducted by someone who has gone for the proper trading. And then of course, the wall will be just like any of the other wall was that sell a vast array of food options. You have breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks. Those meal items can now be consumed in the seating that's offered by the awa. Managers have... there's testimony for managers that say that now people aren't eating in their cars as much. They can actually eat it within the store at the seating area. And then all of the other policies that wall wall puts into place in terms of There are associates checking the parking area to ensure that there's no one ordering there Associates are now trained to check to make sure no one's consuming the alcohol consuming any alcohol beverages out of the parking lot So all of those safety policies will still be in place just like any other wall wall So with that I do thank you for your time this evening. Welcome any questions and any public comments? Did the gentleman with you want to make any comment before I open up to members of council? If it's all right with with everyone unless he there's a question that I can't answer I'll just be doing the test of any on behalf of the walla. Understood. So I will open it up to members of council. Any questions or comments from members of council? I don't expect you to know every other of the 24 locations. But of the 24 other locations, do you know of any of that operating, telling alcohol that close to a public park, specifically a public park that has a little field? That has a public park. Yeah, it's a public park, but specifically a little league feel. I don't know any of the, I'll talk to my head. I don't have, yeah, I don't have that information. I'd be happy to look into it. I'm sure that we could figure that out. I don't have any other questions or comments from our VISTA Council. We'll start with Mr. Cuididtech and work our way out. Just a quick question. So I see that the sales register is on the other side of the other general cash registers. So it's a separate register for the sale of the alcohol. So all registers, once they're licensed, depending on approval of the seeding, they would apply with the liquor control board. And then several years ago, the liquor code actually changed to allow for convenience stores to apply for all registers to be used for alcohol sales. So that is their intention, and that's what they've done with their other 24 locations. So although there's only two registers that looks like it's on the license premises, all three will be for beer and wine sales. Because it is all the way on the other side from where you would actually just purchase and find the beer and consume it and it seemed a little. And then the only other question I had is, so you're saying the associates are trained to go and sort of make sure nobody is consuming alcohol outside. What is the training for if they do find someone consuming alcohol outside the store? So part of their internal training, they do go through, they have a designated, they call them ramp instructors, so this woman and this company that teaches all of the Wawa Associates in bulk at their campus. They'll go through a number of hypotheticals and scenarios. And so the associates are taught those, especially questions like what happens when you have to tell somebody either they need to leave or that they're declined to sale or that their ID is invalid or that they don't have one, so they're declined to sale. So they do run through a number of those scenarios. If they cannot, if the associates are taught, if they cannot de-escalate it just with verbal requests, they are asked to contact law enforcement. Thank you. Dr. Egan? I help educate me on the state and the process of getting a liquor license. Somewhere I read it was, we caught somewhere between 15,025, for 50,000 and 500,000. And then there was a transfer of being. It's like that. Sure. So it's a multi-step process. In Pennsylvania, restaurant liquor licenses are still much like real estate bar. So there's only a certain amount of liquor licenses per county. So the first step is that while I have to find a Northampton County liquor license on the open market. So there's license brokers that actually much like real estate brokers will advertise licenses for sale. Each county has a very different fair market value. I live in Allegheny County, they go for around 100,000, Chester County, 500,000. So it's very, very different. There are opportunities for the liquor control board, holds options of expired or suspended liquor licenses and that's where that 25,000 that you had mentioned probably comes into play because you have to bid at least 25,000 on an auction license. This license was purchased, well it's put under agreement on the open market so this is the third party sale. So depending on approval this evening then they would apply with the liquor control ward, and there's a transfer application fee that goes into that. It's approximately 700 to 1400 depending on what permits you put on your license. And then somewhere else I've read, you have to approve it every year or it's renewable every year. On top of that, right, it's renewed every single year for approximately the same. So, depending on what kind of permits you have, so they'll have to put on a Sunday sales permit. And the same cost? No, no, they don't have to pay. Once they purchase the license and liquor control board to cruise it in Wala's name, they'll never have to pay that large of a sum again. They can then go ahead and just pay the renewal over year, but as you can see it's a huge investment. And you know this is another reason that Wawa is very sensitive to the way they sell alcohol in Pennsylvania. This asset, if it were to be taken away by m mishandling of the liquor license and obtaining citations or becoming a nuisance with law enforcement having to frequent it, then they could lose that liquor license and that major asset. Sure. Any other questions or comments from members of council? Dr. VanWorck. So I think we have two wawa's in Bethlehem right now, not the one in the cell alcohol. This is a, I'm assuming that Wawa has chosen this location to initiate a liquor license because it's a new bill and it's cheaper than retrofitting some of the older stores with the seating and everything else in my correct in that assumption. Is that why it was chosen for this site. That's correct. They are mainly looking at new builds for liquor licenses because of the prototype to be able to fit seating within the store. And I guess the major concern I have with this is that it seems to be such a straight shot off of 78 into the Wawa and then there's a public park right behind it and while consuming alcoholic beverages and public parks is against the law that doesn't mean it doesn't happen. I'm sorry chief caught I'm gonna put you right on the spot here Do you feel that there is going to be an increased need of police presence in the park because of this it just It's location next to 78 to me is just a little concerning and the park like right in between two. Any time you have an increase in people that have been surprised. Chief D. Mike, come with a microphone just to capture what it is. Thank you. Sorry, I really did just ask you this out of the blue. Absolutely. Any in my opinion in my 19 years doing law enforcement, anytime you increase the densely populated area, there is an increase in calls for service. Whether they be just routine, someone's locked out of the car, there's a parking complaint or criminal in nature. So you do anticipate an increase in need of police presence near the park, I would say, because of the alcohol that may be sold here. I can't speak to if the alcohol is going to affect it but Wawa, Wawa, we have three of them here in the city and we do have a significant amount of calls for service at the Wawa's located around the community. Okay and this is not a dense lake thank you to you. This is not a dense lake populated area of town so there's not a lot of neighbors to put up their hand and say what they're worried about So I'm just trying to think of all the concerns that I think maybe brought about by just the particular location of this store and It's liquor license and the impact on our city That's all the questions I have for now. Thank you. Thank you. It's cool In terms of the wine and beer that is sold at well, are there existing vendors with whom you work? And is that said in stone? And part of the question is, is there room or an interest in in particular supporting local breweries, distillers and vineyards? We've got a number of them around here who I think would be interested. Yeah, that's a great question. Wawa definitely looks locally first. They've partnered with breweries here to have their own beer and some of their stores, but it's been incredibly popular. So I do think that they will institute that in the future. In terms of purchasing, they do have to purchase either through the state store for their wine or local wineries. There's an incentive to purchase locally because the wine expanded permit that they have to put on their liquor license, the renewal for that, is a 2% cost of whatever they purchased from the state store, but that's not put on local wineries, so they have an incentive to purchase locally. I don't know how much at the 24 other stores, I've never seen their purchase list. So unfortunately, I can't speak to it. They do that at their other 24 locations. In terms of purchasing beer, they do have to purchase through the distributor system. But the distributors go by territory, so it would be local. Is it, do you have any information on sort of the process or the way that a local brewer, for example, might make available or, you know, kind of help create inroads for that opportunity? Is there a callout? Is there, how does that work? How do you connect with level? Yeah, that's a great question. I really don't know. I know that I just know that Walla has gone through those avenues before. I'm not sure if the brewers have reached out directly to Walla to let them know that they're interested in a partnership. But I unfortunately don't have a direct response as to how that would play out with Walla specifically. Okay, I understand. I guess in that case I would just like to put out a plea to you, you, whoever the powers may be with regard to this particular Wawa. I'm sure many communities have a lot of, you know, wonderful local brewers and distillers. We most certainly do. Here in Bethlehem and in neighboring towns and I would definitely like to put out a plea to make a concerted effort to support local businesses with this. I'll bring that back to their team. I think that's a great idea. Thank you. Any other comments? That's a great achievement. Thank you. Thank you. I'm sorry. I was late. I ran into an accident. And I'm sorry, but this question was already asked. But will there be security on site at all times in case there is a need for intervention? No, there will not. So basically if something happens, happens that there's a need for an adventure that's going to be waiting till the local police get there. That's correct. Are there security employed at any other wall? Is this all alcohol? Not that I'm aware of. I would think that would be something to look into. Okay. Because I'm just thinking that God forbid if there is a problem, and it's not just because of the alcohol, but the alcohol would add to it if there could be some time lapse, certainly, till the local police get there. I'll take that back to the team as well. Thank you. I want more quick question. Actually, she cut the suspicions as well. It could just be a yes or no, so maybe you don't need to get up. But at our last council meeting, we learned a bit about the new program, which will eventually be put into place in which the department has greater access to security cameras. I don't remember the name of the program. Yes, that. Is there a priority put on to businesses such as Wawa, you mentioned the density put in place by just the location of a Wawa lock increases the the calls. So is there a priority put on businesses such as that with the FUSIS program? As long as they're willing to partner with us. Absolutely. Okay, can you say one more time? FUSIS? FUS. FUSUS. Yes. Yes. Thank you. May I write a few words at the end? Yeah, I was just going to add a comment. Now it's actually going to have my own question for Chief God. Is that, I believe, an ask Mr. Spurker about this, we actually transferred a liquid license to that turkey hill that is up there right off 78, which is awesome to sit here, Bethel and back in 2017. And I would be actually curious about another question for Chief Cutth is whether or not we've seen if that's an area that we respond to or if that's been, if that's been a, because that's closer to 78 and go in the park that back way there. I just, I thought it want people to mistake my comments. The response is for various reasons. And that is a very, very busy quarter with 78 right there and being the gateway into the city. So, though we have seen an increase in calls at the Turkey Hill. I off the top of my head, I can't think of any, you know, involving anything really stemming from alcohol. Hey, Barrett. Dr. Maywork? Just very quickly. I just wanted the people here and who may be watching to understand the concern is that once this liquor license, and I'm not saying no to it, I'm saying there's concern concern is that once this liquor license, and I'm not saying no to it, I'm saying there's concern that once we approve a liquor license, it's out of our hands what happens. So there may be downstream impacts from a liquor license is potentially put in a place where we can't mitigate that impact, which is if there's a huge overflow of trash in the park because people are going there and drinking but no one's calling the cops because it's a poorly populated area or you know there are no security cameras in the park to see who may be vandalizing. We don't know what it is and it would be nice if we could somehow partner with large corporations like Wawa to take feedback from cities so that we're not left having to figure out how to take care of all the potential poor downstream impacts of people who don't drink responsibly. And it's not Wawa's fault, but it also is an impact from your business on the community potentially. And that's why I'm asking that Wawa be open to input from the city if there are bad impacts from Ligric store that sells beer and wine like this on our parks and on our local areas Thank you That's two questions. Well one is just for clarification. I think you referenced this already are all employees ramp certified? So not all employees will be ramp certified on their day of their employment. They cannot sell any alcohol