All right, uh good evening, everyone, and uh we'll kick this off.

We appreciate um uh our IT guy Gerald getting everything set up for us.

Um so first I want to welcome all our colleagues uh from the county, um, members of city and county administrations and the public for joining us this evening.

I appreciate you guys all taking the time to be here.

Uh before we begin, I would also like to recognize the elected officials and department leadership present who make who will help make this uh type of collaboration possible.

So first, um Mayor Turk and members of his cabinet, thank you for being here.

Uh also like to recognize county executive Josh Siegel uh and members of his administration, uh county commissioners, uh Jeff Brace, uh Zach Kolborgy, April Riddick, uh Ron Bitler, Sarah Febig, Sheila Albarado, Dan Hartzall, John Irons, and unfortunately Antonio Pineda, who couldn't be here this evening, but um a note and we um we'll fill him in later.

And also my colleagues, uh city council members, uh Cynthia Mota, Vice President, uh Candida Afa, um Natalie Santos was unable to make it, uh CeC Burlach, uh Jeremy Banger, and Christian Pungo is on his way.

So he'll be here in a few.

Um so listen, when I began my leadership role back in January, I wanted to prioritize more collaboration uh with our partners at Lehigh County.

Uh tonight's workshop is really about one thing, which is working together more intentionally.

Um the goal of the session is to identify specific areas where the city and the county can coordinate more effectively and to leave here with a few clearly defined action items that we can follow up on together over the months ahead.

Um this is not intended to be a formal legislative meeting.

There will be no votes taken tonight.

Instead, this is an opportunity for open discussion, shared understanding, and practical problem solving.

So we'll briefly explain the format.

Um we'll move through a series of focused issue blocks, each centered on a topic where city-county coordination matters.

For each section, we'll have short remarks from designated speakers to frame the issue.

From there the goal is simple, identify one or two specific action items we believe are worth pursuing and determine who will take the lead on the follow-up.

By the end of the meeting, we'll hope to have a small list of concrete next steps rather than just general ideas.

Uh start us off, it's helpful to make sure we all share a common understanding of how our respective governments operate and where our responsibilities intersect.

I'll begin uh city council um and then I'll turn it over to Commissioner Brace to provide an overview of the county's responsibilities.

Um at the city level, council's primary role is legislative.

We adopt ordinances and approve the city's budget.

City government is responsible for delivering many of the day-to-day services that our residents interact with most directly, including public safety, maintaining our streets, infrastructure maintenance, zoning and land development, parks and recreation and neighborhood services.

But many of the challenges facing our community, whether it's housing, public health, mental health services, do not fall neatly within the boundaries of one level of government.

They require coordination between the city and the county.

That's why conversations like tonight are important.

When we understand where our responsibilities overlap and where they complement one another, we can identify opportunities to work more effectively together to deliver for our residents.

So thank you.

With that, I'll turn it over to Commissioner Grace and for brief overview.

Good evening, everybody.

I want to say thank you for hosting this.

As we were planning our participation as a board of commissioners and the administration, uh noted that I don't think we've been invited to this kind of a conversation.

And we dug a little bit into the history of the Board of Commissioners since the Home World Charter went into effect.

And we couldn't find any recognition any time where this has happened.

So we appreciate Allentown extending that invitation and hope that other municipalities will take that opportunity in the future.

County government is an interesting beast in Pennsylvania.

And perhaps in Lehigh County, uh that beast is a little bit more different than uh I think folks understand.

Um, whereas city government, you know, city council and a mayor relationship makes sense intuitively.

We understand how that functions.

But in uh county government, um typically the board of commissioners are both a legislative body and the administrative body.

And then you have other row officers and elected officials like judges, the coroner, the sheriff, so on and so forth, who fulfill other uh responsibilities on their own, duties that are prescribed under the state constitution and state law.

Uh Lehigh County, the commissioners are the legislative body, as city council is in Allentown.

The executive is the administrator for that part of county government, but we also have row officers and judges.

And they all fulfill duties that are part and parcel to county government, but they are not overseen the same way that perhaps a police department or fire department would be overseen by municipality.

Instead, they have duties to the constitution, the uh commonwealth, and to the voters who elect them.

Uh, county government is a an approximately 550 million dollar a year operation.

120 million dollars of that is derived from local property taxes.

70% of the revenue that is brought into the county is from outside sources, not property taxes.

Um of our expenditures are for human services, with 19% of our expenditures dedicated to skilled nursing facilities.

So, two-thirds of county government is towards the direct provision of care to individuals.

Um, like city government, um stagnation of funding sources is a concern for us.

I know that uh we share a couple of common funding sources like community development block grant funds, um resources that have not grown since the 1980s, and we're all working on the same pool of dollars and limitations that you're facing.

Umbehavioral health revenue is also declining as a result of disenrollments into Medicare, sorry, Medicaid.

Um the uh human services block grant funds that we receive are at approximately the same level as they were in 2012 when they were cut by the corporate administration.

Um, and mentioned the other elected officials that exist in county government.

Um, they are overseen by the voters, the same people who oversee us as elected officials.

The Board of Commissioners as the legislative body sets the policies for the budget, the administrative code, procurement, personnel.

We confirm appointments that are brought to us by the executive.

We set salaries and wages.

Like city government partnership and collaboration is what we have to do to see the policies and practices that we hope to become reality in our county possible without that collaboration, without those partnerships from other county officials, from other elected officials like city council members, mayors, school boards.

It's almost impossible for us to see our vision into reality.

So we are excited for these types of conversations because we think that this is an opportunity for us to uh make Lehigh County the community that we all strive to live in.

So thank you, everybody.

