Ms.

Moda.

Here.

Ms.

Santos.

Here.

And Ms.

Gurlock.

Here.

President Everyone.

Thank you, Mr.

Hanlon.

Pursuant to council rules tonight is a special meeting to consider amendments to the city budget.

A meeting will follow to adopt the city budget.

Procedurally, the format has been that an amendment must have two sponsors to be on the published agenda.

The intent is not to blindside the public or council with amendments.

We have two proposals for council consideration this evening.

One proposal sponsored by council persons AFA, Napoli, and me, and a budget memo submitted by the mayor that increases the mayor's operating budget by $50,000 to support the conference of churches in providing an additional day of weekly services for homeless support.

Clerk, would you read the first proposal?

This is a proposal uh sponsored by AFA Henriksen Santo.

It's a proposal to decrease the solid waste fee by $50 and reinstate the tax increase at 3.96%.

The general fund would lend funds to the solid waste fund, which would be paid back over time.

Okay, I'm gonna open it up at this time to the sponsors, uh beginning with Ms.

Effer.

Maybe one more um you want me to explain why?

Yeah, if you if you want to make a comment about yes, I well um I believe the um this is a great proposal.

I I thank the administration and the mayor for uh sitting down and working out a new proposal um by fifty dollars off of the garbage fee will save a lot of people money.

Uh hypothetically, if you have a mortgage of uh a taxes by two thousand and say round it off to four percent that a tax increase, you'd only be paying eighty dollars a month, and you knock off fifty dollars for that.

It's thirty, I mean a month, that's eighty dollars a month.

You knock off fifty dollars from that, and now you're down to thirty dollars a year.

So I believe um Bina, you can you explain uh what I thought was a really uh good explanation on the uh amount of homes that this will affect as far as the new proposal that the mayor has.

Sure, thank you.

Um Ms.

Affa.

So we um provided the data, we ran the data on um 26,000 residential um parcels.

Out of those 26,000, 23,000 properties were either had some savings or um we are keeping at the same rate, the payment for them would be the same as they were paying in 2025.

So it's helping 23,000 properties within this new proposal.

So I'm on just to understand that 23,000 homes out of 26 have a savings with this new proposal.

Yes.

All right.

So that being said, um I believe that it is so necessary, and I'm a proponent, of course, of having a tax raise every year like just little increments.

That gives the people a chance to understand um how much they're going to pay and so on and so forth.

But I have to tell you the reason I'm sponsoring this, I I believe this is the best thing for our citizens.

I don't know what we're gonna happen if we don't pass this, what's gonna happen next year?

I mean, Whitehall is going up 20 some percent.

We just saw looks for your township, 63 percent.

You have no idea what's going to happen.

Now we're having back-to-back snow falls.

We don't know what's gonna happen in the future.

And by this knocking $50 off of the garbage fee, basically the people actually 23,000 people are saving money from what they had.

So it it makes sense to me to pass this bill and raise the taxes to the 3.9 percent, knock off the $50, and we can work with that.

And next year, I'm afraid about next year and the year after and year after that.

And we we experienced this when Pulowski for 13 years and raise the taxes, and then when Mayor O'Connell came in, we had to raise it by 27%.

We cannot live in a life without taxes.

We just have to understand that we have to pay them.

It's where they're going, how much we can use, how much we need.

And I don't want to see our I I chair public safety, and I ran on public safety.

And as far as I'm concerned, the police department, the fire department, EMS, and all our workers, our workers get 3% non-union, and they deserve that 3%, as far as I'm concerned, 3% raise yearly.

They work very hard and they keep our city afloat.

So without we know that it's a it's it's constantly um prices keep going up on everything.

So and then we at unanimous unanimously here, city council voted for capital projects.

Our fire department, our police department, all of these.

Thank you, Ms.

Affa.

To expound on uh what she had presented, I just want to explain that on November 19th.

City Council amended the general fund budget to remove the mayor's proposed 3.96% tax increase.

At that time, the mayor proposed a compromise that reduced the solid waste fee by $25.

President Hendricks scheduled a special meeting on December 3rd to review the mayor's compromise.

After reviewing the compromise and reviews by the finance director and the city controller, council persons AFA, myself, and Santos are proposing a reduction in the solid waste fee by $50 and reinstatement of the mayor's proposed tax increase.

The general fund would lend funds to the solid waste fund, which would be paid back over time.

This is a common practice.

Higher valued properties contribute slightly more, which reduces the burden on residents living on fixed or limited income.

This makes the alternate, the alternate proposal a more equitable option for our community while maintaining essential revenue for services.