at the register or any of the llamas until they are ramp certified. So the idea is I just can't say that you walk into a llamas store and everyone is. The idea is to have everyone ramp certified. It just makes it easier to circulate their employees to the register and make sure that someone is always on hand there. But they have a couple of weeks before they take the training on occasions. So to rephrase my question with a different question, anyone who would be selling alcohol will they be ramps certified? Everyone who sells alcohol will be ramps certified at the time that they're standing at that register. Understood. And can you just give us a brief overview of what it means to be ramp certified? Sure. So that's the responsible alcohol management program. It teaches the associates how to, it's a number of scenarios. So number one, you know, wow, it has a 100% carting policy. So that training is to show them what a fake idea looks like, how to use a card scanner transaction device that they've never used one before. How to spot when there are multiple customers up at the register at one time and to card everyone that's there in the chance that someone is underage there. It also, the training also goes through a number of scenarios of how to spot a visibly intoxicated patron. I get how to de-escalate a situation. And just all of the liquor code requirements and state law on how to sell alcohol responsibly. And I don't think you mentioned when would, so typically when was are 24 hour businesses what would be the hours for selling outlaw? Yeah, I think you're asking that question. I did miss that. So this store is proposed to be 24-7. The hours of operation for alcohol sales is Monday through Saturday from 7 a.m. to 2 a.m. with wine sales ending at 11 p.m. in Sunday 9 a.m. to 2 a.m. with wine sales ending at 11 p.m. Correct me if I'm wrong 2 a.m. is the latest that's permissible by law. That's correct. You can't sell alcohol. You're not selling at 3 a.m. or 4 a.m. Correct. Understood. There's a monthly question. Any other questions or comments from members of council before we open it up to public comment? Thank you very much. I'm going to open it up for public comment. Now again this is just for comments to council on the public hearing, the discussion about the inter-minus-volt-liter license transfer. So I'll go around the room. If anyone wanted to make comment regarding Waddle-Wallah's application, I'll start to the left. Does anyone to the left side of the room point to make comment? Seeing none, I'll open up to the wide center. Was there anyone in the center who wanted to make comment? Still seeing none. I'll turn to the right. Mr. Herald House. Stephen Herald, Senator Shenridge, has a corner of the fourth and the atoms is a state-owned wine spurred store and haven't been there on occasion and I asked and was told by one of the clerks that they do get quite a few bogus cards to show ID because of the student population close by. And this person went to the desk and pulled out a stack of cards. And apparently, I don't recall exactly whether I asked them up, but since it's a state agency, apparently the cards were confiscated. So the question is, the difference between Wala and the state story is that Wawa is my corporation, not a state agency. If Wawa checks the accuracy or the validity of the card to if it's a bogus card will they retain it or give it back to the owner and Sury Would they report it to law authority for follow-up? So in response to that, and I think I just briefly brushed over this, but in addition to the 100% carting policy, Wawa also uses a card scanner transaction device on every single identification. So the ID is actually scanned through an electronic device and that electronic device will let the associate know A if it's a valid ID at all. And then B, it also runs the birth date for them. So it pops up as green for 21 or over or red if it's not 21 or over. So it again helps the associates remove the gray area from even having to, you know, they look at the ID, they're taught to look at the ID to ensure that it's that person and that they're doing the visual check of the individual standing in front of them, but they're not charged with having to figure out whether a year or a date is made someone 21 or up, that card scanner transaction device actually does the work for them. In regards to your second and third question, I don't have the answer off the top of my head. That's something that I could follow up. I'm sure Wawa does have a policy in place as to whether they confiscate the ID or give it back to the patron. I can look into that and let Mr. Miller know and he can vocalize that at the next meeting or to you personally. Question three. That was looped in with question two. I'm not quite sure but that's something that I'll look into. You're welcome. Thank you for following. Is there anyone else who had comment? Public comment. Well that will adjourn public comment. Resolution 10A is on tonight's agenda for a council vote. The public hearing is adjourned. Moving on to our regular council meeting before we continue. I did one announce agenda items 6d along with corresponding item 10d have been removed from tonight's agenda so again that's 6d and 10d are removed from the agenda. Approval of the minutes for August 15 2023 meeting. Any comment on the minutes? Mental standard proof. Moving on to our public comment. We'll start as is customary with any subject. Not being voted on this evening with a five minute time limit. YouTube reminder for our audience at home. If anyone wants to follow along live, get scroll ahead to the live portion of the meeting. I'll start with those who had signed up in advance and then go around the room if anyone else wanted to make comments. Our first speaker this evening is Lucy Freck. And I ask if you would mind giving your name and address for the record booth. My name is Lucy Freck, F-R-E-C-K. I resided 155 Penn Forest Road North, Concordown, Pennsylvania, and Toe Menton Township. My name is Lucy Freck and I'm a founding member and officer of SAVE Corbin County. We are an incorporated, nonprofit environmental organization that focuses on preserving the environment of Carming County. We think that if everyone protects the environment around them, the world will be a better place. We have been an organization for nine years, and we have addressed a number of environmental issues within our county. We have spent a year raising awareness and fighting against the use of sewage sludge on farm fields. Approximately 5% of the farmers in our county are now using sludge as fertilizer. The sludge is given to the farms for free and applies to the fields for free by Cinegrove. This is attractive to farmers because the price of conventional fertilizer has ridden it by 300% in the past year. Cinegrove lists the city of Bethlehem as one of the sources of the sewage sludge delivered to farms. We have reviewed your contract with Cinegrove and believe that it will cost you no more to direct your wastewater treatment authority to choose landfill as the end use of sewage sludge delivered to Synagros under your contract. We request that your council place this issue on an upcoming agenda and adopt a policy of choosing landfill as the end use under the contract with Synagrove and that you join our organization, many other environmental organizations and the 20 municipalities of Carbin County in opposing the use of search sludge as a fertilizer for corn fields. Thank you for your consideration. Thank you. Thank you to remind consideration. Thank you. I just remind everyone during public comments anyone's opportunity to address council if you want to stay after meeting to speak with any members of council individually You're welcome to as well as our mayor and bears department heads right here this evening also And then our next speaker is Roy and Christmast. I'm a Roy Christmast, I live in 6495, Poehok, Poehok, Gryde. We hide in Pennsylvania in the Town Men's in Township. We can hear some fairly unpleasant things about sewage sludge tonight. So I wanted to be a nice guy. I've run vegetables for you. We have a heritage farm. It's a century farm. I've run some hot peppers, sweet peppers, a lot of tomatoes. They're in the bag. You can get them after the meeting. Don't think of it as a bribe. And when I reassure everybody, we do not use sewage sludge on our forum. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Our next speaker is Linda I have nothing to say. Understood. Moving on to Jim Fallwilder. Good evening, Jim Fallwilder 22-22 Main Street Bethlehem. And the long run of life. Congratulations, Mr. Mayor to you and your wife. I'm a petitioner to your family and I hope everybody had a nice safe day, a pretty weekend and on to business. I would like to provide some additional comments to council in advance of tomorrow's hard meeting in regards to the parking authorities, one that street guard, garage agenda item. Since the hard voted 7-0 in August to table the proposed garage demolition, they requested additional information at that time and it appears the BPA is unresponsive and is not required with the requested information. This afternoon I downloaded the Harvigenda and the only BPA attachment and information is the same presentation as last month. There is no publicly presented responses to the Harbs Additional Information Requests from their August meeting and no publicly available parking mitigation plan that Mr. Farnström stated last month was done after they worked on it for 18 months and that it included the Spring Street parking lot. So where are the BPA's responses and where is the parking plan? We also still have not seen any real data on the projected future parking requirements, given the changing environments affecting our historical district and regulation to world heritage and additional apartments. Does the BPA plan again to try to slip through the demo request by providing minimal information at tomorrow's reading or just ignore the board's request and simply state that it's none other business? Therefore, the harbors are keep the demolition proposed, proposal tabled and remove it from the agenda until the parking authority provides the requested information in a timely manner, giving the harb and the general public time to properly review and provide input. This leads me to ask a larger question. Does the non-transparent, non-elected BPA run the city? As I stated during our August 15 meeting, once again, how can you expect the hard to vote on such a significant project after being provided no mean time to properly evaluate the proposal? Now is the time for deliberate analysis in order to make the real decisions. Second, after further evaluating this entire project, pain the process, why does a demolition plan come before any replacement plan? The sequence is not logical. Should not an overall plot project plan come before the demolition plan with any demolition plan being a subset of a larger project? For once demolition occurs without a new approved project plan, does this not force the Harbin City Council into a position of having to approve something or anything since the clock is ticking? the public. The public is not the public. The public is not the public. The public is not the public. The public is not the public. The public is not the public. The public is not the public. The public is not the public. The public is not the public. The public is not the public. The public is not the public. open and debated in the public realm. Please keep all of this in mind as you evaluate any of the hard recommendations or other departmental requests for this garage as they come before this council. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Falwell. Our next speaker this evening is Bill Schaher Too excited to name I'm excited tonight. Oh, and I'm sorry, 1898. Now I do have some sad days tonight. Another old Bethlehem neighborhood is about to be sacrificed upon the altar of copycat apartments, renting and market rates. I refer, of course, to the so-called Hanover Apartments at the Jackson of Westbrook Street and Hanover Avenue. The Land of Zone commercial limited or CL, sometimes unofficially referred to as neighborhood commercial. The underlying premise of CL is limited commercial serving neighborhood needs. Why these 8.8 5 acres are zones CL as anyone's guess? I zoning three dates my return to my hometown some 20 years ago. The zoning ordinance stipulates that the building along the principal street must have ground level commercial uses and that multi-family housing is restricted to the building with the ground level commercial uses. Here's where the problem starts. The developer saw a variance eliminating the required commercial uses because the billing along West Broad Street will be facing inward and not towards West Broad Street. The zoning hearing board granted this variance on a 5-0 vote. The board evidently did not significantly sufficiently consider the desirability of commercial use of serving the 317 apartments proposed to be built, and also serving the neighbors living on Grandview Boulevard. In the mind-zoly developers this variance freed them from the restriction to limit multi-family housing to a building with commercial uses and freed them to build multi-family housing anywhere and everywhere in the almost nine acres. This interpretation might not be upheld if appealed to the court system, but that takes money. And the neighbors on Grandview Boulevard are not rich and we're hard pressed to raise the money to hire a lawyer to protest the variance in the first place. On top of this, the height limit in CL zones is five stories. Compare this to the three and a half stories allowed for multifamily housing in an artisan, which is the densest residential zone in the entire city. Also in the ordinance is a very clear stipulation that a variance shall not be injurious to the neighborhood. The resistance of neighbors to this variance is from a prima facie evidence that there will be injury to the neighborhood. The neighbors do not want five story apartments coming, looming over their street of small single family and twin homes. Whether the zoning area board considered this at all is an um, but wait, it gets worse because of another phenomenon phenomena starting in the city. Devotebrice can as a matter of right by a single family home in an RG or an R RT zone. Demolish the home and erect garden apartments. Up to three stories high in RG and 3.5 stories in RG. There have been at least two examples of this already. One next to Memorial Cemetery on Madison Avenue and another example on Eaton Avenue. The homes of Grandview Boulevard will be worth less representing a transfer of wealth from the residents to the developers. This will make it easier to some developers, maybe the same ones, to buy some of these homes to mullish them and erect garden apartments. That will be the end of the neighborhood of Grandview and Boulevard, with its web of relationships among families that go back decades and in some cases generations. That is what we mean by the word community as opposed to the word facility. I find it oddly instructive that the word facility, facility is an anagram. Its letters can be rearranged to form the two words, city and fail. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Schach. Our next speaker this evening, Paul Fondle. My name is Paul Fondle and I live at 413 Rangu Boulevard. First, I would like to thank the city solicitor, Deschler-Forest, accurate assessment of the problems with developing the former better property. Second, I was very happy that the zoning board rejected the variance to extend the four buildings an extra hundred feet each. However, I was disappointed that they dropped the requirement of the developer to provide retail space along the grocery which will allow the developer to build four buildings or maybe even five or maybe even six buildings that would be five stories high with podiums below and heat and air conditioners even it's on a roof increasing a building height to six stories. This is on reason button. A zoning board failed us by not realizing how massive this project is and how it will overwhelm the neighborhood. If this is allowed, it will set a president to build more five-story apartments throughout West Bethlehem and other areas of the city. This is out of the norm for West Bethlehem and Meyye County. All of the apartments in West Bethlehem are three stories or lower such as part view apartments on Club Avenue, Meyye Plies apartments on West K-2i and Rear Review West on Meyye Street. If this developer allows to build five-story apartment complex, it will destroy our neighborhood. He will profit and we will lose, because our properties will be devalued. My direct neighbor has already expressed his intentions to move if these buildings are approved for five stories and others feel the same including me. However, after living in a brand new boulevard for 57 years, it's something I don't want to do. The developer of Martin Towers Project is in a process of getting a special tax deal because of the duration of the property. This condition was caused by the failure of this owner developer to maintain this property. Why should this be? While driving by this property two weeks ago, I was upset to see three young boys walking on a sidewalk and close waist-high in grass and weeds. I can only imagine how many ticks were living in this mess. I'm sure you know that ticks carry Lyme disease, which I have my best friend just got Lyme disease a month ago. And I have enough units and Lyme disease a month ago. And I have enough units and Lyme disease for 20 years. It doesn't go away very easily. And this Lyme disease can make you very sick. Two weeks later driving on 8th Avenue, low and behold, the area was clear to high grass and weeds. This was a gesture by the developer due to the proposed tax break. If the resident would let their property deteriorate like this, they would be fine. Being that the city is in process of giving the development a special tax break. This developer is tied in with the Hanover project. Maybe the neighborhood should get a break from this developer and the city and put in three-story apartment buildings which is the desire of all of the residents around Grandview and Farm Street. I don't believe this is asking for too much since the developer could get huge tax rates. This would be a win-win situation. I was born and raised here and I love our city. Please don't destroy it with overdevelopment, especially five-storey buildings. We are not New York City or Philadelphia. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Mr. Fong. Next up is Mary Jo McCool. My name is Mary Jo McCool and I live at 449 Grandview Boulevard. I have concerns about the proposed Hanover apartment development on the former events period a lot. First is the possibility of alerted designation for the former at the former Martin Tower site. The developer of that site, Herrick, a B-A-H-X, is the same for the proposed Hanover apartments. Granting the Martin Tower site a deteriorated designation, what is to prevent him from requesting and getting it for the HANA for apartment site, this developer is a billionaire with a B, and certainly can afford to pay the full tax on any property he chooses to develop. Giving a tax deferral in exchange for a percentage of affordable housing units, I feel is not the answer. He will merely raise the rates on the rest of the units to attain his profit margin. Granting this designation firmly puts the tax burden on the residents of the city, at least for the first half of the time. Residents in my neighborhood are retired or raising families. Today's economy is not conducive to raising taxes. Second, the city zoning board did not grant the request of variance for the building link. So I must go back to the drawing board and revamp the development plans. The zoning board did grant the variance for the required neighborhood commercial aspect. This sets a grievous precedent for future variance requests for other CL properties within the city. Granting this variance also deters small business startups. I'm sure small business growth within the city would be more advantageous than ground level parking and add more to the city would be more advantageous than ground level parking and add more to the city's coffers. The zoning board dropped the ball this time. Magdashler for the city asked it our attorney presented a compelling argument for not granting this variance. All attorneys involved had a 10 minute time limit for not, or at the start of that meeting, the applicant's attorney took over 30 minutes for his presentation. He abused the rule. If the city's position were to oppose granting this variance, who within the city has the power to overturn or appeal this decision? Can this body pass on this request for an appeal against this decision? We, the residents, do not want the character of our neighborhood to change drastically. Two of my neighbors on myself have utilized a substantial portion of our retirement funds to fight this massive development. Changing the zoning from CL to RT would limit the building heights to three and half stories, which we could accept and look with. Zoning ordinance clearly states that the development shall not be injurious to the surrounding neighborhoods. Having buildings four to five stories high, more if you include the underneath parking, we'll accomplish this and my backyard will be become additional. Some of them told me not to be a nimbi, not in my backyard. I am truly sure none of this on this body would want this in their backyard either. I respectfully request this body's help in this matter. Thank you. Thank you, Miss McCool. Next I'll do up is Steve Chuckro, 1596 Twin Crest Drive, the heightened best venue. Thank you for the opportunity to speak here tonight. As a resident of Carbinc County and a member of a nonprofit organization, Save Carbinc County, you may wonder why I've traveled to Bethlehem this evening. I'm here to voice my concern about the increasing use of sewage sludge, also known as biosolid fertilizers, informed across Carman County. Biosolid and sewage sludge are interchangeable terms in referring to solid waste, leftover after wastewater processing. While wastewater can be treated and returned to rivers or oceans, solid waste is a difficult disposal problem for wastewater treatment facilities. This sewage sludge is disposed of in three ways, solid waste is a difficult disposal problem for wastewater treatment facilities. This sewage sludge is disposed of in three ways spreading on farmland as fertilizer, incineration, and landfills. According to the PA budget legislative finance committee, in Pennsylvania 46% of bile solids are taken to landfills, 38% are land applied, and roughly 15% are incinerated. Land application is the least expensive option. Wow incineration is the most expensive solution typically costing twice as much as land application. There are two classes of bio solids class A bio solids are treated to the point where they have low pathogen and odor levels and are usually produced as dry pellet fertilizer. The sledge delivery department county farms is class B sludge, which is cheaper to produce than is allowed to have significantly higher pathogen levels than class A. Both class A and class B sludge contain PFAS or forever chemicals that are toxic to humans. Both class A and class B contain heavy metals, pharmaceutical waste, and even pharmaceutical radiodeactive residuals that are not removed by processing. Suicic sludge contains everything that goes into a wastewater treatment facility that is not liquid and the treatment has little impact on the pollutants contained in the sludge. Cinegrote provides the sewage sludge used in carbon county. The sludge is provided free to farmers, one of the sources listed for this ledge is the city of Bethlehem. Due to increasing concerns about the use of sewage sludge in Farms and Carbon County, 20 of 22-minute carbon municipalities have adopted a resolution calling upon our state representatives to revise the law as concerning land application of sewage sludge to improve stronger regulations upon its manufacture and use and provide the means for local governments to strictly control regulations upon its manufacturer and use and provide the means for local governments to strictly control yet to prohibiting the use of this pollutant within their jurisdictions. But a change in state law will be difficult in a long process in Aresworth. The purpose of my being here tonight is to raise your awareness concerning a situation that is potentially hazardous to ourselves while life in the economic prosperity of Carman County. In Maine testing of 44 fields containing bile solids found alarming PFAS levels in the ground in milk and farmers blood and they also discovered that deer that had eaten the crops grown with wastewater sludge that meat that was to contaminate a teeth. After the deer meat testing made wildlife officials issued do not eat advisories for deer harvested and affected areas ultimately meaning decided to bend the use of bile solids although it is currently the only state with a ban on bile solids land application. Other states have reported similar problems resulting from using biosolvent fertilizers, Michigan recently banned using land applied sewage spudge, that exceeded the EPA standards. I have included references with this document that I submitted to the council and I asked that you receive my comments and help in the pollution of our Pennsylvania agricultural resources in the remote area to ask for your help. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to us even. Thank you, Mr. Chunker. Our next speaker is Sue Graydowce. I live at 1326 Valley Road in Bethlehem. And I just have a comment to make about the code. We found out recently our neighbor is encroaching on our property. And his driveway is like three feet over our property. And I was told it was done because it's been there. And I don't think that's right. We did our due diligence. We're gonna put up a fence. We did our due diligence with a survey and permit and everything. And this apparently was done without the due diligence and we're kind of stuck with the problem. And my comment is, if there's a code It should be like oh well. It's been there It's now that's too bad. I think the code should be a force of driveways to close our house We get them the ways from it Plus it's our property pay taxes on So that's just my comment. I don't think that that's right, that we don't get any help we pay our city taxes and we're told that's our problem. So you know thank you for letting me come out also. We're exempt RG and our neighbor's property, part of it might be wise over, is supposed to have 40 feet frontage. He's only got 34 and a half so I don't know how that would allow to have at least so big zone wrong and like I said there's a whole lot of problems that. Apparently it's up to us now as citizens and we're not, we don't have deep pockets. And so that's just my comment is, it would be nice that I have a little help with this owning or something. Thank you. Thank you Ms. Grayhouse. Next is Terry Clover. I'll be on guard there. Sorry, I ran out of ink. kind of we have a couple of these. I know you do. I don't feel better so hey you're looking at that. This is a second life one. I forgot to give you mine. Thank you. I carry Coyote Bar 345, Ramsey Boulevard in Dapoham. I want to talk about the intersection of Cano Gras and New York, Vietnam, New Broad Street. I bet you're all saying, we go again. Well, it's all good though. This is a good thing. We know it's a dangerous intersection. I know you don't want to hear about it again. But when I didn't realize all those times that we were peeling to you guys about doing something, put up signs, speed limits, whatever, who paid on the street, the section of the intersection is actually in Allentown. And that's all what had been said. Hey, wait, this is Allentown's deal, not ours. But I just kept talking about it and talking about it. One day I looked at the map and I said, wait a minute. This is on the left of Club Avenue. So this is Allentown. So let's go to Allentown's Club Allentown City Council meeting. So we went on Wednesday on the second. We showed that basically the same things that we've been giving you guys all along, all the pictures, about the accident as much information as we could. And our information was well received because it's there, but there are problems now. So I was hopeful something would be done within the next couple weeks. The next day I'm out walking my dog, like normally, checking out the intersection. And there were four or five on the street trucks there. Quite a handful of men working on fixing the blinking light now works. And that's the blinking light for the upcoming traffic light going into Allentown. They installed new signs, they replaced the ones that had all the stickers all over them. And they laid down new white letters on the street saying, yield slow and all the new arrows. So now when I walk the dog, I pay attention to the folks coming through that intersection and I've noticed they are actually yielding because this is catching their eye. People are slowing down. Granted not all of them. There are people that speak through and try to get over there before the people coming from broad street get through. I've not heard of any accidents since then. I've not really seen a lot of skin marks, additional skin marks on the