All right, thank you, Commissioner Brace.

Um so we're gonna hand this off.

Um so first off, I also want to thank our city clerk, Mike Hamlin, plays a part in many of these events, and um I just want to make sure he gets credit for really all the help that he has given us on getting this to the finish line.

Um I am gonna hand this off to Janice Tis Ortega.

She's gonna moderate this evening, and um she's gonna help us move this along and stay on track.

So um the floor is yours, Ms.

Ortega.

Thank you.

Good evening, everyone.

So before we move into our topic areas, I just want to set a few expectations for how we're gonna run um this portion of the meeting.

So the goal tonight, like Santo said, is to capture as many good ideas as possible while also identifying a few that could realistically move forward in the near term.

It's direction focused.

Because of that, we want to hear from as many of you as possible around the room.

So I'm gonna ask everyone to keep their comments brief and focused if possible.

And I hope that you'll give me permission to actively facilitate the discussion.

So that means I might have to jump in at times just to keep us moving for the interest of time.

It'll help make sure everybody has a chance to contribute to the conversation and that we stay on track.

And so another thing I want to acknowledge up front is that not every idea tonight that is raised will necessarily be feasible right away.

So, you know, we have to acknowledge that that's okay too.

We'll still put it on the drawing board and maybe come back to it later.

Part of the purpose of a workshop like this is simply to put ideas on the table.

So as we move through the conversation, I'll be listening for two things potential impact.

So would this make a meaningful difference for residents and feasibility?

And is it something that the city and county can realistically pursue together?

Ideas that score well on both those fronts, high impact and achievable in the near term, are the ones that we'll likely identify as potential next cents or follow-up.

And at the end of the conversation, you'll have the opportunity to actually jot down what areas you'd like to see collaboration between the city and the county so that we can move forward that way.

Um again, the goal isn't to solve everything tonight, as long as we acknowledge that in this conversation.

Our goal here is to leave with a short list of practical actions worth exploring together.

So with that, we'll begin with our first topic area, which is housing development.

Um, this is an area where both the city and the county play an important role and where coordination, I believe, will make a real difference.

So we had identified an objective of identifying specific coordination tools to increase housing access and development.

And a discussion prompts was what is one achievable coordination improvement we can commit to in 2026 to better align our housing related work.

Um I know there are a few individuals in the room that have some ideas.

Does anybody want to kick it off immediately?

So if someone needs a microphone, we'll catch on the wall.

I think Commissioner Brace, you had some ideas.

We have a pool of resources through the Affordable Housing Trust Fund.

Um, we also utilize resources from uh pass-through dollars that we receive home funds, funds that quite honestly, I think the city has access to those same funds.

Um we're obligated to spend those resources, unfortunately, outside of the city.

The federal uh dollars are to be spent outside of the city of Allentown because Allentown's a direct entitlement community.

But the affordable housing trust fund is perhaps the one source of uh existing resources that can be utilized and marshaled towards projects in municipalities that have strong housing plans and resources of their own to leverage.

And the the city's recent actions for um uh to generate resources internally, pose an opportunity to leverage those resources.

We we were supportive of a couple of affordable housing projects in city that leveraged funds that the the American Rescue Plan funds that we had access to, that the city had access to, um, the Affordable Housing Trust Fund bowlers and then private developers to build affordable housing.

And as a result of our shared resources and the the work of the developers, they were able to go and secure affordable housing tax credit dollars from the state.

And I think those are the types of success stories that lead us to understand that perhaps we can be doing that kind of stuff.

And that if we build into our operations with the affordable housing trust funds that the county has, and say those municipalities with structured plans become a high priority for us, that that's a good opportunity.

Thank you.

And I I want to hand this off to our deputy director, Mark Hartney, or CED part of and um he and I talk housing uh and nauseum.

So he's uh something I know can contribute here.

Floor is yours, Mark.

Oh, thank you.

Um, I just first off want to say what this is great to see the county and the city working together.

Uh I've been public servant for a long time, and I don't remember this level of cooperation.

So this is really great.

And um we in DCD have spent a lot of time thinking about housing back in 2023 and 2024.

We developed our uh welcome home Allentown strategic housing needs analysis and strategic plan.

Um, and within there, I think there are a couple of things that would make a lot of sense for us to work on together.

Um, first and foremost through our redevelopment authority.

Um, they are also designated as a land bank.

Um, a land bank allows the them to acquire property through the judicial sales tax process um before it goes out to a public bid.

And what we see a lot of times with these properties that go to judicial sale, they fall in this vicious cycle of um people trying to get a deal, make profit on really run-down properties, and they just kind of stay in this vicious cycle of blight and tax delinquency through a land bank and intergovernmental cooperation agreements.

Uh, it would allow the redevelopment authority to kind of cherry pick the judicial sales in Allentown that make the most sense for redevelopment opportunities.

Um, but it does require a level of coordination between uh the county, uh the city and the school district um to waive uh outstanding taxes on those properties.

Um, but it makes it easier and more efficient to acquire, which is also like one of the big hiccups in getting some of these properties redeveloped.

Uh, another area that I think would make a lot of sense for us to consider working on utilizing uh the LERTA tool.

Um, and that is a tax abatement process that uh when a property is redeveloped, the uh say it's generating a thousand dollars of taxes a year.

Um, and now it gets redeveloped and the new assessment it generates $5,000.

That $4,000 delta um can be abated, and we can set the level of the abatement.

It can be 100%, it can be 50% over a 10-year period.

Um, and that has proven to be a powerful incentive um to help get some of these properties redeveloped by the private sector without having to put in additional subsidy grant dollars into those projects.