The new proposal would have a positive impact on 23,000 single family residents out of the total of 26,000, as our finance director had mentioned.

The impact is presented on the spreadsheet attached to the agenda.

This policy would retain cash reserves and a fund balance that would lower borrowing costs for projects everyone on this dais has approved.

It follows recommendations from the finance team, controller, and financial advisor.

At this time, I'll ask another one of our sponsors, Mr.

Knappley.

Would you like to comment?

Um, sure.

Um thank you.

Um I have a question for the administration.

When we talk about loaning this loan in between funds, do we have a schedule for repayment?

Is it over five years or seven or three?

So we're looking at um five-year payment plan, the first year would first payment would begin in 2027.

Okay, and a payments would be approximately.

I mean, not to the penny, but so we would lend two million dollars to the solid waste fund.

Okay.

Council, not what I'm asking for annual payment.

So it means it's going to be evenly distributed over those five years or so.

That's what we are looking at currently.

Um we were also monitoring the interest rate at the time, and uh that's why it wasn't included in the uh proposal, but it would be the base principal amount is two million, and then if you equally divide that by five, it's about four hundred thousand.

Okay, and then the interest at three percent was coming to somewhere around four hundred and twenty-one thousand.

Okay, so twenty-one thousand a year of interest.

Okay.

Um I mean you know, honestly, this is this is a good plan B.

It's not my my original thought.

I mean, I thought the four percent increase.

You know, when we we sat through these budget meetings um a month ago or a month and a half ago, and every department reported to us and talked and spoke about their budget for the season for the I'm sorry, for the for 2027.

And I heard the same thing over and over.

Our budget remains flat, or we decreased it with the exception of labor costs.

That's all I heard from every department.

And the more we started, and more I started hearing was this this budget increase was really about people.

And we talk a lot, I mean, about our city staff, we talk about they're the ones delivering our city services.

For those who come to these meetings on a regular basis, you know that I'm um as an employer, I advocate for our employees um probably more than anyone because I value what they what they bring, they're a greatest asset um to the city.

And I again it's it's a plan B.

I I personally would prefer to go back to the original plan, which was just a four percent increase.

The data that we had was the average homeowner now in town was going to pay about 23 dollars a year with a four percent tax increase.

So we're talking two dollars a month.

It wasn't gonna impact residents um like we're seeing in other uh neighboring municipalities that are paying 20, 25 a month extra.

And um to me, it was a small price to pay to continue to receive the city services that you know many of our residents depend on.

And to it's something that um there were no new programs or were no new positions, it was just let's keep things going and continue to deliver what residents would like us to deliver.

So if if we can go back to that, that'd be great.

If we can't, this plan B is um is an option that um that still is something that I know I've looked into.

Other municipalities have done it's uh it's a um a procedure that is not um you know it's been done before many places, including Allentown, so um and uh other municipalities.

So it's an option, but again, I mean it's um the small price to pay for what we're trying to accomplish here in a growing city.

So thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Napoli.

Uh now allow the administration to make statement.

Um I will echo what um councilperson Napoli and um Ms.

Afa stated that uh this uh initial proposal was a fair proposal as well, and uh as the mayor uh provided um a second thought and and um reduction in um garbage fees by 25 dollars and then further per um council um president uh Hendrix your suggestion we do reduce it down by fifty dollars uh per unit fee.

I think this is an excellent uh proposal.

It it not only um keeps uh a revenue coming in of for our services that we need to provide for our taxpayers, it helps our residents and out of it, we ran the data as requested by you from the 26,000, and this is our actual data.

We ran the reports out of 26,000, 23,000 um parcels are either you know they are receiving uh they are they are paying less than what they're paying in 2025.

Um so I I am this is my request that for you to approve this, what's in front of you?

It's going to help our taxpayers.

So keeping the cash balance, so but the recurring revenue, this builds a recurring revenue, and is Ms.

Aff has stated that when you have the recurring revenue, we are looking at capital improvements uh in the near future.

We need to keep the cash balance.

The cash balance brings that uh when we go out for bond issue, keep the rate for borrowing lower.

So that helps our taxpayers in the long run.

We have to look beyond even just today.

Look at tomorrow and the and the uh next year and a year after that.

Uh this is a fair proposal for our taxpayers in the long run, and even in the current year, what current year for budget is 2026?

It's it's helping 23,000 parcels.

Um, so at this point, I don't know what else can administration do to um uh help you understand.

Um I I'm urging you to please vote yes to this proposal.

President Hendricks.

So uh I just want to commend you uh for your leadership here.

