Please refer to yesterday’s The Morning Call edition article by reporter Tracy Jordan, “Easton police threaten lawsuit over retirment incentive plan.”
Officials of Easton, Pennsylvania, have politicized the city’s police department:
This posting, June 10, 2007, on www.billybytes.com/blog/, directs readers to the following references:
1. Blog posting of June 3, 2007, titled “Shad Season 2007
The scam reported in the article titled “Former Newark Mayor Warned about Charges,” published in today’s edition of The New York Times, has been the practice of the City of Easton, Pennsylvnaia, for years.
Easton through its Redevelopment Authority, Parking Authority, and Northampton County Tax Office buys properties at sheriff’s and set-back sales delinquent in property-taxes and steers these properties at fire-sale prices to developers like Schy-Rhys Realty, owned by the partners who own Pearly Baker’s Ale House, Jonathan Davis and Greg Schuyler.
As regards downtown Easton, Pennsylvania’s Riverwalk, there are discrepancies in the project’s cost as reported in yesterday’s editions of The Morning Call and The Express-Times.
The Morning Call reports that besides the $700,000 grant from Governor Ed Rendell and the $200,000 grant from State Senator Rob Wonderling, “Other funding sources include $500,000 from the city’s federal Community Development Block Grant allocation, $2 million from the Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission and $4.3 million from the Federal Transit Administration through the Lehigh and Northampton Transportation Authority.”
The “Coconut Road” earmark scandal reported in today’s edition of The New York Times, “Campaign Funds for Alasskan; Road Aid to Florida,” was cited by Republican U.S. Senator and Presidential Candidate John McCain in last Tuesday evening’s debate moderated by CNN Cable TV anchor Wolf Blitzer.
U.S. Congressman Don Young of Alaska, former chairman of the House Transportation Committee, “who last year steered more than $200 million to a so-called bridge to nowhere reaching 80 people on Gravina Island, has not constituents in Florida,” reports The New YorkTimes.
Northampton County, Pennsylvania. Controller John T. Schimmel’s August 4, 2006, audit report, presented to County Executive John Stoffa and to the members of County Council removes from all doubt that the county’s 2001 $111 million megabond and the county’s General Purpose Authority that issued it are both illegal - as the Billy Bytes Publications have maintained at least as early as January 10, 2002, when their editor, Easton resident Billy Givens, warned County Council in correspondence presented for the record of the megabond’s illegality as well as the unlawfulness of its issuing General Purpose Authority.
The reader of this posting may read Controller Schimmel’s audit report at this link.