Police Misconduct
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:
Police Chief Larry Palmer and Captains David Ryan and Michael Vangelo are seeking early retirement for employment opportunities in the private sector.
Captain Ryan, for example, is seeking employment with Lafayette College, located in the College Hill neighborhood of Easton.
Both Captains Ryan and Vangelo have abused their authority by harassing the author of this post, Billy Givens, and the creator and editor of the Billy bytes Newsletter, the www.billybytes.com website, and the www.billybytes.com/blog/.
Ryan’s harassment was instigated by Easton Mayor Thomas F. Goldsmith and Easton real estate developer Peter Koehler against Givens in 2001 for having cut the chains from the gates illegally blocking public access to S. Green Street and the 100 block of Pine Street, both blocks adjacent to the former Hotel Easton (now re-christened The Eastonian), a property owned by Koehler and his partner Theodore Kheel of New York City.
Captain Michael Vangelo’s harassment against Givens was instigated by current Easton Mayor Philip B. Mitman. This harassment occured on the night of April 16 in the Acopian Room of the State Theatre during a public meeting billed as Mayor Mitman’s “State of the City Message.”
When Givens was addressing the audience and J. Michael Dowd, president of the Easton Council of the Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce (GLVCC), who had the podium at the time, Mayor Mitman ordered Captain Vangelo to remove him from the meeting.
Mayor Mitman wanted Givens removed because he was criticizing the proposed Arcadia Properties-Easton Parking Authority Riverwalk project and its proposed location in the Delaware River and Bushkill Creek flood plain.
Givens was also criticizing the City of Easton-Northampton County-Lafayette College Bushkill Creek Corridor project occurring in the Bushkill Creek, and also Delaware River, flood plain.
The City of Easton through its Redevelopment Authority is in the process of taking at least 33 privately owned properties in the corridor under the threat of eminent domain.
When Givens resisted being removed from the State Theatre, Captain Vangelo injured Givens, inflicting wounds that required emergency treatment that evening at Easton Hospital.
Givens also filed a complaint with the Easton Police Department, a complaint that is still the subject of a departmental internal investigation.
To date, Gary Evans, the executive assistant to Lafayette College President Daniel Weiss; Sal Panto Jr., this year’s Democratic mayor candidate for the City of Easton; historical preservationist Tom Jones; and William “Little Bear” Brennan, all Easton residents, witnessed the harassment and have been interviewed relative to the internal departmental investigation.
To date, neither Mayor Mitman nor J. Michael Dowd has been interviewed.
Givens alleges that the investigation is being dragged out in the hope that police officers Palmer, Ryan, and Vangelo will have retired before the internal investigation becomes public.
Copyright © 2006-2008 Billy Givens
Billy Givens said,
June 30, 2007 @ 12:49 am
Refer please to Post No. 144, titled “The Political Persecution Against the Person of Billy Givens,” dated August 2, 2006.
The city of Easton through its parking authority doggedly pursues the Riverwalk project in the Delaware River and Bushkill Creek flood plain for this reason: Easton, through its redevelopment authority, has already begun development of the Bushkill Village project in the flood plain of the Bushkill Creek corridor between N. 13th St. and the vicinity of Nevin Terrace and the 200 block of Snyder St.
In fact, the eastern terminus of the Bushkill Village development is Pennsylvania State Routes 22, 248, and 611, including Larry Holmes Drive and half the 100 block of Church St.
The Easton terminus thus encompasses Riverwalk and places it in the flood plain of both Bushkill Creek and the Delaware River.
Billy Givens said,
June 30, 2007 @ 12:55 pm
At my trial in Bethlehem Township District Court for cutting the chains, my defense attorney subpoenaed police officer David Ryan as a witness.
My lawyer made a fool of Ryan on the witness stand, as ignorant of the law and as a stooge of Mayor Thomas Goldsmith.
My lawyer also subpoenaed Peter Koehler, co-owner with Theodore Kheel of the former Hotel Easton. The chains and locks I cut belonged to these two, and not to Mayor Goldsmith, which may go toward explaining why my lawyer did not also subpoenae Goldsmith (though another possible explanation is that my lawyer had already arranged a plea bargain with Northampton County District Attorney John Morganelli, which the DA may have reneged on).
In any event, Goldsmith had no material interest in the matter and should never have initiated charges against me: That would have been the sole prerogative of the owners of the locks and chains, Koehler and Kheel - a prerogative that neither exercised.
In two other instances I was charged by Easton officials, civilian and uniformed: The first of these was in a 1996 arrest by police officer John Nunes for my public opposition to the manner in which the Binney & Smith Crayola Crayon Factor and Store were created in downtown Easton; the second came several years later when Easton City Clerk and Parking Authoriity Secretart Tom Hess, a retired Easton police captain and then-Police chief Stephen Mazzeo accused me of having assaulted Hess in his city clerk’s office.
