The Excess-Times in its April 26, 2005, edition has again misled its readers regarding construction of a proposed parking garage behind the Governor Wolf Building on North Second Street.  The Times' publisher and editors had reporter Peter Hall write an article designed to give readers the impression that construction of a parking deck is a "done deal."  In fact, the site (parking lot) behind the Wolf Building lies within two flood plains, the Delaware River and the Bushkill Creek, and both Easton City zoning ordinances and Northampton County's Comprehensive Plan prohibit construction in the city's floodplain areas.

In testimony given at Northampton County Council's April 7, 2005, meeting, we were appalled that the county would even consider construction of a parking deck in a floodplain - only months after the September 18, 2004, flooding from Hurricane Ivan and only days after the flooding from the drenching rain of April 3.  At the council meeting, we submitted for the official record a current copy of the Northampton County Comprehensive Plan.  That plan contains a provision prohibiting construction in any of the county's floodplains.

In addition, President George W. Bush has declared Northampton County a disaster area because of property damage inflicted by the back-to-back floods.  Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and it Pennsylvania counterpart (PEMA) are in the county now distribution millions of dollars of emergency relief funds.

The parking garage would encroach from the flat, open area behind the Wolf Building onto the grassy, tree-lined ribbon of Riverside Park.  Rather, let Riverside Park expand and grace the entire area that now serves as parking space for the Wolf Building.  With the current development plans for the Wolf Building, sufficient off-street parking could be found in places like Halperin's Garage between North Second and North Sitgreaves streets.

That grandiose plan is the brainchild of Easton Mayor Philip A. Mitman, who in less than a year managed to lose the respect of his constituents and of the city police department's rank and file, is scheming to shoehorn the Wolf Building into the ownership of Richard Thulin, founder and CEO of Arcadia Properties, and under the management of Thulin's vice president of development, Shawn Langen.

Mitman's accomplice in this fraud is Northampton County, including the Executive Glenn Reibman administration and county council under the presidency of J. Michael Dowd.  Dowd also represents District 2, which includes the county seat of Easton, but all negotiations involving the Wolf Building have been given exclusively to Councilman Nicholas R. Sabatine III, Esq., instead of to Dowd.

The assignment to Sabatine was dictated by the fact that he is up for reelection this year.  And the negotiations are designed to bolster his reelection bid.  In fact, the outcome of the "negotiations" is already known,  Mitman, Reibman, and county council long ago decided to sell the Wolf Building to Thulin and Langen (Langen's brother works for the county, a fact that gives Thulin another insider advantage over his competitor developers like Abraham Atiyeh). Developers like Atiyeh have also been put at an unfair competitive disadvantage in that the plans for the proposed parking garage have already been drawn up, pro bono except for political payback, by Easton architect Jeff Martinson.

Officials of Northampton County and its seat Easton have good cause to handpick architects like Martinson: In this way they can sidestep the creation of a HARB (Historic Architectural Review Board).  Mitman can circumvent City Council, which would appoint HARB members. (A HARB consists of a licensed architect, licensed real estate broker, the city's building inspector, and three to five members of the public.)

Developer Abraham Atiyeh also offered the county significantly more money for the Wolf Building, but his bid was rejected in favor of Thulin - again, for political reasons.  Mitman and the county exaggerate the Wolf Building's structural  and architectural deficiencies.  The purpose of this mischaracterization is to justify selling the building to Thulin at a fire-sale price.

This is only the latest example of Mitman's manipulation of Easton's real estate market.  Another recent gambit involved the former Penn Hotel and Supply properties located at 637-639 Northampton St.  Mitman steered these properties into the hands of favored developers Jonathan Davis and Greg Schuyler, owners of Pearly Baker's Ale House, Bank Street Annex, and the condominiums being redeveloped in the former Moose Lodge on S. 4^th St.  Mayor Mitman has fixed at least 400 traffic violations, many for these two business partners, a corrupt - and illegal - practice that got him in trouble with the police department early in his term as mayor. 

On the Wolf project, officials intend to lease at least 50 spaces in the proposed public garage to tenants of the planned luxury condominiums.  Even for fair-haired developers like Davis and Schuyler in the case of their Bank Street annex, the Easton Zoning Hearing Board ruled that a public parking garage cannot be used to satisfy off-street parking requirements.

Finally, Mitman's political backers are intimidating residents of North Second Street who oppose conversion of the Wolf Building to luxury condominiums.  The mayor originally promised local artists they could use the building for studio and gallery space.  Now that an alternative, more lucrative, plan has taken shape, the artists are expected to back off.  If not, well…one of the Mayor's backers told a resident who has openly criticized the plan that there's "a bullet with your name on it."