Um we disagree politically about a host of different things, but you and I and many and I've been able to work with many other city council members to get past a point of political disagreement to find common ground.

Like that's your your job.

I can remember a couple years ago, you and I talking on the phone during a budget while while we were working through the budget to try to understand where we can find a point of agreement on a place where we had disagreed in the past.

We're looking for common ground.

Um we are all united and that we want to provide the highest level of service to the taxpayers of the residents of the city of Allentown.

We want to make sure the people's streets are cloud when it snows.

We're gonna make sure that our street sweepers are getting out there and picking up leaves when the leaves are falling and sweeping up dust and dirt uh the rest of the year that our parks are meticulously maintained.

The firefighters and police officers and paramedics show up at the worst of times.

That is that's our commitment as elected officials to make sure that our residents have access to the services that they need to help them get ahead.

We also have a unified commitment to protect the taxpayers money.

This is fundamentally the the money of the taxpayers.

We want to make sure that we are doing the best that we can for our taxpayers, particularly in challenging times.

Um we uh put a proposal together after consulting with every single member of City Council and delivered a budget on October 15th that had a 3.96% tax increase and delivered the same level of services that we expected whether we had delivered in 2025 that we deliver in 2026.

We've been able to go back and forth.

We're looking for a place of common ground where we can continue to deliver those high level of services and support households that are struggling with a host of different increases to costs.

This agreement, so the initial thing that I presented on December, excuse me, on in on November 19th.

I'd take I'm appreciative of the three council people who took that lead and went a little further to find a way to continue to protect our residents who are facing increasing costs, but also preserve the services that they come to expect and that they truly deserve.

So I'm grateful to you for fully engaging in that spirit of compromise.

We go back and forth and we find common ground, and that's what the three of you have done in proposing this amendment.

My hope is that your colleagues will join you in that spirit of compromise and find something that is a little bit better than what we started with.

It's not exactly what we would hope for as councilman Napoli had suggested, but it's better than than what it's it's closer to what you would hope for than what we started with.

But it fun it does two things that are important.

Number one, it preserves the quality of service that many of these men and women deliver to our residents every day, but it also makes sure that people who are struggling aren't getting hit harder than they need to.

We're making a sacrifice, but we're preserving our ability to continue to serve residents.

So I just want to thank you for engaging in that spirit of compromise, and I hope the the other colleagues who have listened to this discussion will seriously consider making a move in the right direction here and supporting our residents while also taking care of our residents and protecting them.

So thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

I will now open up to the Daesh.

Mr.

Zucl.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Well, that's absolutely right.

Normally you have to increase taxes uh so you can create revenue.

Our city really has no extra revenue coming in except for taxes per se.

Now I agree with you.

It's our goal, one goal.

I agree.

Council, you're asking council to do certain things to give you your budget.

However, it's also the obligation of the city to do their part.

When you met with us, uh Ms.

Patel, you told us that there was going to be a 3% raise for non-bargaining members across the board.

Okay.

So I asked you for the salaries from 25 and 26, which you sent me, and there are people getting 9% raises when our contract people are getting 3% raises.

So I that to me is not due diligence.

That's just insane when you're asking the public to give you 4% increase.

The other issue I have is that I don't think the city's doing their due diligence in creating revenue.

Let me give you an example.

On page three of the general fund, the parking authority, as of about five weeks ago, and I got these numbers from Mr.

Shahada.

Thank you, sir, for those.

To date or five weeks ago, we have spent $385,000 cleaning the streets, and I mean street cleaning part, not plowing snow, whatever.

And last year or 2025, it's in the book.

These aren't my numbers, a thousand dollars.

Next year we're projected to get two thousand.

We've spent 385,000 and we've taken in 2,000.

That's not good ad.

That's not good arithmetic.

As far as the services go, with or without this increase, we have great employees.

I don't care if they're cops, firefighters, EMS, those gentlemen sitting back there.

The city will continue to provide those services.

And I don't care what union you belong to or non-union or whatever.

That's just the people that we have.

So asking someone to give you something to you and you not contributing your end of it.

I'm sorry, I can't do that.

Thank you, Mr.

West.

Anybody Ms.

Moda.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Um, I want to begin by thanking the mayor and the administration for the work they have done over the past two weeks to share this proposal and engage in conversation with council.

Back in September, we spoke openly about our concerns uh with this cost.

I sincerely appreciate that you listen and understood the financial strain that everyday Island Town residents are facing.

So let me say this, affordability is the number one issue facing America today.

Any decision we make, we must consider the ripple effect it has on our residents, their family, small businesses and seniors who are already struggling to keep up with the rising cost.