Billy Givens said,
June 30, 2007 @ 3:29 pm
Despite the oft-heard assertion, especially from the mayor, that Easton is classified as a city of the third class with option vesting the mayor with extraordinary powers, the fact is that the Easton’s five-member council, also elected like the mayor, is the city’s governing body - a fact that Easton solicitor Bill Murphy acknowledges.
Accordingly, council has abdicated its responsibiliity, and accountabity, to the electorate in allowing Mayor Philip B. Mitman to make appointments to the Easton Parking Authority without the confirmation of a majority of city council.
This suggests a conspiracy between the mayor and city council in order to rid the authority of its sitting members, as well as its solicitor, and to replace these officials with members amenable to the mayor’s and council’s wishes: namely, with members like Lou “Mr. Easton” Ferrano, who is also the authority’s chairman, who support the Riverwalk project proposed in the Delaware River and Bushkill Creek flood plain.
Morever, Riverwalk, which has received millions of dollars through the Lehigh and Northampton Transit Authority (LANTA) and the earmarking, “pork-barreling” influence of Pennsylvania’s Senior Senator Arlen Specter and former Sen. Rich Santorum, could not serve the public transporation-using ridership for which LANTA was created - because the location of Riverwalk, which includes a LANTA bus station, would lie in a plain subject to frequent, severe flooding that would make it inaccessible to LANTA riders.
As a matter of fact, the bus terminal and the 11-story parking garage, shopping center with resstaurant and luxury condominiums built atop it would also be inaccessible to patrons other than LANTA riders during the unpredictable periods of flooding.
Indeed, besides LANTA vehicles, the bus terminal would also be used by interstate carriers like Trans-Bridge and Greyhound.
The five-story parking garage would also be inaccessible to general public shoppers and diners and to residents of the 147 or so luxury condominiums.
Still in the courts, and still unresolved, is the question of whether city council, like Easton’s mayor, is legally entitled to its own solicitor, independent of Solicitor Bill Murphy, who also advises the mayor.
I invite readers to contrast this arrangement with that of Northampton County, whose executive and council each has its own solicitor.
Moreover, since authorities are created as independent bodies, the fact that Easton City Clerk Tom Hess is also secretary to the Easton Parking Authority creates a clear conflict of interest, or, at the very least, the appearance thereof.
Billy Givens said,
June 30, 2007 @ 5:37 pm
Easton, Pennsylvania, is at the northern point geographically of a triangle formed by New York City 70 miles to the east and Philadelphia 60 miles to the south.
As a consequence, Easton lies within a mainsteam media blackout.
Local news coverage is limited to two print media publications, The Morning Call, which I deride as The Morning Call Girl since it pimps for Easton’s corrupt officials and their campaign-contributing speculator-developers, and The Express-Times, which I scorn as The Excess-Times since it kisses the ass to excess at all times Easton’s officialdom and subsidizing speculator-developers.
Easton also has two electronic mainstream media, WFMZ-69 TV, the commercial channel, and WLVT Chnnel 39, presumably the Public Broadcasing System (PBS) station, though it, like its commercial sister and the two print media, cater to the officials, pols, and speculator-developers.
It is precisely because of this news blackout that I created the Billy Bytes newsletter, which I hand-deliver in downtown Easton, the commercial district, the www.billybytes.com website, and the the http://www.billybytes.com/blog/ blog.
These publications are also born of the conviction that their readers, regardless os how distant from Easton they may be, experience many of the same problems with arrogant and influence-peddling offi
Billy Givens said,
July 1, 2007 @ 8:26 pm
Northampton Countyi is one of seven Pennsylvania counties that subscribe to the Highlands Water Preservation Act. Other counties lie within neighboring Warren and Hunterdon counties as well as Sussex County in the northwest corner of New Jersey.
These non-Pennsylvania counties are located, besides New Jersey, in New York and Connecticut.
The purpose of the act is to regulate development in the highlands region.
Under the act, the Highlands Commission and its subscribing counties cannot seize private property through eminent domain or the threat thereof.
Yet that is exactly what Easton, Pennsylvania, the seat of Northampton County, is currently doing in the Bushkill creek corridor between N. 13th Street and the intersection of Larry Holmes Drive in the block that is also State Routes 248 and 611 and a half block of Church Street, to the east.
This eastern end of the corridor is the site, at the intersection of Larry Holmes Drive and Church Street, of the proposed Riverwalk project.
A federal lawsuit has been filed against the Riverwalk project by the non-profit Riverkeepers organization for Easton’s failure to recognize regulations restricting development in flood plains.
The proposed Riverwalk project is located in the flood plain of the Delaware River and Bushkill Creek.