carp corner. So you probably won't hear from us on this one. So this one's done. So the second, the picture that I have there, that was while I was working on cleaning up the city. I notified the city three times now about the weeping willow on broad street in front of the area insurance building and that's what you see there. It keeps my complaint, keeps getting close. I do it on close, I do it on my Bethlehem site. I file the complaint, I send them the picture and the Weeping Willow tree is hanging down to about here. So if you're walking, you're not paying attention to talking with it, you can walk right into them. And what really is a little scary is, and there's never like spiders or critters are in there, you know, anything, and that may sound funny, but I'm allergic to spiders. If I get a spider bite, I'll put me in a hospital. So I'd like to see if, I don't know what, what does it take? I've told them three times now, twice it got closed and said, oh, it's taking care of. We've notified urban forestry and it's still not done. But anyway, the real reason I'm here, I want to thank the zoning board for voting no on the variance for no longer than 180 football buildings that were proposed for handover apartments. However, I do not understand the zoning board decision to allow the builder not to put commercial into the building along broad street. This is commercially-zoned land. By doing this, I feel the city of Bethlehem's own board is setting the precedence for the other builders to ask for this type of variance. But the city doesn't allow it for them. They can say, well, you allowed it for handover apartments. Well, I can't we get it. It also scares me that since it is zone commercial that the builder is going to go to the max, he's allowed a five stories now that his buildings have to be shorter. So let's go taller with squeezes many apartments as we can. That scares the hell out of me. And all the while he's getting away with not having to put any commercial retail in his commercial zone land. I'm forbidding to be considered the neighborhoods around the property. So simply put, I'm asking for mayor Reynolds and the city of Bethlehem, can you possibly veto that commercial variance approval? Can you change that to residential? Make it what it really is going to be in that area. We know something's going to be there on the Y. We're not against building. We're against a massive monstrous housing project in our neighborhood. To quote attorney president, it's meant to be an apartment complex with amenities that serve the complex, hence the buildings are oriented towards the center. Well, that's the case. Get the zoning change from commercial to residential. Do not give a variance to have a commercial law with no commercial makes no sense. In a quote from Ronald Heckman, the Rederville and Pail Member in an article in the Lee and Valley News on Martin Tower said Bethlehem is a very neighborhood oriented city. If that's a truth, then I am asking the city of Bethlehem to pay attention to this product project, put their foot down and keeping the Handome Department housing project to three stories to blend in with the existing neighborhood. Thank you. Thank you Ms. Klitor. The final speaker previously signed up. William Rothman. I'll be brief. Lynn Rothman, 870, Welford Lane, Bethlehem. I'm here tonight speaking on behalf of the City's Environmental Advisory Council. So I'd like to just start out by talking about the Citizens Traffic Advisory Committee. It's been mentioned at previous meetings as a resource for safety-related traffic pedestrian and white gate concerns. So CTAC, as it's called for sure, was developed in 1999 by the police and traffic bureau in collaboration with the health and planning bureaus to provide healthier and safer city for residents. So they also collaborate with the Coalition for Transportation, which is cat as you may know. The Lehigh Valley Hospital Traum Division, Penn Dot, and Concerned Residents. And those groups attend their what are now monthly meetings. I have been attending their meetings for years on behalf of the EAC. If you do search on the city's website for C-TAC, it won't come up, but if you go to the health bureau and then injury prevention and then vision zero, you can find it. And vision zero, which was actually, it's a nationwide, it's actually, I believe started in Sweden and the goal of that is to eliminate all traffic fatalities and severe injuries while increasing safe, healthy and equitable travel for all. And our five-year Vision Zero Plan was updated in 2022 by C-TAC. Beginning in October, C-TAC will only be meeting every other month at 8.30 a.m. and all citizens are welcome if they have concerns. And as a BAC update on August 26, EAC members and neighborhood volunteers planted about 250 native perennials at Madison Park, which is located at 609 Ontario Street. This year we tabled at Friendship Park, Campbell's Hump, and the Rose Garden for different events they were holding. And we used a bar of table and a paper sign that I had printed. And I'm here to now thank the city, especially Eric Evans, I'm sorry he's not here tonight, as well as shade filming for now purchasing us at a very own table for tabling and a very professional looking tablecloth with the logo on it. So thank you very much for that. And we look forward to tabling in more events and very professional matter in the coming year. We've also met with the new City Farrister Olivia Teal and we look forward to working with her. We're hoping to talk about different tree planting initiatives and review of the tree's ordinances per the climate action plan. And a final note if if you recall, that chimney swift is our city bird and apparently as they're now migrating to South America, you can see the funneling down a chimney that was preserved at the old resigning temple at dusk, so I encourage you to take a look. And on a personal note, I think those people are traveling all the way from Carbin County to share their concerns with us and educate us tonight. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Rothman. Okay. So I'll start a list of who had signed up previously. I will go around the room and offer anyone who had it already. The dress council chance to speak on anything not being voted on tonight. Is there anyone to the left who wanted to make comment? I turn to the wide center. I'll turn to the center. The gentleman in the front first. Thank you. I apologize for not signing the vote to him. Good evening and thank you for allowing us to bring the issue of land applied sewage sludge to your attention. And my name is Jim Whitehead. I reside at 802 Twin Crest Drive, the Heighten PA in Carbincalney. There is a blue mountain between Bethel and Carbincalney, but we are both part of the Delaware River watershed. We share the same river, the Lehigh. Carbancounty is the source of your pure as it can be drinking water. It is a desire for finding the best possible source of drinking water led to the construction of the Wild Creek reservoir here at the Carman County. The date was July 26, 1938. Prior to that, the water you're drinking was obtained from the Lehigh River in Welsh and Erlicks, no. Bethlehem Municipal Water Authority was the first one to be established in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Great foresight. With a rapid increase of water consumption, that led to the construction and expansion of the upstream reservoirs capacity to date. Our county has approximately 180 active farms, so to an extent we are still rural community, and we want to keep farms in Carman County. We, the voters of Carman County, recently passed a referendum calling for issuing 10 million in bonds to preserve farms and protect clean water. That referendum passed with an 82.7% approval last fall. I think that shows that we want to protect farms and are willing to pay for it. We believe that the use of sewage sludge on the farm feels ruined the farm's feels. By poisoning the feels with toxins heavy metals and chemicals like the forever chemicals, which were noted earlier in Steve's talk, which we call that for a very good reason. Once the fields are sludged, the forever chemicals will not go away. And with each application, the problem grows. In every state where the testing of sludge includes tests for forever chemicals, high concentrations of these have been shown. In some states like Washington State, Michigan, and Maine, farms have been shut down because of the forever chemicals. These chemicals were founded meat and in milk produced on these farms. I happen to be 100 and recently viewed a program showing a farm in Maine where the chemical is present in the harvested deer, livestock and soil. That should concern us all. We are all in this together to protect our streams and our leehive river pollution by the sewage sludge. When sewage sludge is applied to our farm fields in carbon canvases, it will eventually end up in the leehive and the Delaware, by the way of 78 streams that are in carbon canvases. 78. To mention our food supply for these farms. We all live in the watershed. And that's where you farms. We all live in the watershed, no matter where you live, we affect everything. And this is an environmental issue without effects all of us. We urge you to end Bethelms' participation in the use of sludge on farm fields. Thank you for your attention for this matter. Thank you. The other gentleman in the front behind you, what you're doing. Hi, my name is Dan Krunkle. My address is 1372 municipal road, Lee Titan. Another carbon resident here this evening. And I have a little bit of a different slant on this for you folks tonight. First of all, I'd like to say thank you for your service. You have a job that's very difficult and probably mostly thankless. So I'm going to make sure you know that there are people that appreciate what you do. But I want to talk about a different way that this sewage sludge could affect you. I was a teacher at Freedom High School here in Bethlehem for almost 30 years and then I left that and became one of the founders and the executive director of Lehigh Gap Nature Center for 17 years and the Nature Center is the only environmental education center in our nation that was founded on a superfund site. Heavy metals from the effluent from the smokestacks of a zinc smelter and pomegranate caused the area to become a superfund site. We've been talking tonight about asking you to be a little bit altruistic and stop sending the pollutants to carbon county that come along with a sewage sludge. But I would like you to consider your own viability in the future. I have been working with the United States Environmental Protection Agency very closely. From us 20 years now at Lehigh Gap Nature Center. And I know for a fact that the responsible party that is footing the bill there has paid well over $100 million to help remediate the site. If this sledge keeps being sent to Carbon County and the heavy metals and the PFA's chemicals and so forth, build up in that soil. It is within the distinct realm of possibility that there could be super-fund action in carbon county on these sites. And what happens when a site is declared a super-fund site, the United States EPA goes looking for the responsible parties and makes them financially responsible for the clean up, for the remediation. It is within the distinct realm of possibility that the city of Bethlehem, Senator Braw, and anyone else who was involved in this application could become a super fun responsible party in the future. So I hope you think about us but I hope you also think about yourself. You might want to stop doing this because you could end up being, because you're a Bethlehem, could end up being a party to a super fine cleanup that could cost the city out lot of money. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Kierzall. Is this going out to people that aren't here tonight too? It's always reported on YouTube, sir. Okay, it's online? Yes. Okay, because I have something to say that. It's basically for people that aren't here. Anyway, my name's already Curitola. I have 13 law enforcement, but from Pennsylvania. My back door is always open. I'll be sure to call before dropping it. I'd like to say, for all you people that aren't here, we have 9,358,833 according to census of people who are over the age of 18. And we're lucky and we get about 40 people that aren't being paid here to be here. What's wrong with that picture? If happy we show up, hey, the mayor and the city council will be more than happy to be obliged. We rent out state, Lorena. But the thing is, well it's going on here. Where are you people? Then on the streets about problems and everything. Voting is 50% of the game, but the thing is, the other 50% is being a part of your community and being here because these people can't do their job. If you're not venting the problem here, not on the streets, saying what needs to be done and all this stuff to be planning, you need to be here. That's my one piece. The other thing is, we have in our city, in every city, in the United States, there's a social drug that's the most addicting and worst drug possibly and is killing a lot of people a lot of my friends have died Because I'm taking this drug and it's legal 10 20 30 years younger than me. I'm 76 years old But I don't even take aspirin I'm not gonna be smoking nicotine. Nicotine is more harmful and dangerous than heroin. Opium. I'm not saying we should just abolish it because then we're going to have pro-bidges. And what people are going to like we did in the 20s. People be blinded of selling cancer sticks that have more nicotine into what they're what's going on right now. But we need to help the people who are addicted to this drug, it's not cool to be smoked in nicotine. It's killing you and killing the people around you, especially your loved ones, with the second-hand smoke. Second-hand drug, the most dangerous drug in the world is nicotine. Here in Bethlehem we should be an example and make it that people need to be rebuilt, rehabilitated, to get away from the nicotine drug. It's basically all I have to say. And we need to pray for the people that are addicted to that drug. God bless you. Thank you, Mr. Karrot-Holam. Is there anyone else in the center who wants to make comment this evening? Mr. Ariff. Alex Hirsch, some 38th Center Street. I agree there that it's important for citizens to be involved and bring their concerns before you. I apologize, but the poor job of that, I'm up to 415 days since I've been coming to these meetings as a property owning part-time resident of the city who's not eligible for a residential parking apartment. I mean I just don't understand why this can't get resolved. Just to share with you, I had a nice long day. So tonight, I