If in fact the rank-and-file and lower-echelon brass of Easton's police department promised Mayor Philip Mitman labor peace in exchange for his dismissal of Police Chief Stephen Mazzeo, that is extortion.

It would not be the first time extortion has revealed its face in Northampton County.  Last Monday, September 19, 2005, in the public hearing on casino gambling held in the Broughal Middle School, Bethlehem City Council and BethWorks Now developers promised labor peace in exchange for casino support.

That promise came masquerading as a project labor agreement, or PLA.

The PLA, or union shop, was first introduced to Northampton County by its executive, Glenn Reibman, who made it mandatory for construction of the Government Center in Easton, the county seat.

This contract between Reibman and Construction Manager Alvin H. Butz, Inc., barred non-union construction workers and contractors employment unless they bowed to Reibman's extortion and agreed to pay union dues and accept union work rules.

County Council initially balked and threatened to sue.  But just as it did with the threatened Quo Warranto lawsuit against Reibman and his General Purpose Authority and $111 million bond, Council turned coward and backed off.

Ditto Reibman's refunding of $67 million of this bond at the close of last year with risky financial derivative called a swaption.  At first Council, heeding the warnings of Easton's Billy Givens, Forks Township's Ken Nagy, and Palmer Township's John Todaro, resisted the swaption's temptation.  (Refer to our article of June 4, 2004, "Swaption Not an Option," describing the preceding evening's Council meeting at which Billy Givens warned Council of the swaption's risks and urging U.S. Justice Department intervention.)

But once again, on December 6, 2004, when it knew Todaro would be out of town, Council, with the lone exception of swaption critic Ron Angle, folded the proceeds from the swaption's refunding into the county's fiscal year 2005 budget.

Using the swaption proceeds and dipping deeper into the county's almost depleted "rainy day reserves" were the only way Reibman could enter the race for his re-election without another tax increase - yet he lost in the first lap at the May 19, 2005, Democratic primary, smoked out and challenged as he was by the announced candidacy of legally blind Todaro on Ground Hog Day 2005.

Nevertheless as Angle says, lame duck Reibman continues to "mine the harbor" - e.g., attempting to force union shop work rules on the casino gambling project - clearing the way for Bethlehem Mayor John Callahan as future Northampton County Executive.