And I meant what I said on election night.

I will stand by the people who voted me who voted for me and asked me not to raise their taxes.

So while I fully support reducing the garbage fee, I cannot support a property tax increase this year.

I made a promise, and if my word means nothing, then I have filled in my responsibility as an elected official.

I want to continue collaborating with the administration, and as we look ahead to 2026, I hope that we can begin this conversation earlier in the process.

We shouldn't be coming back to the drawing board at the final hour.

Over the past two weeks, I listened, I learned, I carefully evaluated the information presented, and tonight as one of the seventh votes on voting in a way that reflects the wishes and concerns of the people I represent.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms.

Moda.

Anyone else?

Ms.

Gurlot.

Uh yes.

Um I I appreciate the uh the concern for those who are working class on a fixed income.

Um I hear that, and I definitely appreciate that.

Um and because of and because of that, um, I it would have been great if that concern were in place much earlier.

Um, if the concern were in place much earlier than perhaps like we had the last meeting when we talked at length about amusement taxes, entertainment taxes, renegotiating contracts with folks like the iron pigs, and um reaching out to our legislators about the language in the NIS legislation.

Um we just heard information about the parking authority, um, and and how that could have be a better revenue source.

I believe that contract is also pretty antiquated.

Uh, we would be talking about impact fees on developers.

Uh we're not talking about any of that.

So if it was so I appreciate the new focus on uh preserving um preserving affordability for the working class, but again, if that is truly the intent, then we would also be looking at more institutional ways to tax the wealthy, and we have not done that.

Um I too will be voting against this.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms.

Girlk.

Anyone else?

See none.

I will open it up to the public for comment.

Is there anybody from the public that wishes to comment?

Yes.

Wait, so I'm gonna get you.

Of course.

Do you need my name, Michael?

Good evening.

Betty Coller, 2212 Two Month Street.

Not to sound like a broken record again, but guys, I propose that you freeze the property tax rates for senior citizens.

We've earned it.

Okay.

And you're all talking about fixed incomes.

Thank you, Miss Motatu, for what you said I appreciated.

Um other neighboring states do this, and there's no reason that we can't propose it.

We could also propose a rent freeze because you know what's gonna happen to renters when the taxes go up.

The property owners are gonna pass it along to them.

We're gonna have more homeless, and we know how everybody feels about those people.

So I think uh Pittsburgh and Philadelphia already do this.

Everybody says it's not in the Constitution, but you every um municipality can do their own rent freeze.

So it would be nice if we would look into that.

You want to raise more revenue?

Cancel the NIZ.

Is it even legal?

Is it even legal?

And don't you think that developers like JB Riley have gotten enough of a free ride?

I mean, there's your tax money going to development, and developers who don't need that money.

Get the corrupt Allentown parking authority to pay its fair share to the city and stop claiming debt every year.

Everybody's in debt.

Either bring back waste management.

I don't know what the deal was with why we changed to JP Mascarel, or why can't we get the city to do the trash pickup?

Is that possible?

I know I'm not allowed to ask questions, but I'm asking a question anyway.

Can't the city do that?

Jobs, more jobs.

And my big pet peeve cut the bloated police budget.

You could cut it by one percent and make up the tax increase for crying out loud.

More officers does not equal less crime.

I think we're seeing that on the streets, right?

Uh I know.

Yeah, it's it's tough.

And somebody, I guess it was you brought up the wealth tax.

Why can't we do a wealth tax on people earning 400,000 more like other municipalities and other states have done?

There's no reason we can't do that.

There's plenty of ways that we can make more money.

And another big thing that lastly that would really probably help a lot is stop involving the city in lawsuits against the criminal, excuse me, alleged criminal behavior of this administration that then gets passed on to us to have to pay for.

Hello.

Our electric bills are gonna go through the roof.

They're gonna suck up our water.

I think we just had a meeting about the water.

Um tax them at 75% if they want to move in.

There's your money.

Okay, thank you very much.

Thank you.

Is there anybody else from the public?

Quinn Allen in Allentown, owner of what's really going on in America.

Okay.

So a proposal to decrease the waste fee by $50 sounds nice until I see an increase of 3.96%, to which we don't even know what, which the general public typically don't even know what that number even means, because that can be from any number which would be above $50, and we end up paying more than $50, which is a nice little sneaky trick, by the way.

Because that can be from any number which would be above $50, and we end up paying more than $50, which is a nice little sneaky trick, by the way.

But I'm a I'm pretty good at math.

In fact, I taught math in my 12th grade classroom for my teacher.

That's how good I was.

Okay.