Um, and I think that coupled with some of the new zoning tools, uh, we just went through a comprehensive rezoning process um that would certainly help encourage uh more affordable housing development and particularly mixed income housing development, uh, so that maybe 20% is affordable to people making 80% or less of the area median income and uh then the other 80% is market read.

But uh working on these LERTAs and uh the uh land bank, I think are two areas where we can come together and cooperate um and really move the needle on housing.

Thank you, uh Mark.

And I I would like to add quickly what's exciting about the land bank conversation is we in the past we haven't had the resources to really aggressively pursue that strategy, but with the e-transfer tax legislation coming to the finish line in December, the city now has more resources to actually address some of um that strategy.

So I think that's exciting.

And also what's exciting of the conversations we've had is making sure a lot of these opportunities land with homeowners uh versus to try and increase homeownership, home ownership in the city, uh, which is really important to all of us.

So um there's some really good tools in the tool chest, and we'll continue those conversations.

Um we and it I don't know if commissioners have copies of the the welcome home plan, but we can certainly provide them to our interested I'd be interested to hear if anybody from the county has any follow-up or remarks based on what Marsh shared and what Santo shared.

So I'll just take it.

I love the I love the landing idea.

Um I mean, if we're gonna evate taxes and we're gonna wipe tax sales, we're gonna do it for a good reason.

So I will have to look into that more.

That's where I'm at there.

But it captures much of the LED.

I would love to talk to you more about the Lurta conversation.

Um my comment is more so about our blinded properties.

I think we should look at the stock that we have in the study of Allentown of Brighton properties and you know, create a list of those properties and rehab.

Um, you know, there used to be the days where there was grant funding for rehabbing properties, and instead of thinking of building new, which is great, you know, we need the economic development for our city, but we have seen a lot of new buildings, you know, put up in our city.

But at the same time, we also have a lot of other properties that are in decay or that need some repair money to get those back up to code and and whatnot.

So I think that's something that should also be looked at.

And we have this, these conversations have been had in the past about looking into the the whole, you know, the properties that are just sitting there, nothing's being done, and they're just in disrepair.

I mean, I drive around the city constantly, and I can tell you several properties um that are just sitting there.

Nothing's being done.

I don't know who the homeowner is and what nine, I'm sure at the city or at the county, we of course have have their uh their record, but at the same time we should think about those properties, create a list, and let's rehab what we already have.

And if that can be done, then maybe we should look at demolishing and you know, building something in that in that space, because if we all remember that the Luna Valley Planning Commission put out the study as to how much land we do have accessible to build.

And there's really an Alain Sun, it was points out that it was very little to nothing.

We don't have any more space in our town to continue to build.

So if we can't build to the side, we're building up.

But then we also let's look at those properties that that are just in there, nothing's being done, and let's think about rehabbing bills.

That's an idea and how the county can collaborate with the city.

I'm sure that's a conversation that we can have.

On the route.

Oh, sorry, I had to think for a second.

Um this is all said and good, but the either way around, we have development going on here, and it is a need for affordable housing.

But the term affordable housing, what does it mean?

The problem is is we allow the developers to set the term for affordable housing, and that's the problem here.

So we can build up all we want, but we don't have the income status here to afford to pay for the affordable housing that they claim that is affordable housing for people that are living here.

So, how do we rectify that problem?

How do we set that standard?

How do we put barriers in place that these um developers that develop affordable housing put it to the standard of the income level that's CM.

Yeah, I kind of I wanted to echo um what Commissioner Reddick brought up, which is when whenever the conversation of of alertas um and you know development comes up, I think that um centering and focusing on that affordability conversation has to be uh the biggest piece of it.

Um we were entertaining alerta for development in the Mayas recently, um, you know, the the project that was presented to us was not gonna be a place where people could live.

And if we're talking about using tax dollars, even in the short fall, you know, the short term, right?

The LERT, I think was termed remember how long it was?

10, five, 10 years, something like that.

So it's not it's not a long period of time, but that is you know, a hit that we're taking from the property taxes that if the the result is maybe an increase in the tax space, but not an increase of places where working people can live, then you know, I think we're missing the mark on that.

That if the result is maybe an increase in the tax base, but not an increase of places where working people can live, then you know, I think we're missing the mark on that.

So those those two conversations always have to sit hand in hand.

Um, and I think the the second piece I want to just raise is the issue of revenue.

Um, you know, our um uh uh title transfer tax at the county, which it's put into the um the housing trust fund is maxed out.

So similar to all the other funding sources that you mentioned for us at the county, we're we're we're capped.

Like we can't, we can't, you know, uh maybe there's more sales, maybe there's more transport.

But short of that, we're not seeing uh a way to increase the the level of revenue that we need.

Um, and I'm so I'm curious to know how much the the prop the detransfer tax would raise on that um and how you know the level of revenue that we're gonna have to develop to build up in order to get like really serious about being in this conversation, out competing private equity in some of these projects.

Um the land bank is a great strategy to sort of interrupt that where we can take things before they go on the market.

Um, but we also have to think outside of those those properties as well.

Um, and that's going to take serious, serious dollars that we have to think about at a region-wide scale for that.

The the last time uh Commissioner Irons referenced our our recent foray into alerta.

Um, I think there's consensus amongst the board at that time that before we would entertain another uh abatement type district that we wanted to go down the path of establishing some community benefit parameters, um, either in the form of a formal community benefit agreement that would be um produced and and circulated within the community before the the board of commissioners would uh entertain anything that would include the the school district and the host municipality.

So um just want you to understand that and I know alerta policy takes some time to develop.

We we have a kind of a sister component that we want to develop in that as well.

A couple points if I can.