think my next step is going to be to try to get some sort of on the record, a opinion from the city as to whether or not I am a resident. I've continued to pay individual income tax to the city since this began. You have to stop that. I think all I have to do is change my headdress with my employer and one percent of my income stays right back in my pocket. Just so happens, Rhode Island does not have a local municipality income tax. So if you might spring fall for me, I view myself as part-time resident of the city. I believe the great thing to do is to continue paying that tax for the services that I do to get a bandage of or appreciate being there whether or not I take advantage of them. That's kind of where I'm at. Am I a resident? Am I not? Is any of this real? What the hell is happening? I own a house. Nobody else lives in the house except my wife and I. It's not a rental property. I'm no intention of making a rental property. If I did, this still wouldn't give a permit to anybody else, just want a parking permit for my car. Thank you. Mr. Hersh. Is there anyone else in the center who had had a chance to address council who wanted to? I start to the right. I start on to the right, turn on to the right, let's turn it down. Stephen Antelope, seven to seven reach. Mr Henry G Gabbbar, and his novel, rather book entitled, Paid Paradise. Parking explains the world during interview with Koda Seng. It's about how parking codes, parking lots, and garages have shaped the last game of the cities and suburbs. And listen to this and limit the creation of affordable housing. The key word these days is that here in elsewhere is affordable housing. But the zoning codes and ordinances enacted in the 50s and 60s are focused on parking that made it mandatory in a zoning to have so many parking spots per building. One car takes up 30 square feet. I'm sorry, 300 square feet. One single detach, private residence up two thousand square feet. So you would think, well, I would suggest that the city would look at the zoning codes And amend them to remove or correct the number of parking spots required. An example. Nursing homes. The residents of nursing homes don't have cars. But we're providing them to park the car. So it needs to be revised. But also what bothers me is that last few years the south side of Bethlehem has seen two major bargain garages. One on Newstreet is 37,000 square feet and one on Polk's tree is 41,000 square feet. Combined, we could have seen over 40 stand-alone single homes. So the question becomes, what congestion is there on New Street or a Maltry that he manages parking garages? The numbers are there, but the garages are. Why? Corporate interest versus community interests. The building at the corner of third and new is built against a zoning code but the size of the building it requires parking. So we get a 37,000 square foot parking garage. Will it ever be filled? Is it being filled? At certain bulk, how many residents are there that require a 41,000 square feet parking garage. Certainly a people are there, but why is it large there? Another corporation, March Quest. They just might need parking for music fest. So we now have the 41,000 square foot parking garage. While the sound site is crying for affordable housing and losing 40 affordable houses because of parking garages. Who's running the city? Who's running the city? I love to hear the answer to that question. Thank you, Mr. Antalox. Is there anyone else to the right who wanted to make comment? Well, that adjourns our first public comment on anything not being voted on. We'll move on to the second public comment. This is for anything that is on tonight's agenda. Would you not have anyone signed up in advance? So again, I'll go around the room, starting to the left. If there was anyone who wanted to vote on anything that as on the agenda, I turn to the center. I wish our guests from Parvin County safe travels back home. Was there anyone in the center who wanted to make comment on anything that we are voting on tonight? I turn to the right. Anyone who wants to make comment on anything on tonight's agenda? We're going to proceed to old business, and the old business remembers of council. Go ahead on to communications. Communication 6-8. In August 18th, 2023, communication from Laura Collins, Director of Community and Economic Development, recommended the agreement with Hero Property Registration Services in Melbourne, Florida. And so it would retain $100 each registration fee received in 33% of any late fees. Contract would run through December 31st, 2024 with two one year renewals. And resolution 10B is on the agenda tonight. Communication six billion. In August 28 28, 2023, memorandums from Councilwoman Grace Kramps-Smith proposing ordinance amending article 1159 of the city's codified ordinances, bending the sale of pets from puppy notes and pet stores throughout the city. And this proposal will be referred to the Council's Public Safety Committee for consideration at a future meeting. Communication 16. Notice 31st, 2023, Memorandum from City Celestin or John F. Spurt Jr. with an attached resolution and associated use permit agreement. Permitee is PartsQuest and the event is 2023 October fest. The agreement is from 4 to 11 p.m. on October 6, 11 a.m. until 11 p.m. on October 7, 11 a.m. until 7 p.m. on October 8, 4 to 11 p.m. on October 13, 11 a.m. until 11 p.m. on October 14, 11 a.m. until the p.m. on October 15. Rumsys covered will be first street from poultry to these Timchernas and founders way between first and second streets. And where resolution 10C is on the agenda tonight, as I mentioned at the very beginning, 60 has been removed from the agenda. We'll be out for reports. I don't have anything other report. Other I want to touch briefly while Gordon wants to leave some things out of the wrong term public comment. We heard about the Zooming Carrying Board. I did consult with our solicitor. Unfortunately, or fortunate depending on the perspective you would take City Council is not in any position or not giving any authority to overrule, override detail anything like that. The Zooming Car board decisions, and I say with confidence, nor is the mayor, the zoning care board acts as its own quasi-judicial, independent decision-making body. So while I encourage those, I always come, go on to address council ahead and share their thoughts and opinions at the lecture, and I did just want to state that for the record. That is not a power that's vested with city council. And then we have heard a little bit about nicotine. Would you have a health bureau here in Bethel? Which we've heard a lot about during the pandemic and all the great work they do. If you simply Google tobacco cessation, the Bethel Health Bureau does offer programs for those who are looking to quit any kind of tobacco dependence. So if anyone was following along and felt that that was a service they were looking for or that city should engage in, we already do. So you could, all that information is eloquently listed right on the city's website. And that was all I had for report, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. First of all, I I wanna just say thank you to many of the council people and other people here as well that have reached out to me and Natalie with the past couple of weeks. I missed the last council meeting at the birth of our first son, Leo. But I, and I know I did not, I was unable to send everything, Lee Miller text message, she was phone call that we received, but I just want to thank everybody for all of the words of encouragement. And it is a joyful time at our house without much sleep. But it is going well. Leo is well in his way to enjoying the time. So once again, I want to thank everybody for reaching out. One thing that I know there was at the last meeting, and I believe it was on August 15th, and Leo was born on the 11th. And I was unable to be here for the conversation that we had about the shifting of some excess DCD funds into our office. And it was obviously a conversation that I wish I could have been here before. I thought that it would be a good thing for the record. I noticed people on the City Council have received a joint email between Mrs. Stein, Nextam, Mrs. Jello and Mrs. Santoro that wanted to express their appreciation. So I thought it might be a good thing to read here for the record before we move on. Dear members of the City Council, we wanted to express our appreciation for unanimous vote this week to approve the usage of DCD funds the amount of $10,000 to meet the demands of the last phase of our world heritage and nomination process. As a follow-up to the public conversation on Tuesday about the work of our office, we felt it was a good opportunity to share the work that three of us are undertaking on a daily basis. Because of your acknowledgement of the responsibilities that the World Heritage Initiative entails, we are able to continue working with all seven members of City Council and others throughout City Hall and our community to be proactive when it comes to tackling our biggest systemic challenges as a city. While our offices daily duties include talking and meeting with citizens, coordinating and responding to citizen service requests, special event coordination of community meetings with ad hoc committees and presence and community conversations that request a private public sector partners, we also divide responsibility so we can be present to the many requests we receive at the mayor's office to join our partners in strategizing and supporting numerous community-led initiatives. Our three positions, which for previous mayors, have served traditionally as mostly administrative support, are now largely dedicated working with our community partners and city employees to aggressively tackle the priorities of our community. Times are big as resource and our biggest challenge in helping to drive change throughout city hall in our community. At the heart of our administration's philosophy is a commitment to true community engagement that requires being authentic about listening, collaborating and building trust in an outside of city hall. Approving the usage of the $10,000 of DCD savings to help defray the costs of a world heritage nomination, which has been almost exclusively supported generously by Northampton County up to this point through $400,000 of hotel tax revenues will allow us to make even more progress on the many initiatives that we have spent 19 months working on with City Council members and our community partners. These initiatives include but are not limited to the implementation of a city's climate action plan including planning and leading several monthly meetings working with WSPMM initiatives, coordinating attendance and reporting at AAC meetings, thanks to Ms. Rothman, specifically and specifically leading several implementation committees between Mrs. Stein and Ms. Santoro and driving those initiatives, including our public engagement, which includes the development of the Bethel Climate Challenge, our larger organizations and environmental justice. The office has also been working on the development of the Community Recovery Fund, partnership with DCD at our next meeting we will be able to announce the public meeting that we are going to have in conjunction with Senator Casey in Congresswoman Wilde, where we announce the award winners. The creation of our Rebuild Bethlehem Initiative and ongoing related community engagement associated with that. Supportive City Hall initiatives like Northside Alive and Reimagine the Westside, managing our relationship with the Chamber of Commerce, which includes the running citizens of the Christmas City Committee Planning, Downtown Bethel Association, Interactions and Planning, Bethel Marketing, Council of Planning of Live in the Garden, coordinating the parklets and planning and executing the mayor's state of the city address and budget address events. We have often also worked with the past year and a half on the complete redesign of the special events permitting process, which includes restructuring of the department, helping to train our new hire, building out the new software, and repairing and building community partner relationships as it pertains to special events. We also worked with the Centoral to be able to present in the next couple of meetings about an exciting new sister city relationships that we are about to establish, but also reestablishing and reorganizing the sister city relationships, hosting the sister city group visits, creating a new sister city relationship, coordination and planning of our flag racing and holiday events, and supporting events and promotion for other departments, including significant work with our Bethlehem Fire Department. We also have been working on obviously the coordination of Bethlehem Corner videos where we've lifted up community leaders as well as others throughout our community. We just need to be probably sawed. Our latest video, having you with the organizing for the Fairview Park Bill, which I'll talk about in a minute. Managing our press releases, development of parking plans and goals, supporting and developing new initiatives for our arts community, including planning live in the greenway with the Southside Arts District, purchasing of new recording equipment for public use and partnership with the ISAS, charge recordings due in the Bethamary Public Library, supporting all of our great ISAS initiatives that I know many of us are involved in, strengthening our partnership with Touchstone, including our new lease agreement that they are using for a lot of their events. Strengthening our partnership with Artsgress, the events for motion development of music fest of their music fest podcast. We also been working on three city coalition development, which we are going to continue to talk about, to talk about affordable housing. Obviously partnering with DCD on work related to housing crisis and preparation of study presentations. We've also made a particular effort between Mrs. Stein and Ms. Santorum to strengthen our community relations between the mayor's office and organizations that include but are not limited to the Boys and Girls Club of Bethlehem Cat, Celtic Cultural Alliance, Discovery Lab Valley and WACP, Community Action of the Lehigh Valley, Bethlehem Area Public Library, the School District, Moravian Lee, High Northampton Community College, the Betham Park Authority, and many more. We are working on developing our comprehensive equity plan that is centered in the mayor's office, as well as working with our community partners to create affordable options for broadband. We also are working on our ongoing relationship that we are particularly proud of with community options, which is going to allow