Editor's Note:

This sign may still be seen on the only remaining wall of the out-building being demolished on the property of Rob Leiser, owner of Leiser Rentals, at 2212 Sullivan Trail - also Pennsylvania State Road SR115 - at the intersection of Meco Road, a Forks Township artery.

Government, township and PennDoT, are colluding to seize Leiser's property for the purpose of widening both arteries, including the intersection, to accommodate the installation of left-turn lanes and traffic lights.

The township and state deem these "improvements" necessary to handle increased traffic on both arteries. The reason for the improvements?... The commercial and residential real estate speculations of Allentown developer Joe Posh, who seems bent on outdoing his Allentown competitor, Abraham Atiyeh, featured in the September 5, 2004, edition of The Morning Call.

The appropriately named Posh is also heavily invested in the Palmer Towne Center strip mall, located on 25th Street, also a state route, in the Township. Over the objections of the www.billybytes.com website and newsletter, but at the insistence of former Northampton County Administrator Jim Hickey, Palmer Township supervisors led by Chairman Dave Colver granted the shopping mall a TIF (Tax Incentive Financing) property-tax exemption, at the expense of Palmer Township, Easton Area School District, and Northampton County taxpayers. Note: Hickey is now being questioned under oath by county DA John Morganelli in connection with the Fiscal Year 2001 $111 million bond and its June 14, 2004, follow-on refinancing through the risky, controversial "Swaption."

www.billybytes.com website and newsletter editor Billy Givens objected to the TIF before the governing bodies of all three taxing jurisdictions, to no avail. Initially, even Colver is on the record as opposing the TIF, on the grounds that the mall's developer didn't need the TIF incentive.

A call by Hickey from his ever-present cell phone, the toll records of which are being concealed by Northampton County and its telephone-service vendor in violation of Pennsylvania statute, changed Colver's mind.

A subsequent article will deal with three other real estate developments - the Palmer Towne Center and its negative economic impact on neighboring Wilson Borough, Arcadia East in East Allentown Township, and Bangor Junction - all three projects financed and/or affected by the $111 million bond and Swaption refinancing.