Um first related to alert is we the alerted discussion we've been having recently would have a direct tie to affordability.

So we'd want to see a certain number of housing units that could be uh uh eligible for alerta, but it'd be tied to income thresholds below 80% or 50 to 80, uh, 80 to 120% of AMI, et cetera.

So I think that's absolutely part of the conversation.

That's the key to uh to developing affordable housing is creating some incentive that you can put in front of a developer as opposed to just demanding that they they create affordable or creating a restriction that ends up having a perverse disincentive on the production of any housing.

So I'm glad that you are all uh demanding that there be an affordable component to any of the uh incentives that are offered.

Uh the other thing I'd say related to the wider property process is there at the out of town redevelopment authority um councilman uh after and I was sidebarring that there is a there's a bladed property review process that exists in the Allen Town redevelopment authority that it takes time to get properties through the list once they've been identified, uh what getting them through the legal process for taking is time consuming, uh and it is resource constrained as well.

So the ability of the redevelopment authority to acquire those properties is is limited by the dollars that they have.

I also my experience has been that the properties that uh the all the properties in the city like Allentown, unlike places like Baltimore or other uh large municipal governments around the country.

Allentown has a pretty low vacancy rate.

Uh most of the property that we kind of face the opposite problem, that there's such tremendous demand for property that it uh that there's very few developable opportunities.

So you pointed out the lack of land available, and that's the the last point that I offered to our county partners here, including residents of the city of Bethlehem, Mayor Reynolds and I often talk about the need to uh push the wrong word for it, but it incentivize or find ways to uh see affordable housing developed, not exclusively in the cities of Allentown and Bethlum, but in some of our neighborhood communities.

And it is a challenge.

We we don't have a lot of tools here in Allentown to compel our neighbors to take on more of those affordable opportunities.

We're happy to work with them and show them the way that we've approached zoning reform that'll allow for the creation of more affordable uh we need our friends in the county to appropriately incentivize neighboring communities to to take on more affordable housing as well.

I would just like to uh address the fact that I was on the flight of property committee, and uh it is a process.

It starts with the inspector and then it goes on to uh check if they've paid their taxes and there's so much that we have to do before we can have it deemed blighted and then has to go to city council.

It goes through it could take a year, and a lot of them are banks, believe it or not.

A lot of the banks own these places, and one that is on the Blight of Property a couple years ago.

I was proud to see that there were several ones on Susquehanna that we we got, but I'm here to tell you that it is a process and it takes a long time.

We might have a dozen homes that we are reviewing, and by time we get done, we you know it might be a year till we get it done.

But we do have the uh we do have um the blind of property committee, and we do work hard on trying to get those white properties done.

Thank you.

And uh quickly add our new zoning code also encourages affordability.

So there are um some strategies with the zoning that um encourage developers, not just with LERDAs, but in our zoning code.

Um also one of the tools that uh we've we've talked about um is deed restrictions.

And um, I think between the county and the city controlling inventory, that's an opportunity for us to use deed restrictions to our favor to actually encourage affordability or encourage homeownership.

So um that's why I believe a strategy needs to be finding ways for our entities to control inventory because once it hits EMLS and once it ends up in the private sector, it's really difficult to tell them what to do.

So um finding ways to control inventory and get in the right places to the right people, that's something we need to do more of, which is a big part of this conversation.

Thank you.

So I just did want to echo a little bit on what uh Commissioner Shayland did mention.

I think it is important for us to take stock.

I know we have some understanding of what we have in the city of Alentine.

It'd be good to see what sort of coordination we have across other parts of the county.

I think another thing that the city of Allentown is kind of at least I see it when I drive around.

We do have vacant lots, not too many.

We're not saying like we have a ton of land, but there are places that have been, whether it's because of unfortunate disasters or because of any one or other reason that we have parcels around the city that are just being used.

And I don't know what the status of that is, but I think it's worth having some sort of survey to understand how much land do we have versus how many properties do we have that are potential for blight, um, and just knowing really what is the potential for that investment, either by the public or private sector.

I I believe the number is around a thousand vacant lots that is presented in the uh welcome home project.

I offer I mean one thing that is sometimes not visible to eye when you're driving around and you see, for example, the the where there's a gas explosion at 13th and Allen, that's about 10 parcels the that happened 15 years ago more, and the the various different parcel owners, and there's there's the the invisible part is the legal tie-up and those individual property owners can it's difficult to pull them together and get a property developed.

It makes us crazy because as residents, we're just we face a housing crisis and we can see a property that's not occupied for some reason or a vacant lot, and what we don't realize until you dig into it is is what's going on behind the scenes.

Is there potential coordination between the city and the county for a couple of these different items?

Whether it's land makes, land banks, LERTA, or the restrictions.

What do you think?

I think there's some places that you figuring out how to execute on uh the judicial sale process and connect it to a land bank is something that we've got to dig into.

Um because the county has a redevelopment party too.

So it's not just well, we can take them in the city in anywhere, but um the it's something that we can do in other communities.

So it sets the stage for us.

We have one project right now that's two projects, one in Catestacqua, one in Whitehall Township, that our redevelopment authority is working on.

Like this could set the stage for us to do it in other municipalities too that uh have some redevelopment needs.

Um I think as we I think we need to sit down and understand the the expectations that the city has for the LERTA as we're working to establish our community benefits um model so that um anything that the city's thinking about doing takes into account what our expectations would be for that.

Um that's just simple policy making, really.

Um the the judicial sale would involve us connecting also with the um the the sheriff's office and the the courts, I believe, but doable.

Um leveraging resources.

Um I know that the mayor referenced we're constrained with resources.

