Allentown Council Meeting 6/16/2021
Housing, Unhoused Populations, Public Funds to Private Hands
What: Allentown Council Meeting
Date: June 16, 2021
The initial proceedings of the June 16th, 2021 Allentown City Council meeting saw discussion of two issues related to housing, or lack of housing, in Allentown. During the “Courtesy of the Floor” public comment period, council took a call from a resident of the apartment building at 1411 W. Hamilton St. The resident said she had received a letter from her landlord, a Mr. Hyman, stating that she owed $899 on a “multi-family unit utility bill” and that he was seeking to evict her. She added that the hot water had been turned off for four days over the Memorial Day weekend and that she believed that Hyman did this to “punish” her and other residents, some of whom had not been paying rent. Council member Ce-Ce Gerlach suggested that the resident should perhaps get in touch with North Penn Legal Services, in case the matter ended up in court. Council President Julio Guridy, after suggesting that the Department of Building and Standards should look into it, said that he had spoken to Hyman, who said that he would “take care of it”. Gerlach asked what the “it” was that Hyman would take care of, but Guridy, not wanting to speak for Hyman, wasn’t entirely sure. A short time later, under “Old Business”, Gerlach raised the issue of two unsheltered people living under a bridge in Allentown. The two had been told to vacate the premises by Lehigh County, even though it was known they had nowhere else to go. Gerlach spoke of an unnamed official in County Executive Phil Armstrong’s cabinet who has used disrespectful language towards unhoused people. Although she did not go into detail regarding what was said, Gerlach said the official used the term “squatters”, along with other offensive language. Gerlach and Council Member Josh Siegel expressed outrage that a county official could use this language and called for his removal. Mayor O’Connell said he would call Armstrong the following morning. Further coverage of this issue can be seen here.
A good part of the remainder of the meeting was devoted to a presentation by Lin Erickson, Executive Director/CEO of the Da Vinci Science Center, updating the council on plans for its downtown location, Da Vinci Science Center at PPL Pavillion. Erickson was there to request $2 million from the expected $57 million coming to Allentown from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). The cost of the overall project is estimated to be $65 million and it is scheduled to break ground in March 2022. Under questioning from Josh Siegel, Erickson said that they already had $20 million from the state’s Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program and would be requesting a further $7 million from the state and more than $2 million from Lehigh County. In reference to Erickson’s estimate that the center would generate $33.8 million annually in economic activity and lead to the creation of 487 full-time jobs, Siegel asked how many of those jobs would be at the center. Erickson replied approximately 60, with half of those provided by on-site contractors such as the one running the restaurant. Ce-Ce Gerlach, referencing an earlier conversation with Erickson, expressed the desire that all visitors have access to the museum regardless of ability to pay. (Current admission price at the Cedar Crest location is $14.95.) Erickson agreed with Gerlach on the goal of access regardless of ability to pay and seemed amenable to Gerlach’s suggestion of a system similar to that used by Philadelphia’s Please Touch Museum. That system, “Art-Reach Access Philly”, provides a card allowing $2 museum admission to those holding an Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) card for receipt of government cash, food or medical benefits. Comments from council members on the overall Science Center project were uniformly positive. Cynthia Mota expressed excitement to see the project coming to fruition and liked the bilingual aspect of the exhibits. Both Mota and Gerlach praised Erickson’s commitment to emphasize the hiring of Allentown residents at the center.
A striking feature of local governance in this neoliberal era is the tendency to implement programs meant to advance some public good through non-profit organizations (aka non-governmental organizations/NGOs) or public-private partnerships (aka PPPs or P3s), rather than simply doing the thing directly. See for example Lehigh County’s disbursement of emergency rental assistance through Catholic Charities and CACLV. Cultural and educational institutions such as science museums are undoubtedly a public good and should be free to all. In the case of the Da Vinci Science Center, well-intentioned legislators such as Ce-Ce Gerlach are left negotiating a means-tested reduced price admission program or negotiating a hiring preference for Allentown residents. In contrast, if there were to be such a thing as a publicly-founded Allentown Science Museum, free admission and a residential hiring preference could be implemented as matters of democratically decided policy. Another feature of outsourcing governmental functions to NGOs is that they can serve as a nexus for corporate influence, on top of the already considerable influence that corporations exert directly on local governments. One notes that “at PPL Pavilion” is in the name of the new science center and that a major section of the museum, “Science in the Making” will be sponsored by local manufacturing companies. For a further sense of the corporate influence within this institution see the composition of its Board of Trustees. Finally, given the disappointing experience of many localities that have contributed public funding to the building of sports stadiums, it is wise to maintain some skepticism about projections of spin-off economic benefits. Erickson cited projections of 400,000 visitors per year, $33.8 million in increased economic activity and 487 full-time jobs. We shall see.
Erickson was asking Council to approve $2 million in ARPA funding for the building of the new Da Vinci Science Center. Given the dire affordable housing crisis in Allentown and the Lehigh Valley generally, a couple of symptoms of which were discussed above, Council should be urged to devote a substantially greater fraction of that $57 million in ARPA funding toward addressing it.