The Morning Call Girl, prostitute to Easton's politicians, has emerged from those little blue and white whorehouses on the city's street corners, as it does each morning, making its customary rounds, hawking its wares. Today, this lady of the morning perpetuates the party line, promoted by Easton Mayor Phil Mitman, that the Dutchtown-Gallows Hill neighborhood has been relocated from Easton's Downtown Historic District (added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982) to the West Ward.

Mitman - abetted by Northampton County's Executive Glenn Reibman; Council President J. Michael Dowd, whose district includes the Government Center with the apocalyptic address, 666 Walnut Street; President Judge Robert Freedberg; District Attorney John Morganelli; St. Bernard's Parish; and the Allentown Catholic Diocese - stole the African/Latino-American Dutchtown-Gallows Hill neighborhood from the Downtown Historic District.

The neighborhood wound up in the possession of West Ward, into whose hot hands it was delivered by that Easton fence known as Weed and Seed. The weeding of Dutchtown-Gallows Hill started with Urban Renewal in the 1960's and 70's when an entire block was demolished to make way for a parking lot for County government offices. The weeding continued with demolition of the Convent of the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, now proposed as the site of the County's new Domestic Relations building. The weeding has progressed to the place where Northampton County and its seat Easton would rip the whole of Dutchtown-Gallows Hill from its roots in the National Historic District. Obviously, no seeding is planned.

Why this relocation to West Ward? Because if erected in the Historic District, the Domestic Relations building project which utilizes Federal funds, would require prior approval of the U.S. Department of Interior and the Park Service as stipulated in the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966.

Contrary to the piece sold by today's Call Girl, Dutchtown-Gallows Hill is not one of "Eight neighborhood projects in Easton's West Ward [that] will share a $12,500 grant from the city's Weed and Seed program for neighborhood improvements and other programs."

In fact, Dutchtown-Gallows Hill is located in Easton's Downtown Historic District as shown in the Easton Express article of Feb 16, 1983, by then Staff Writer James Flagg, now Editorial Page Editor of the Express-Times.

The Allentown Catholic Diocese sold the convent to the County, one tax-exempt entity rubbing the hand of another. Mary Ellen Shuman, Executive Director of the Easton Area Neighborhood Center, wanted to relocate her South Side office to the convent. But County Executive Bill Brackbill had other uses in mind: The continuing encroachment of the County Government into the Dutchtown-Gallows Hill neighborhood.

Easton Mayor Thomas Goldsmith accommodated fellow Republican Brackbill by rezoning the convent site as government-use. The site could, and should, have remained residential so that the neighborhood houses razed by Urban Renewal could have been replaced. That would have restored taxable revenue to both City and County, and the Easton Area School District to boot.