We're all constrained with resources, but a couple of the projects that we got over the finish line with the affordable housing tax credits shows us what we can do if we coordinate our resources.

It doesn't take a lot, but it just takes some coordination and some planning.

So I think those are three things that are very doable.

At the risk of uh adding too much work on our plates, but um talking, I I'd like to get some uh something a little bit more quantifiable or something to dig in in terms of what uh you know how how do we impact affordability within the municipal like Allentown and Bethlehem outside, you know, by encouraging or you know, I'd like to have some benchmarks to know something that we're working for if we're trying to do that and use our redevelopment authority potentially to activate some of those projects.

Um it would be good to have that, you know, basically data coordination to know you know what what kind of work outside of Allentown is gonna have an impact on the you know housing prices or affordability in Allentown and vice versa.

So and that goes with with to Bethlehem too, just in um the um a meeting last night of the West Side uh community association that we were talking about.

This and the need to not uh not focus development in Allentown and Bethlehem proper, but to to seek outside uh those areas.

So Genesis, can I make it so one of the things that we did through our housing study was do a market value analysis?

Um so it really helped us understand the market conditions around the various neighborhoods, and that was done at a block group level.

I think doing something like that at a county level would be really beneficial to you because through that process that helps guide our strategies in these different neighborhoods.

Some are more conducive to owner-occupied, some of these uh groups are more conducive to creating like affordable rental and stuff like that.

But without that data and research, um, it's kind of hard to make those decisions, and I think the county would benefit from it.

We we have a um we're currently working with the planning commit, Lehigh Valley Planning Commission on our housing uh policy policy plan that identifies those questions, and actually they've been doing that work in municipalities outside of the city of Allentown, helping in in the northern tier, there was a multi-municipal plan then ordinance, zoning ordinance that the planning commission helped the help those municipalities recognize where dense housing was meant to be done.

Like you have infrastructure here, you've got all you've already got the density of housing in place.

So you've got neighborhood character built into it.

Um, so there's some policies that have already gone into effect as a result of that research.

That's great.

And I I just think it's really important to get to the market conditions to help guide that policy.

Thanks, Mark.

And uh lastly, I'll add um the thanks, Jeff, for bringing up the Leah Valley Planning Commission.

That's uh they're doing a tremendous job on housing and the data.

If you want to jump in their website, LBPC.org, they have a housing dashboard that's tremendous.

And uh we'll give you real-time data on every municipality in the Lehigh Valley and the stats, whether it's rentals, homeownership.

Um I've learned a lot as a commissioner.

Uh I serve there on the um spare time I don't have, but um I've learned a lot.

And um it's been it's a really valuable asset.

So I just want to give them a plug and make sure you click you get their website because there's a lot of good data on the website that will help guide some of our conversations and decisions.

One of the things that we wanted to confirm too in this meeting, um, is there uh uh housing coordination meeting between the county and the city that exists now?

And if not, can we establish something like that?

Could we be marked?

That's exactly what I was gonna say.

I feel like a lot of these points are going to lead to like we need a task force, even if it's like an ad hoc task force, or where's parts of the administration, maybe an elected official or two from each, where we can come back to our respective bodies and share where we're at on places, nothing crazy where we're meeting once a month or anything like that, or every once every month, maybe a board, maybe twice a year or something like that, something that we're able to just chew on things that we're working on throughout the year.

I think that's going to be an answer for most of these points here.

Great.

Um, why don't we move on to the next topic, which is uh homelessness and weather response coordination.

So we uh have indicated an to improve city county coordination on uncheltered residents and emergency response.

And as a result, weather media actions or improvement can be implemented before summer of 2026.

I will practice this by saying that this was a question that came in from uh we pulled all of the city council members and the county commissioners, and this was a big one that a lot of um the elected officials in the room wanted to talk about.

So I will open the floor to anyone who wants to begin.

I can give a little bit of history before we dive into the what's next.

Um before I was elected, the the county's operation in homelessness um services was limited to the direct provision of mental health behavioral health services to individuals.

So um not questions of shelters or anything to that effect.

And that's because our our federal and state uh resources limit us to providing services in certain ways.

Um we can't use the behavioral health choices funds to operate shelters.

We can use it to provide counseling and medical assistance type of activities, but we can't build things out of it, uh, which is that's the biggest part of our human services budget, if we're going to be honest about that.

Um, the first time that we got into providing dollars for uh homelessness uh services was actually done in conjunction with the city.

Um we put money into the pool that opened a shelter at Alliance Hall.

And that's evolved and kind of turned a couple different ways.

Um, those dollars and the dollars that we've allocated subsequently have all been general dollars from the county tax revenue.

These are not resources from state.

We had never done that before.

Um, we've added to the the resources through the American Rescue Plan, and that money runs out at the end of 2026.

And I think we all need to be understanding of that.

We've got to figure out how to replace those dollars.

Um housing has not typically been viewed as a human service function in county governments.

It's something that counties recognize the need to do because it is a vital need to get people out of the elements in the worst parts of the season.

But most counties are doing it on an emergency basis.

Um that's not to stop us from wanting to do more, but it's to recognize that we used to do it not at all.

And the the board has evolved to providing more and more services.

Um I I hope we continue those commitments, but um it this has been a tough nut to crack for those of us who have been working on it for a decade now.

I just real quick, but the city provides support for the home services out of its general fund as well.

Yeah, so same same book.

Thanks.

Um, so what it was is I think my ask or question in this process is there's a ton of amazing organizations that are working in Bethlehem, working in Allentown, working throughout the various uh areas.

And when emergencies happen, just like this past winter, or just like what will happen next winter and in the summers and whatnot, um oftentimes those organizations are trying to cobble together to make things work.

