Jim Flagg is editorial page editor of The Excess-Times (bows and scrapes to excess before officialdom at all times). Jim often appends letters from the public with his own editorialized comments - especially when he sees the opportunity to flatter Easton's mayor or spare him embarrassment.

A case in point is last Saturday's letter (9-1-01) from Jack Price, former head of the Easton Parking Authority. Jack obviously thinks the authority's 30-year debt on Easton's parking garage is nearly paid off. He doesn't know that in 1999, only three years away from a mortgage burning, the authority hocked the garage for another 20 years. That is the maximum number of years, 50, allowable under Commonwealth of Pennsylvania law.

Flagg could have provided this answer to Jack's question, but Flagg didn't want to embarrass Tom Goldsmith. Flagg wasn't about to inform Easton's taxpaying voters that after they have paid $225,000 a year for 27 years to retire the original $2 million bond, the garage is still more than $1 million in the red.

While the Easton Parking Authority was refinancing the garage, Goldsmith was floating a $6.1 million City bond for its repair.

Finance Committee - or Cabal?

No one in the City of Easton, or Northampton County, knows the true nature of Easton's finances except Goldsmith, his administrator, Michael McFadden, and the assistant administrator, Joe Welsh. When former city councilman Robert Willever, now controller, introduced an ordinance, adopted by council, making Willever a member of the city's finance committee, along with Goldsmith and McFadden, Goldsmith vetoed the ordinance.

Goldsmith and his zoning officer Robert O'Neil will misrepresent the Hotel Easton parking deck, just as they dissembled about Two Rivers Landing. They will say the deck is a capital project, not subject to the city's zoning ordinances. On its face a public facility, its true purpose is to provide hotel off-street parking, as required by ordinance. For this Messrs. Kheel and Koehler should be grateful.

Do Away with Procrustean Zoning Laws for Downtown Easton

Ironically, this is where Goldsmith's stubborn opposition to a local historic district ordinance for downtown Easton is going to hoist him on his own petard. The local historic district with its own ordinances tailored to the downtown's architecture and streetscape would override the ordinances now in force. These ordinances with their typically suburban setback requirements, for example, were written for the suburban sprawl seen in municipalities like Palmer and Forks Townships, but they apply equally to downtown Easton and could be a sticking point in further building and renovation in the downtown.

Goldsmith Opens Sluice Gates for Lawsuits

If Goldsmith and O'Neil, and Reibman and Grube, try to evade current ordinances, they will face the same legal challenges that Goldsmith faced from former Easton Mayor Phil Mitman when the Mayor and O'Neil tried to shoehorn Two Rivers Landing past Easton's zoning laws.

City officials will also face legal challenges if they attempt to build in the flood plain at the intersection of Larry Holmes Drive and Northampton Street.