people with disabilities to experience different locations within City Hall. By volunteering with different departments, we are planning LGBT welcoming and affirming training for City Hall employees in the mayor's office and we are working with the American Jewish Committee and anti-diffimitionally recommendations to create mechanisms for identifying addressing anti-Semitism, other instance of bias, which I'll be reading more about in a minute. We have increased our outreach to the Betham Housing Authority, which we're gonna talk about with our upcoming Housing Affordable Housing meetings. And Miss Santoro also services liaison for the South Side Task Force, the Latino Advisory Council, and that double ACP Advisory Board and Environmental Justice, Terran Committee. And obviously the office continues to work on maintaining the schedule of the mayor and coordination of meetings and appointments for everybody throughout the city hall. We produced the city newsletter twice a year, including coordinating submissions between 25 city departments and community partners, creation and delivering of proclamations and citations throughout the city of Bethlehem, as well as obviously managing our boards and commissions appointments as forest collection of resumes, building slates, and filling open sleets. This has all been accomplished or in progress while meeting the needs of our historic preservation partners that are looking to drive regional tourism which has taken an unexpected and significant amount of staff time. Stephanie Agelo is appointed World Heritage Coordinator, a new position that is required for a World Heritage nomination by a vote of the World Heritage Council at the request of our International Consultant Barry Gamble. The World Heritage Nomination work has included the following responsibilities, including approximately 20 hours a week from Stephanie Agello, and is not included the time spent by numerous additional staff, including the Stein on the meetings, events, and communications as this initiative touches many parts of her city. Mr. Jell was the single point of contact for the U.S. National and the U.S. National focal point for UNESCO and for the local community for all matters concerning world heritage and Bethlehem. She is the single point of contacting to communicate and reports to six permanent members of the Bethlehem World Heritage Council, which I serve as the chairman of, Maravie University, the Bethlehem Air and Maravie, it's Maravie Church Historic Beth Museums and Science, North Anthony County and the City of Bethlehem. She's the single point of contact to communicate and reports the Bethlehem World Heritage Commission composed of other 20 community stakeholders. She communicates and reports the US Department of Interior and National Park Service in all world heritage developments and schedules, answering her questions, coordinating visits and providing documentation as requested. She communicates reports who participates in the Transnational Working Group, a multinational and nomination group, comprised of four Moravian Church settlements seeking inscriptions. Christians fell Denmark, Grace Silenorth and Ireland, in the UK, Hernaut, and Germany, and obviously Bethlehem. In addition, she serves as a point of contact for any public relations requests regarding world heritage and make sure they are community and considered by all foreign nations. Bethlehem was also proceeding along with other settlements in the series as one site with a local management plan that is under the International Management Plan submitted as part of the Domination Daciae. Currently we are working on shared fields of action for the series of settlements together with several site-specific actions. The draft Bethlehem LMP local management plan, as we call, is expected to be completed and approved by the end of 2023. We are responsible for updating and editing all changes to this local management plan from now until possible in scripting in mid-2024. Upon conclusion of the UNESCO's assessors visit in July 2023, we continue to respond to any questions as a staff from the UNESCO assessor providing research and historical documentation including maps, images and documents. We also in charge of creating any additional materials recorded to request to support successful inscriptions. Once the assessors report is turned over to ECMOs, we will be responsible for providing further documentation and answering any further questions. As UNESCO team evaluates and considers possible inscriptions over the next six months, with that decision that we expect at the time they made in mid-2024. Mr. Jell also serves as the focal point for all press and media related requests and outreach related to world heritage. She schedules coordinates and facilitates all council and commission meetings, including developing agendas and minutes, and she continues to coordinate all events and travel as does Ms. Stein related possible world heritage inscription. We are looking forward to the upcoming budget season where our office will have an opportunity to present to city council and even more detailed rundown of the progress we are making on our shared priorities and initiatives in partnership with community organizations, city employees, and city council members. The progress we have made together on each of these shared priorities in a very short period of time is testament to and reflective of the mutual respect and dedication that defines who we are as a city. Thank you again for the unanimous support of using $10,000 of DCD funds to help our community make progress on our transnational world heritage nomination. If you have any further questions or you would like to discuss either the status of a world heritage nomination or any of the citywide systemic initiatives that we work on every hour to create a more equitable community, please do not hesitate to reach out to any of our staff at your convenience. We are always open to meeting as a group or individually to discuss where we are in the process of implementing our shared priorities. It is best to meet with everybody together because oftentimes there are multiple people working on the same shared priority. We are proud to work alongside all of you as we continue to make jointly, jointly make community center decisions dedicated to building a city of inclusion, opportunity and equity. Miss Stein is here as well as myself to answer any questions at this point pertaining to anything that our office takes on on a daily basis. So before I go on my report, I would open it up to anybody that's the council that would like to add any comments or any questions. Seeing pretty well rested for Edwin, maybe Ed will mayor run on the file. There's a lot of time to read at this point. Thank you. Any questions for mayor Reynolds from members of council as it relates to state that Ms. Grants is Smith? Yes, since I was the one that product of the issue, I guess I'll just clarify again why I asked the question as a representative of the folks of this city. I think I have the right to ask questions when we look at it by your transfers. But my concern was in the memo from the mayor is said it is a mayor's initiative. So I surmise, I thought appropriately, if this amaze is initiative, then why is not the position of director of mayor initiative not taking on those goals responsibilities? And I have to say, I've been an administrator and government for many, many years, and I know now in education also that it always is a struggle to try to balance the task of responsibilities that we have at hand. So I know that for a fact. But I'm also just trying to see that we're working as efficiently as possible. My other concern is, again, it's all about balance. And at the same time, when we eliminate a five emergency responder positions in the budget through a tuition, we add an additional administrative position. And I'm thinking about what is the message that we're sending to these emergency responders where we right now are down nine firefighters so to be 10 and I know we're also down police positions also. And while certainly there may be a dire need for this temporary help, I think we need to balance it and look at, we got rid of emergency responders and our emergency responders positions are vital to the health and safety of this city. And then we need to add temporary help to administration where at the same time that we got rid of emergency responders positions, we added additional administrative positions. So I'm just looking at what it looks like and the message that is sending to all the employees in the city. And again, as I noted, I am 100% behind the World Health Health site and I voted for the transfer because of that reason. Thank you. Did anyone else from council have anything to comment or add before I turn that over to this reason? Bear on. Yeah. A couple of things. One is that the vacancies that we currently have in the police department are not positions that were cut. They are retirements and people that left and we are trying to work to fill those. We are also sending people to the fire of the academy. We have those vacancies at this point through a combination of retirements and terminations. And there's one fire academy at year as we have talked about multiple times as why we are sending people. Also there is, and I'm not sure what position we're talking about as far as adding like an administrative position other than this idea of like temporary help here. I will say this also because I think we all know this and it shouldn't have to be said is like we have three employees in the mayor's office but we are paying 2.5 of them because as Mrs. Agile has been very open about she retired from the school district because of health and personal reasons. She is limited and she's working 70 hours a week and making 39 thousand dollars a year. So we have three employees and we are paying two and a half of them. That is something a lot of people know. She is fine with me having this conversation, because that's how upset she is about this. The best thing that we could do with the fact that she's working 60, 78 hours a week, Miss Nine, who is about to go out in two months, because she's seven months pregnant, Miss Antorra, are the three people that are putting in more work than any bills in the city and for two and a half employees Mrs. Agello should be getting paid a lot more than $39,000 a year But she's not because she's not able to because of what she retired So if we came back and said we were gonna pay a third employee our fourth part-time employee $40,000 It still would be what the equivalent is here and That's the situation we're dealing with as far as this office is concerned. And that's work that's being taken on above and beyond as far as what her personal situation is. And this conversation shouldn't get to the point where we have to explain how much somebody is getting paid, but I think after reading through that in the personal communications, I guess it's gotten to that point where we have to be just completely honest about the fact that we're paying two and a half employees and we're getting three employees as far as work is concerned. We were asking to transfer $10,000 to be able to go into this office to ease the work of Mrs. Agello. She had taken on these world heritage responsibilities earlier during Mayor Dodge's administration and it is shared it is shared duties. But it is a completely different conversation that we absolutely can have during the budget as far as when we're feeling vacancies and things like that. It's crazy. And I have noted publicly at the meeting that I know Mrs. Ajello works many, many additional hours and works very hard and I have spoken to her regarding the situation directly. And there's an issue that she's underpaid that it needs to be addressed, I'm trope. It can't be addressed. She's not legally allowed to make any more money without giving up her disability pension that she retired from the school district with. It is an impossibility. Well, that doesn't need to be public knowledge and then you can deal with the task responsible. Which is the reason why I just... And what I did say at that meeting was when we got rid of the five emergency responders, we added another position within the Community Economic Development Department and I said, perhaps, some of within there can help do some of these responsibilities because it is related to community and economic development. Again, I am not trying to attack anyone within this city. I value every employee. I know it is light to work two jobs and get paid for one. But again, as my role representing the people as a city council person, I feel like I have to look into these things and ask the hard questions sometimes. And these are hard questions and I would prefer not to ask them, certainly, but I feel that I would be remiss of my duties as a city council person if I didn't. We don't have a problem answering these questions and we don't choose them as hard questions because we like to talk about what we do. I also obviously have had multiple conversations and this is Jell about this and she's been very open about this situation. So it's not as if having that conversation is something that she doesn't want is also a two-way street and hopefully that email shows the way that the three of the members in our office feel about the work that we're doing and I think that this is a situation where we're going to have to agree to disagree but I'm in the facts of the situation or the facts of the situation as far as the amount of work that we're getting with three employees and we're paying two and a half or paying two and a half. I would just add to that before I would like to keep the conversation constructive and I'll turn to other members of council that we would the resolution leave those resolution did pass unanimously which obviously we all support us thankful for that and I think a lot of these further conversations would really be important to have one would come to budget season and we talk about our city personnel whether in the mayor's office in any way that we can budget for future work or maybe even things that are not foreseeable as we move into 2024 so that that workload is being flattened out and that council can support those initiatives, things that might be limited to something truthfully. How was it fully sure what was just discussed as it relates to Mr. Joho's limitations based on her previous employment and things like that. But what we don't want to see or at least how I speak for myself. I wouldn't want to see and I would be confident and broader council feels the same. Is the things that were read from through your email, Mr. Mayor, falling through the cracks. Because I think all those things are