And I guess my ask from a county uh city perspective is how do we understand that we don't have a defined geographical boundary to uh this challenge?

And in many ways, a lot of it is just the leadership role of trying to drive how are we collaborating with those organizations and the people that are working and are well versed in understanding them, and then kind of leading that path across the county.

Um so I think that's my asking that.

Okay, um, so I've got three.

Uh the first is we need to have a regional plan, but not just one for the shelf, one with short-term, like I'm talking maybe even like two month, six month objectives, tangible objectives.

Um I would like to see partnership between the city and the county on developing places for people to exist that do not want to go indoors.

Um, or due to the lack of affordable housing, there's nowhere for them to go.

So if that is safe camping, if that is parking lots, whatever that looks like.

Um I would like to see, I don't know if the county is able to tell municipalities how to govern, but at least some sort of guidance in terms of how to handle encampments.

Because if you've, I mean, people move.

So if in the city we were to pass some sort of guidance, and you've got unsheltered folks living here in the city, and then they go over to South Whitehall Township, and it's a whole different ball game.

It just causes a lot of confusion and more harm to people.

Um, so again, if if the county can't regulate at least some guidance to the different townships.

Um, and they have more of the land, like they have the spots where people are going to camp out, just so people kind of have an idea of like, okay, this is how we could not be as uh harmful to people if they so choose to.

Last year, Mayor Reynolds put it out that Alan County for about six percent of the lands we aggravate at the county, but most of the expectation for at least any time type of shelter or the kind of yeah, that's um I think that's a place where Genesis you references reference the tax force for housing.

I know Commissioner Borgie raised that.

Um, this might be a place where I hate to use the term think tank too loosely, but this might be a place where some kind of collaboration between the cities, the county to produce some resources so that municipal officials in other parts of the county understand what resources are available.

Um the pandemic when that the county was physically putting people in hotels.

Um there were encampments popping up on privately owned properties in the rural parts of the county.

Um permission of the property under that the municipality would go through and clear um because the officials were appalled that there would be homeless people encamped on privately owned properties.

It's it's a challenge and a stigma that we've got to work through.

And uh I think the city's experiences, the hearts of the people that are working on these problems will go a long way to help with that.

So I think that's an action item that we can certainly work towards.

Um excuse me, I don't even caught right to the microphone.

Mike's Dave Cinnamon on the uh health director for the city.

Um since I've been a health director, uh Mayor Turk has given us a lot of the responsibility for what homeless and on-house coordination services we can provide.

I wanted to speak directly to what's on the agenda as far as these um kind of emergency responses that really came to a head about a month ago with the cold weather.

Um I think that there's a couple glaring issues that both of our governments have, and they were displayed in this process that we need to kind of get ironed out before the summer because we know in the summer the same issues are going to come up where we have insanely hot days, and if we don't talk about it now, or not this moment, but now we're going to be running around and not knowing what to do with individuals.

Um, you know, we have great community organizations in the county that do really good work that are pushed to the brink.

Not only are unhoused uh services organizations, but also the YMCA, the library, these organizations that step up and go way beyond what they're able to do.

Um also the city in and of itself does not have the ability to do a lot of this work.

We also don't literally have the physical space.

So if we come up and say it's gonna be 110 degrees tomorrow, where can we open a cooling center in the city?

We don't know, right?

And in the past, we've had to lean on the library, or we've had in the summer, the YMCA is kind of not being able to be used because they have summer camps around there.

So these are all coordination issues that we really need to think about now when it's cold.

Um that's always wanna throw that out there.

Um I will volunteer myself and my organization to help lead that.

We're we're trying to take a bigger leadership role on the homeless commission.

And I would ask that our community partners also let us lead as well, and hopefully let individuals from the county lead because I think that's what's been missing is strong central leadership in this process.

Even though you know, we've both established that we don't have a lot of funds to back any of this.

What we can provide is logistical leadership and guidance.

And I'm gonna give Christina the mic.

Okay, hi, I'm Christina.

In case um some of you don't know me in the room, I'm one of the co-chairs for the commission on homelessness in the city of Allentown.

Um, thanks for the opportunity to speak.

I could speak for hours about this topic, as some of you may know in this room.

Um, but uh I want to start off with some good news that the county and the city are already doing um that some of you may not know in this room through the commission, um, with the unfortunate, unfortunate events with Jordan Creek with the encampments being swept over the summer and through the fall, um, between the county, because of the leadership through the health department through Danielle, the new unsheltered coordinator, which is a new position that the city added um in the past year, which is super helpful already.

Um, we were able to establish service hubs for the individuals that live down in the camps.

Um, this was highly um uh participated by the county services that you were talking about, how the county leads through mental health and IV and aging and things like that, maybe not through actual sheltering options or um uh or the the just the the things that are needed to solve homelessness in general, but those things that the county provides are a huge piece of the puzzle to helping one individual at a time to getting to where they need to be stabling.

Um, so that was a success.

Um, that was a good collaboration between nonprofits, city, and county.

We've also developed, if you're not aware of with the help of a county um employee who is also a city, uh a commission on homeless uh commissioner, Mary McGonagall has this came out of the commission.

It's an unhoused multidisciplinary team.

Um we meet quarterly in the county.

Actually, our last meeting was just yesterday, and this group identifies with county county workers, um, nonprofits, the hospitals, uh, CIS, community intervention specialists, the city.

Um we are there to literally identify individuals that are unsheltered that are vulnerable to die because last year over 11 individuals died out on the street, and that may not sound like a lot because we're not New York City or a big uh big city, but it is huge.