So we already have a whole bunch of homeless people in Allentown, which are not even being taken care of as it is.

And every and there are many people in Allentown now are one tax increase away from being homeless.

What are you gonna do for those people who cannot pay your taxes?

Evictum from their own home?

You do not even own their homes.

They own their homes.

So why should they have to pay property taxes to begin with?

Should be, I believe it should be going against the fourth and fifth, no, fifth and fourteenth amendment, life, liberty, and property, to which we all have rights in here in America to have.

Okay.

And today I was invited, I was in last month.

I got invited to a homeless meet um meeting that was on the fifth floor today, and only one person out the council and mayor was here.

Thank you, Cece.

I loved you for that.

That just shows how much only one of you cared.

And although wait now, I will say thank you to Cynthia for saying what she said.

Even though we disagree on some things, okay.

So what so and and to be honest, we don't need to increase taxes.

We can de we could even decrease taxes and still get the jobs done here in Allentown.

You just have to know how to handle the money the money that belongs to we, the people, not you.

Is there anybody else?

See none.

Oh sorry, sir.

Step up.

Hi, um, Anthony Hollowell, uh senior.

I represent the SCIU.

I also just I'm in the process right now buying my mom's house because she can't afford it no more.

She's ready to lose it.

So she lives at 2333 South Lumber.

Zuko knows her.

She worked with Zucal.

And it's it's you want to cut money out, start looking at these positions that are in the city.

Start looking at these new positions that are coming out.

Cut those out.

Part-time, 87,000 a year.

Come on.

We don't even make that.

And then we we're we're in a contract talks, and I'm not gonna cut talk about that.

But the city's coming back with us with nothing.

With garbage.

But we're getting blamed for this 4% tax.

That's what pisses me off.

Why are we getting blamed for it?

We gotta keep up with the leaf cleaning, the plowing, the paving, this, that.

When we're not even gonna see it.

Like you said, Zukal, 9% raises for these top people.

Yeah.

That's what's in the budget.

Cut this stuff out.

Cut these new positions.

And then you'll see the city run a lot better.

That's all I have.

Thank you.

Uh well, anybody else?

See none.

Mr.

Hanlin, please conduct the vote.

Okay, this is on the uh proposal to reinstate the tax increase of 3.96% and to reduce the garbage fee by $50.

Miss Affa.

Yes.

Miss Gerlock.

No.

Miss Moda.

No.

Mr.

Napoli.

Yes.

Miss Santos.

No.

Mr.

Zuko.

No.

Mr.

Hendrix.

Yes.

Mr.

President fails.

Three to four.

Thank you.

There's an additional budget memo at this time to increase the mayor's operating budget by $50,000 to support the conference of churches in providing an additional day of weekly services for homeless support.

I would now ask the administration for a comment on this.

Yeah, so I'll give you some background on where this came from.

I'm grateful for a resident named Julie Thomas's for hosting a round table on homelessness at uh congregation uh or Kennesset Israel on December, I think it was the 7th, is that correct?

Councilwoman Gerlach?

Councilwoman Gerlach spoke uh there was a presentation by the executive director of the conference of churches, and in a side conversation, uh Councilwoman Gerlach and I spoke with Abby Goldfarb, who's the director of the conference and our chair on the Commission of Homelessness, and we're talking about the challenges that unsheltered people face in Allentown at the moment, including not really having anywhere to go on a Saturday or Sunday, because while organizations like Ripple and the Conference host uh drop-in services Monday through Friday for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, they're not open on Saturdays and Sundays.

And I inquired as to what it would cost to add an additional couple days of service to get them open on the weekend through the year.

And uh Ms.

Goldfarb estimated $50,000.

Um so that's the motivation for the uh the budget memo and the amendment here.

I'm going to withdraw, we have to withdraw this memo though.

We do not, it would be fiscally irresponsible to add another $50,000 of expense to a budget that council is bent on drawing from our reserves.

So I wish we could support this through the proposed the initial proposed budget, but I think that if it's possible, the administration would just withdraw the memo at the moment.

Okay.

So I would just say this.

Historically, you treated these proposals based on sponsorship.

And so if the sponsorship saying historically you have treated the budget process as introducing proposals with sponsors, just like you introduced legislation, and when that sponsor pulled their name, it would be gone.

Who were the sponsors on this bill to I was the mayor.

The mayor, okay, administration.

Then in that case, this will be considered as a removal and uh no longer valid and no longer held for a vote.

So at this point, I'm going to adjourn this meeting.

Special meeting is now adjourned.

Uh we're going to take a five minute break and then begin the council meeting.

So if