Pennsylvania taxpayers may be asked to foot the bill for casino promotions, as reported in the article titled “Tazpayers may pay for promoting slot parlors,” by Harrisburg Bureau reporter Christina Gostomski, published in today’s edition of The Morning Call.

Pennsylvania taxpayers, including those in Northampton County - and Northampton County taxpayers as well - are being made to pay for a project in the county and its seat Easton known as the Bushkill Creek Corridor redevelopment, as reported in today’s edition of The Express-Times, in an article titled “Silk mill site going on fast track.”

Pennsylvania taxpayers, including Northampton County’s, have already paid $9 million toward this project from state grants.

Northampton County taxpayers have ponied up another $200,000 from its 2001 $111 million bond, an illegal incumberance issued by the county’s fraudulent General Purpose Authority.

As today’s article in The Express-Times reports, Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Kathleen McGinty is in Easton to put the Bushkill Creek Corridor redevelopment on the “fast track.”

(Benito Mussolini also put fascist Italy on the “fast track,” boasting that he made “the trains run on time,” to which Britain’s Winston Church retored, “In a democracy, the trains don’t always run on time.”)

Ms. McGinty is quoted as saying she will not bring money.  That ransom, in the sum of $9 million, had already been paid by her boss, Govenrnor Ed Rendell, who on August 20, 2004.

That’s when he came to the Lafayette College Morris R. Williams Visual Arts Center and presented a $9 million check to Easton Mayor Phil Mitman; former Easton Mayor Tom Goldsmith, Lafayette College alumnus, class of ‘63; former Easton Mayor Mike McFadden; 136th legislative district representative Bob Freeman; Northampton County executive Glenn Reibmn; and former Lafayette College President Arthur J. Rothkopf, class of ‘55.

These dignataries all gathered inside the visual arts building for a photo-op as I  distributed portraits of a different kind: the shed on the property of Leiser Rentals in Forks Township bearing the inscription “Down with Tyrants” and a Cuban flag.

This act of civil disobedience was in response to the township’s denial of Leiser’s request to expand his long-established business; the request was denied because the township wanted to widen Sullivan Trail and Make “improvements” to Meco Road to accommodate new, larger developments.

Had Leiser not capitulated, the township would have taken even more of his property, through eminent domain or other legal means.

This taking of property for “economic development” through eminent domain is becoming pandemic in Northampton County: Wilson Borough has taken property from Weis supermarket for the “economic development” of Lou Pektor’s Ashley Development Corporation redevelopment of the former Dixie Cup complex, the City of Easton has taken the dead-end alley between the 100 block of Spring Garden Street and the Governor George Wolf building parking lot through eminent domain, and the City of Easton and its Redevelopment Authority have threatened 33 property owners in the Bushkill Creed Corridor with eminent domain if they refuse “voluntarily” to relinquish their property rights for the Bushkill Creed Corridor redevelopment.

The Bushkill Creek Corridor is billed as “Easton’s New Waterfront,” a Madison Avenue-style marketing jingle underscoring the fact that Easton’s waterways like the Delaware and Lehigh rivers and Bushkill Creek - all lying in floodplains and wetlands and below eroding steep slopes like those of the Lafayette College main campus - are being marketed for development.

Easton has no where else to develop.

Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Lynn Swann can improve his poll numbers by challenging incumbent Ed Rendell on the issues of gambling and the environment.

U.S. Senator Rick Santorum can do the same.  He
can start by withdrawing his support of the $2 million federal grant for Arcadia Properties’ proposed Riverwalk development on the Governor Wolf building parking lot on Larry Holmes Drive in the Delaware River and Bushkill Creek floodplain.

Senator Santorum can also emphasize that the Bushkill Creek Corridor redevelopment is at varince with the Delaware and Lehigh National Heritage Corridor and the corridor’s “reaches” that under the corridor’s Master Action Plan, or MAP, extends for 50 miles on a line perpendicular to either side of the corridor.