So we identified that in the commission that we needed a group, a team to really wrap around the individuals' needs to break down that red tape to get them into the care that they need to be able so they don't die.

That's literally the goal to make people not die.

And we've only had about four meetings so far since we've begun, and we've had some successes.

We've had some people that have been able to move into nursing homes because I need you all to understand that the individuals, the folks that are homeless, um are not just people uh 20 years old, 30 years old, these are like 60, 70, 80-year-old individuals that are now at the YMCA, and when it closes at the end of April, they're gonna have no place to go.

Um, there's no land in Allentown where people can go and lay down their bodies, right?

They are going out into other municipalities, they're getting chased out from these municipalities as soon as they go.

We're gonna have a huge problem at the end of April.

Where is everybody gonna go?

And let me let me jump in here and say because on the multiple dictionary team.

Is there a potential for the city that the city is involved?

Any county involved, the counties involved, nonprofits, the hospitals, St.

Luke's and Lehigh Valley Health Network have representation there.

So coordination is happening.

Um, I don't know.

I believe that there's a plan too for the county to hire an unshelter coordinator.

I don't know.

If I should mention that or if we should move on from that.

It's in your transition plan.

And then there's a lot of things, and I know I'm talking a lot, and I'm gonna shut up now, but there's a lot of things in the transition plan that we've been working on as a commission that we would be happy to collaborate with.

I've already actually sent some things that we've been working on over to the county.

Um, I think that we need a countywide, even if we could get Northampton regional wide commission on homelessness to really address what is happening here in our community.

Yes.

So does anybody around the table have anything to offer based on those comments?

Anybody have any ideas?

Jeff.

Josh.

So this is where the commissioners were we're tasked with legislating.

Um and providing resources to make um management and execution possible.

Um I'll say this the board has stepped up with resources so that we can do that.

And I think we want to keep doing that.

We are extremely part-time individuals and lean in on the experts and the administration to drive that execution.

So we're open, we're receptive and you know, tell us kind of the what is needed so that we can figure out how the heck we're gonna fund it.

All I would add is that yes, obviously, as part of the transition report, which is out there, that was one of the primary asks or intentions was to approach the board with the goal of hiring a full-time or at least a part-time strategic coordinator who can either hopefully I think the idea would be that they would be evolved to be shared with Northampton County.

I concur it has to be a bi-county approach.

Um, but I think an issue that is this complex that is this multifaceted and frankly requires the engagement of so many different partners from our health care networks to our service providers.

It does behoove us to have somebody who is a full-time individual that is dedicated to bringing all those resources to bear and coordinating the strategy.

Allentown has been very well served by the fact that they've made a tangible investment in service coordination.

Um, but I do agree that I think it has to be something that's ultimately elevated up to the county level to make sure that we're bringing those partners to bear.

Um, our hospital networks, I think, have a tremendous role to play.

A lot of the resources are out there.

It's a matter of can cohering them together and making sure that everybody's sort of playing their part.

Um but I don't think those things can happen unless there's someone who is dedicated to it full time who is making sure that those partnerships and those relationships are being forged and just finding where those resources can be best utilized.

We like the clock.

I just wanted to tag on to that.

That's conversations we have internally, right?

Like the county can have amazing ideas, the county could get injects of millions and millions of dollars, but if you don't dedicate someone within your organization to manage that, who has the expertise and do it to partner with us and the partners organizations, it's gonna be money poorly spent.

So that position is the cornerstone of anything you want to do.

And you can't have to and I can add this then coming from coming from nonprofit section and providers in general.

The thing we have the ideas, we have the the we have the knowledge, we have the heart, we have the story that we've been sharing about um the unsheltered neighbors through our education events that we've been having through the commission.

But what we're missing is the leadership to push it all for.

One of the examples I just want to talk about is it's Montgomery County in Pennsylvania.

So uh three years ago um they had no transitional housing units three years later because of the dedication of their administration and their board and the cool and the collaboration of 190 transitional housing units.

So these are deliberate policy decisions that ultimately have to be made, but the coordination component and the and the activation of the storytelling is very important.

We met with Commissioner Winder about a month ago.

Um, and what was instrumental in the success of their homeless strategy with large was the fact that they were able to bring community partners to bear and they were able to bring advocates and storytellers to bear at those really critical meetings around land use.

Uh, one of the most sensitive parts of this issue is nobody frankly wants to house these folks in their own community.

And imbeism is one of the most powerful forces in local government.

And what Montgomery County was able to overcome in part because they dedicated the time and resources to having a coordinator, and it was a countywide strategy was to their credit.

They were able to persuade a number of municipalities in Montgomery County that were initially reticent through storytelling, through bringing folks to those meetings to reducing the stigma, to obviously educating folks in the community that this wasn't going to be a public safety hazard, that this was actually improving public safety.

Um they were able to persuade these elected boards to vote to offer a variance and actually change the respective zoning of that parcel to permit transitional housing on site.

So to mayor's point, Allentown cannot alone sustain the burden, nor should it be expected to create all the transitional housing units in the city.

But in order to build that consensus, you need someone who can bring those folks to bear at a meeting and persuade people.

I hope we all keep our backbones and actually pay for it because we can also go, oh, it just cost too much money now.

We had all these talks, we want to do all this great stuff, but now we can't afford it.

Sorry, we can't just talk about we got to actually do it as well.

Sarah.

Thank you.

So I think executive Siegel is on to something here with the municipality piece.

I think that's something that maybe we haven't thought as much about.

And I actually had a chance to go look at that with some of the directors.

And the space was not what I was expecting.

I walked into it and there's so much potential there.

There's 400 beds, there's you know, a kitchen, there's working bathrooms.