very important as we've talked about at meetings over the last time of the administration when we talk about events at the Rose Garden, that's the green way to different partnerships within the community. All these other initiatives which are very important. But, um, place that I'll open up to other members of council on the Lincoln School on what it's making on them. Yes, I just, I wanted to thank the mayor for reading that email. I think we have responsibility to accurately reflect and not intentionally or inadvertently create questions where there shouldn't be questions. Your concerns are valid, Ms. Ramsey Smith, but having received that email already as somebody who had great respect for the workload of the mayor's office, I work with a number of the organizations who were mentioned in that email so I can say first hand that not only do I have a sense of the work that's being done, although I was still overwhelmed but I very much appreciated the responsible way in which you presented that information to us I think it's we can't expect those paying attention here sitting at home and watching this meeting to know that so thank you for sharing that I think it's important that people are aware of that workload. But what I was going to say is that firsthand not only is that work being done when an email is sent from an organization there is a response. It is mature, it is quick and you have a way of making anyone on the other end of your, I am speaking to you, Mrs. Stein right now because you're here, but I respond to your email to you and Ms. Santoro and Ms. Agile as well to voice to let you know that it was heard and your work is seen and appreciated. And I'm grateful that those paying attention to this meeting had the opportunity to hear that as well. We're still under the mayor's report. Is there any, before I allow the mayor to continue with his report, and remarks any other input from members of council? Thank you. Several other updates. One is next Thursday. There's two actually events that we will be reaching out about if we have not our email about as I know it's been a concern members of State Council for about a Salkin Park and State Representative Steve Samelson it helped to get us some funding to be able to make some improvements there and there's going to be a check presentation and event next Thursday at 11 a.m. also next Thursday at 4.30. We are going to be doing the ribbon cutting on the Hobart Street mural that a lot of people have seen there along the green one. So that's going to be at 4.30. I also wanted to thank Mr. Alkall who is here. We have completed another successful pool season. I know a couple years ago we talked about how we were going to do everything we could to be able to get all five pools open and we have successfully completed another season with having all five pools open something that we did last year in 2022 but other than that that not occurred since I believe 2018 or 2019 even taking account the fact that we closed more of for two years so that was a big deal and I wanted to just thank mr. Alkall and Ms. Evans for all of that hard work. We have reached out to a lot of you. We are rebuilding Fairview Park. On October 4th, we had just placed that video up the other day trying to get more volunteers. It's a couple days that we're looking for volunteers, but the big one is Wednesday. So if anybody is able to make it out. We have a lot of people from the neighborhood, Mrs. Tula and I, or Mrs. Tula and I are going out to knock on some doors in the next couple of weeks just to talk to everybody as well. But that's really going to be a great day. Obviously, it's pretty much an all day event. So I know that everybody in the council has other, you know, employment responsibilities. But if you're able to come by, it's really going to be a wonderful kickoff to us hosting the Pennsylvania Municipal League. I also wanted to Ms. Rothman referenced our vision zero plan that the city worked predating our administration, but obviously we spent a lot of time talking about plans. One of the things that happened last year that I think we've mentioned was in the new infrastructure bill. You may have read about how Allen Town and other cities have gotten successful grants to be able to do their vision zero plan. Like we were eligible for those grants because we already had our plan from a couple years ago. So we had been applying for the implementation grants to be able to follow through on our $10-11 million dollar project over there on West Broad Street, which is the one that we applied for last year. We can't get it. There's new full of money this year. But obviously, we talk a lot about plans. We go through that. But a lot of times what the plans allow us to do is when these funding opportunities come along, they allow us an opportunity to be able to apply for that. November 15th as well, I think we've reached out to Council about, but we are planning our kind of annual check-in on the progress with our climate action plan. We're going to have presentations from all of our different implementation groups in the morning. So I think that's at 8.30 or 9 o'clock, I'm going to start I believe. So we will be reaching out more about that. And then just my last update then is our, I want to thank Council again for agreeing to set the committee to committee meeting dates for our housing presentations, which is really going to be one presentation at two parts. And what we are calling it, our overall housing strategy plan is opening doors, which is what the name is going to be of our plan going forward. So we're going to kind of talk about half of that first meeting and then at the second meeting we're going to talk about the other half of it. We are also in the process, Mr. Toon and I, we're today on setting up a public meeting to be able to go through it. I think we're going to do it again at the NCC Fowler Center, where we've had some successful meetings in the past. So that will probably be at some point in October. As I had mentioned before as well, we are working with Senator Casey and Congresswoman Wild's Office on scheduling our community recovery fund event as well. And I think that that about sums it up. Oh, and then I also want to make sure that we're here. I hear by reappoint Dr. Christine Hartigan, 1206 Dailhurst Drive, Bethlyn P818, the appropriate mental health services appeals board. This is a Pant appointment effective through October 2026. Administrative order of Dr. Christine Hartigan, appropriate mental health services appeal board, resolution sponsored by Dr. Daxmi and his parents' death. Discussion on the appointment? We'll call roll. Dr. Maynard, work. Hi. and his parents' death. Discussion on the appointment? We'll call the roll. Dr. Reneworth. Hi. His well-known. I. His parents' death. Dr. Renix. I. His parents' death. His name is Chuck Lomb. I pass the 7-0. That concludes my report. Moving on to award him says for final passage that clerk will rebuild 34, 2023. In the ordinance of the city of Bethlehem, counties of Lehigh, Northampton, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Mending the 2023 General Fund budget. Bill 34, 2023 is sponsored by this Leon and Dr. Enix. Discussion? We'll call the roll. Dr. Memor? Aye. This will be on the screen. Smith? Aye. Dr. En M. Moore, Dr. Williams. I. I. I. Dr. Renix. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. that Wawa Incorporated has requested the approval of City Council, City of Bethlehem, Northampton County, to the proposed transfer of Pennsylvania restaurant, with their license number are 17711, from PA overlooking LLC, formerly located at 4285 North Delaware Drive, Mount FOPA 18343, to Wawa Incorporated at 770, Heller-Tamber, Bethlehem-Pia 18018. With the understanding that said transfer must be approved at a later date by Pennsylvania Electric Control Board, resolution is sponsored by Dr. Enix and Ms. Prince Smith. If this sounds familiar, this is the follow-up resolution to the public hearing that we had earlier this evening. Any comment from members of council on the liquor license transfer? Ms. Laila? I think I apologize, I could make a concern as far as proximity is off the park, and I'm sorry to have to apologize. As she's in the past, it's kind of my illusion of our mental issues, but also issues from our youth, alcohol, consumption, and that part. I'm not concerned about the health of the health department. Understood. Any other comments from our council? I'll stick to call the roll. Dr. Van Wurk. Hi. Ms. Wilhelm. Ms. Grimesus Smith. Hi. Dr. Renix. Hi. Ms. Quitteck. Hi. Ms. Leon. Hey. And Mr. Cix. Aye. Ms. Quaytec. Aye. Ms. Leon. Aye. Mr. Cologne. Aye. Resolution passes 6-1. Resolution 10-B. The result of the Council of the City of Bethlehem, the mayor and the controller, and or such other city officials, is the appropriate legislative solicitor for your body authorized execute agreement with Heroproperty Regist registration services to register properties in the city of FLM. Resolution is sponsored by Dr. Enix and Miss Gramsys left. Discussion? I guess so. Just a quick question I was wondering Miss Conds, if you could help me understand the fee structure here it looks like we, with no outright cost that it's all, the limit is based on registration fees and a percentage of late fees. Correct. That is correct. The Ordnance Article 1732 provides that there's a $200 fee for registration that the mortgagee pays and then for the service that Hera provides a collect $100 for each $200. Okay, so that was the mortgagee, that was my annex Christmas paying. Yes. Okay, great, yes. Thank you. Just quickly before you put that away. Okay. When you say the mortgagee, these are four closed properties, so we're talking about the bank or the, the, correct, the lender, bank or the lender. The lender? Yeah, okay, thank you. Any other questions from members of the council? Ms. Grangestman? Yeah, I guess related to this. I guess what I understand the process, because I've had complaints from someone about property spend for clothes for a while. Is there a time limit for the mortgagee, as far as once they floor clothes that they need to do something with the property. Is that something that they don't allow them as a city or no? So under the ordinance they have to register on this database within, I believe, 10 days. So that just gives us the contact information effectively. So when a property is for close upon, we then know which properties those are. So if there is, for example, a complaint about high-dress in weeds, we can go into the system and see, you know, okay, this is a for close property. We've got all the contact information for the bank, for example, and also they're required to give us the property maintenance contact information. So that way we can follow up on the complaints about aggressive leads, blade, those sorts of things. Now if the property management company, like receives a notice of violation and doesn't clean it up immediately, we just use the same process that we would use for regular property owner under whatever particular ordinance that are violating. So for example, high-gress weeds, they would get the letter. They have, I believe, 30 days from the date that they received the letter to remedy the high-gress and wage situation. If they do not, then you proceed to sending it to magistrate fines and those sorts of things. Because I think of a property that the guy goes and it's like over two years and not doing anything so I'm wondering legally is there a recourse for the person that is the neighbor that has real concerns about it? Is there any kind of recourse or is there any kind of time frame where they must do something like the properties just vacant and they're not doing anything with it? So we can, I mean, we can take it as far as, you know, going to the match straight, getting fine. Yeah, but at that point it really becomes out of our hands. I mean, we don't go out there ourselves and cut address the needs, for example. Right. Yeah. Some of these can get very messy, but, yeah, I mean they call rings or how they come inside, but it's just like why it's the back still keeping this property vacant for over two years. Doesn't make sense. Okay, thank you. Any other questions or comments from our VISTA Council? Thank you, Ms. Collins. We'll call her. Dr. I'm Mr. Colton. I'm Mr. Colton. I'm Mr. Colton. I'm Mr. Colton. I'm Mr. Colton. I'm Mr. Colton. I'm Mr. Colton. I'm Mr. Colton. I'm Mr. Colton. I'm Mr. Colton. I'm Mr. Colton. I'm Mr. Colton. I'm Mr. Colton. Mayor in the controller and we're such other city officials is the appropriate by the city solicitor provide authorized excuse to use permit agreement with arts quest for 2023 October fast resolution sponsored by doctor enix and miss transit Smith discussion Call roll dr. May work. I this well home. I Hi, that's right. I'm a is Mr. Smith. I. Black Reignants. I. This is Quintet. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. Resolution is here by grant for 375-13 to have a new replace existing 3 tab asphalt shingle roofing The GAF slate line antique slate asphalt shingles Resolution is sponsored by Dr. Enix and Ms. Grimson Smith Discussion We'll call the roll and see you like Dr. Van Ward. Hi. This will help. I. This will help us to smooth the green. Hi. This will help us to smooth the green. Hi. This will help us to smooth the green. Hi. This will help us to smooth the green. Hi. This will help us to smooth the green. Hi. This will help us to smooth the green. Hi. This will help us to smooth the green. Hi. Center of HAC and Carter's Memorial. Will all the work recipients be announced at that time? You know, we're in the process of Miss Allen and Miss Collins and everybody is in the process of going through that paperwork. But we needed to try to obviously reach out to the Center and the Congresswoman as early as we can, but everybody will have been notified before that process. Yes. Thank you, Mayor Goh. Any other new business for members of Council? I have. Start with Dr. E. Hanks. Oh, you can buy. The floor is yours, Dr. E. Okay. First one, I have the Finance Committee will be on Tuesday, September 19th at 6 p.m. in town hall, and we will discuss budget adjustments. And to my friends, over on Grandview Boulevard, and in the words of an old Negro spiritual very old it's called take my hand precious Lord and I hear I hear your prize and I hear your calls and I express sympathy for you. Thank you. Thank you Dr. Vicks Dr. Van WardWord. Well, gee, my thing is poetic. It really is. So you'll have to bear with me and Mr. Bufkola. I'm afraid you may be on the hunt. Again, but I do want to say that I think our friends from Carman County have raised some very interesting points. I think we've all become much more aware of the presence of PFA's in our environment and the harmful effects that they can have, particularly when it has been involving locally more the landfill and the absolute coming from the land flow to our water treatment plan and then flowing downstream and the impacts on those downstream users. And I see here that we are being requested to evaluate our sludge and where it goes and While there is a company in between us and the community that clearly does not want this sludge being put on their fields I would would like to understand better the financial impact of Transitioning that sludge to a landfill versus Continued to go as an aggro putting it on the fields and you may not have any of this information right now but I think when we look at that budget season these considerations are important for us to make sure that we're following the concepts behind our environmental action plan in the EAC. The City of Bethlehem, the City of Bethlehem, attained it's what's going to class B, biosolids, this goes in Kermit with DPP in 2018. So we've been disposing of biosolids. It's called beneficial use, basically, even the farmers for fertilizer. The cost is roughly at round figures half of $1,000,000 a year for the City of Bethlehem. If we were to landfill, we do know what those costs are, the roughly double. So it would be roughly $1,000,000 a year. The dispose of it via landfill. So that's what the government is. The idea is that out that basically makes it par for landfill versus beneficial use. Well, I guess there is a non-fuel component that goes into it. But I'll answer to my question then. It's a waste of money. OK, thank you very much. Mayor Reynolds, do you want to comment We are ready to do one comment. But we will also review what the current situation is. Dr. Van Morden, I think this is a lot of situation. A lot of information here today was information that I had heard for the first time as well. So we will absolutely review what the current process is and everything like that. Because it is something for us to be aware of going forward. Thank you. Any other new business from our council? Before we hear, that's what we're interested in. I just want to say thank you to our friends at Carman County for coming down and presenting. And be assured, be assured, we will definitely look into this, especially if we are interested to see what the other municipalities are doing up in Carman County. I just said two updates to request a few months ago the fire department members came to the meetings and there's been some media regarding the issues that they're having and I'm just wondering if there's been followed up administratively with their concerns. One of the two unions in our fire department, the IFF, obviously the SCIU, represents our paramedics, they're also in the fire department, are included in there as well. We've taken a look at their concerns, we continue as we do with every department to gather research to be able to put together some recommendations going forward as far as what the department is going to look like. Now they had some concerns about the administration. As we have told them many times, we had to go and have some conversations and we are preparing some information be shared shortly that will outline what we think are the recommendations in the way forward as far as the fire department in totality is concerned. OK, thank you. And then secondly, I was just wondering again because it's been in the news and again, I continually have questions from people as I'm sure many council members do. And the mayor's office about Martin Tower. Is there any update on the status of Martin Tower based on, you know, the news article last week? I would allow Ms. Collins to maybe review your comments that you had made to the Reduvelman Authority as far as what you think is the best way forward as far as improving that situation. So we talked with the Reduvelman Authority about designating Marta's and Cateriated areas. So for, well, first of all, back up and say, it's important to just restart a conversation about what's happening at the property, because we also, as you mentioned here all the time, that the property is one that's hard to look at. And it's one that we really do want to see it redeveloped. It's been 15 plus years of conversations about what's going to happen at the site. About what incentives would have to make it happen. There's been a lot of public support that has gone into it. And while we're happy that they're moving forward with the medical office buildings, there's just more that needs to be done. Like we want to see good development there. We're trying very hard to make that happen. So as we're evaluating in conjunction with our housing strategy study, the ways that we can incentivize affordable housing, we are looking at this site as an opportunity to further that conversation. And like very, very first step in that is considering it as a deteriorated area. So it will be you know at some point if we came forward with some potential legislation, it would have to be a deteriorated area in order to be eligible for for that kind of incentive. But we don't know what that looks like right now at this point but we just want to start the conversation and get the bottom of it. Okay. These are a time frame as far as, like, if a area is deemed deteriorated because of my understanding, I thought it was deemed deteriorated, like, back like 10 years ago and 12 years ago, that it was considered by the way. In 2008, the structures themselves were blighted, as you know, the structures were demolished since then. And it's a slightly different designation anyway. That was for the building. It was for the building. Obviously for purposes of public transparency, one of the ten years ago, it's certainly important to have everybody on the same page about whether the site is deteriorated and therefore eligible for the incentives. Have the owners indicated like an interest in doing, you know, on affordable housing, looking at incentives like through a loader or a tax abatement program and affordable housing? Well, at this point, as we're going through housing strategies, we're really trying to drive the train on pushing affordable. You know, we know that developers don't have necessarily just in general a lot of motivation to do affordable on their affordable. You know, we know that developers don't have necessarily, just in general, a lot of motivation to do affordable on their own. So we really consider ourselves in the driver's seat in terms of pushing that conversation. So, you know, they know that that's what we're interested in. I think everybody knows that that's what we're interested in. We talk about it pretty much all the time. And, you know, so that's the direction we're trying to move. And I would say that ultimately it's got to be up to City Council to be able to make those determinations. So what we're trying to do is restart the conversation to be able to have an honest conversation about how much money is going into those properties for the past 15 years. What we have seen, what we haven't seen, obviously what the development looks like. I joke around that I think Mrs. Heller has written the same memo like seven times in the past 12 years about what she thinks good development looks like over there. So we think that there is a kind of two positives going forward. One is to have the conversation, which is ultimately up to city council and any other potential taxing bodies about whether or not whatever is included in some type of financial incentive makes sense. And that is ultimately something that we will have our own thoughts on. But in conjunction with our Affordable Housing Strategy Study, which is going to be the thing that is going to really influence a lot of what our policy recommendations are going forward, forward is both an opportunity to have a very public conversation about what incentives Wooder would not do over there and ultimately those are things that like we can't just give an incentive there. That's something that's got to be approved by a legislative body. That's got something that's got to be approved by City Council and Potentially School District of the County. We want the public conversation. We want a reset public conversation. We came into office last year. If we were in office over the past 15 years and we were able to drive this train differently, we would have driven this train differently. And what we were trying to do now is restart that conversation with everybody else here and with people in the public who we believe share our same priorities about getting the properties back in the tax rolls, good development, and meeting our affordable housing goals. And that's really where we are now. But like I said, it's going to be a very public conversation as far as what ends up happening there or what the public ends up supporting. Like you and I understand that, that it's going to be an art as as far as, you know, if we're looking at tax evapments, but I guess I'm just trying to get a feel is there continuing ongoing conversations with the developers to try to get things moving to the best of our ability? I understand what you're saying, but it's been what 15, 18 years. I believe in this college could probably send a memo that's been being worked on. And I mean, if there's other information that you have to share with us, we're actually open, if there's other things that they are feeling or they would like. But we have outlined all of the different public incentives that we have, I think it was on and off last two years ago, Mr. Clone, you might remember 2021 or 2020 where we approved the latest zoning changes to allow for the parking with the two medical office buildings. That would have been a belief summer of what you're in, that summer of 2021. Summer? We're talking about the lanes to allow the setback. The lanes that allow and those medical office buildings are at least two years. Yeah. And I believe those medical office buildings are supposed to start construction at some point in the future. It's major apartments. Yeah. They have sign leases. They submit it for permits. So we're going to see some progress there. But as far as some of the other conversations, and we know developers have also reached out to people and see a council to advocate for what they think is the best thing there. But we continue to push for the public interest to take the lead and to drive that train and that's what we're trying to do here as far as restart this conversation. Obviously starting by going to Rebellum Tharve and the deterioration was a way to start the conversation to be able to create conversations with different people about what we're willing to look for and things like that. But what exactly is a victory for the public and how consistent it is with our goals that are laid out in our affordable housing strategy study and what the opportunities we have without a lot of large undeveloped or developed police pieces of land that we have in the city is going to help to influence what it is that we're looking for there. But it is a situation where, and we can tell you this, you know, we want to be able to maximize the opportunities to help out with our affordable housing goals, and that is a two-way street between the private sector and the public sector. And that's where we're here, currently. But if there's any other conversations that you've had that you'd like to share with us, we're more than- Well, I'm asking for input at this point. That's what I'm doing. I'm asking for it, because you know, it's kind of, I mean, I think it's pretty apparent I've been advocating for affordable housing since I before I've been on council. But at the same time, I'm also seeing that. The law over there, and they can call the tax revenue for losing after 18 years and knowing that we have to try to do whatever we can to make it happen. Yeah, and one of the things that we've talked about as well is, I mean, I think we've now changed the zoning three times there. Obviously, there was a lot of public money to be able to help take down the tower. And, you know, right now, they have the ability, if they want to, as the zoning change that occurred in 2015, to go build 1,000 AD units. Like they could go do that right now if they want to do that. That's what they legally are allowed to do. Any additional changes there though, we feel very strongly should include a lot of the goals that we hear about and hear people advocate for, including affordable housing. Any other comments from Council? Councilor. I'm sorry. This meeting a little bit further. We don't have to town just yet, but I may or I must mention what good development looks like and I think I am curious, you know, we are all in support of the addition of affordable housing, green spaces, minimal appropriate services, services. But in terms of what the development looks like outside of an historic district, I think the phrase was used earlier this evening, copycat apartments and as an apartment dwell around not opposed to the development of apartments. But what input does the city have in terms of what the building looks like? Because it is true that a number of apartment buildings being developed are starting to look the same. Outside of an historic district, what recourse do we have in terms of the design of the building? The short edge is not a lot in most situations. Zoning has certain parameters, but that does not necessarily include design elements that you would see in an HCC or a hard district. Or talking about a sight like Martin Tower in particular, I'll just use that as an example. In Miss Heller's letters over a number of years, she said things for example, like there should be a diversity of housing types. So for example, town homes, as well as apartments, duplexes, things like that. That would be a better development for a site of that size would have different housing types. Now with no public incentive or public input, there's not much that we can do to make that happen. But if we are having conversations about putting some public incentive behind it, then we have a little bit more leverage to push for something like that. And I figured that was the answer. And I appreciate that effort you are making to incentivize what you can. And you know, I, this is my setting of the evening, the first being to wallow to please support local businesses with your, your, your, your online offerings and to, to developers out there to please start creating some building designs that are interesting, creative, diverse and different from the ones that already exist. Thank you. Any other new business from our business council? Get home safe, everyone. Me and your spirit. Yeah. Sure, it's got to be my room. I'm getting it. And it may not be possible, but I know already.