Like there are so many of the things that you would need to really set something like that up.

And this is something, you know, that is a township issue and a zoning issue, and it's not super conveniently located.

So I think to that point, you know, there is some great potential that wouldn't require a ton of money to use that space for this purpose, but it requires those relationships with the township, and it requires that, you know, overcoming the NIMDIAM to actually get there.

So I think that we have some things in our backyard that really could be used in this way.

We drove past um two homeless encampments on the way to that very facility, and it just struck me like we're so close, and there's a possibility here.

So I think the idea is again just making sure all those parties are at the table.

Yeah, I think I you know, I'm gonna go back to the same tank that I believe Commissioner Briggs mentioned.

Um there's a lot of ideas that I think that we can dig into that we don't have to solve tonight.

Uh, a lot of questions that were raised.

So it's okay with everyone, we'll move on.

Can I make one more point?

At the interest of time.

They can just do time.

30 seconds.

I just for 30 seconds.

I also just want to remind people I'd be remiss if I didn't do this, but um, we also have to also remember that children and families are also a very large group of individuals that are at risk of becoming homeless and homeless, actually in the state of Pennsylvania.

The latest pit count data, the largest group of homeless, uh the most increased group of homelessness is children under six in the state of Pennsylvania.

So we cannot forget about our children and families.

It's not just people sleeping outside in tents and on streets, please.

Thank you.

I'm bringing this up just to do something a little bit uh more light.

Um that was brought up that was adventure than some people and uh Commissioner Beitler.

I don't know if you want to take the thing, but it was about community gardens and how the city and the county can partner on community gardens.

Thank you.

So um this my area of interest in the county.

Um I'm often interfacing with our uh former land preservation director.

She works down out of Cedar Brook out of that office.

They also, under their umbrella, they have the uh county community gardens.

So right now, today uh Lehigh County operates 200 community garden plots.

Um they're primarily located in uh South Whitehall and over by Cedar Brook.

Um, for about a year now, I've been trying to get some momentum uh to utilize the county's already existing infrastructure in that area.

We we have a coordinator that we employ uh that may help maintain those gardens to get some of that, some of one of those facilities or more in in the urban course um to address issues like food deserts and affordability, et cetera.

You know, if we can just find some land between the county and the and the city uh where we could do that, you know, the county already has a little bit of that infrastructure in place to run that type of facility and potential future partnerships with organizations like PASA who could potentially provide um education to help folks who might not know how to yet grow their own vegetables, et cetera.

Council President Napoli, did you want to add something?

Thanks.

Um, I think this is a conversation, you know, when Mayor Kirk mentioned it was a 1200 vacant.

Um but uh I mean, and it's something where if we if we can take stock of this inventory and find out are there suitable opportunities to do something that is what Commissioner Viler's is suggesting.

I think it's fantastic.

I I think there are our center city residents that would love an opportunity to have um some community gardens and and you know, fresh produce and vegetables.

Um, so again, identifying, and I think it goes back to you know, really figuring out what we have and maybe what portions of it make sense for the best use of.

So some of it could be housing, some of it could be uh uh community gardens, and some of it could be maybe extra parking in dense neighborhoods.

So um I think identifying our bacon properties and and maybe parsing it in a way that we can figure out what's the best possible use.

So I'm happy to continue that conversation.

Thank you for bringing it up.

I I know that the Allentown School District has been a uh ideal um targeted partner for community gardens because typically there's some kind of space.

Um, but the Allentown School District doesn't have a community garden coordinator available to it.

So as you are working, I know on your list of partners that you will be conversing with over the next few months.

Uh, the Allentown School District is one of those.

Um say that the county is an interested partner in those types of things.

I live next to Central Elementary School.

There are flower raised flower beds in the parking lots around the school.

Those are the types of places that perhaps with some better coordination, the school districts hope of some community gardens could become a reality.

The other thing I want to add is um the PASS is a great organization.

Um, and and we have under the next subject, or the last subject is youth engagement.

Um I think Commissioner Butler met last week.

Uh we were talking about the boys and girls club.

They have a really advanced uh agroponics uh uh device within their actual center.

And so I think there's an interesting opportunity here for like urban agricultural education, not only working with the school district, but um our after-school programs, a number of the clubs in the city, uh, whether it be turning some parcel on their lot into potential, not just doing the agroponics component, but also doing some external agriculture like outside on site.

So I think there's some opportunities there, uh, maybe even utilize our quality of life grants at the county level and maybe try to do some sort of micro programs or little targeted pilot programs to help uh with our youth.

So I think there's some exciting and relatively low cost, low risk uh opportunities to, I mean, it doesn't take much.

So into all the time when you think out of the box, especially when it comes to youth.

You talk about community gardens, you could also use them as a rehab for kids with the DA department.

Now you bring the DA in with their funding and you create some type of school district, and now you have something for these kids to do as a community service in a community garden as well.

You also can also, there are other smaller organizations, little leagues out here.

Um I'm a big advocate for kids.

I coach with Allentown Aids, Major Allentani, the partner with Allentown School District.

Um school on one is that there is not no funding.

And so when you when you think about it, you think about boys and girls club, that's only one thing.

There's so many tiny groups out here doing the work.

And so what happens is when you think about youth, you think about the one that's on the radar, think out of the box, look at these small other ones that they are taking these problematic kids, or giving these activities at school, even you can reach out to these small organizations, or these smaller at school programs.

There's tons of them, and they are willing to go and do community gardens.

I talk to them all the time.

So we have to look at our community partners and not just look at the obvious community partners.

Let's do the work and go out there to find them, especially if I use and getting back.

I didn't want to go to go back on the homeless because you I was waiting for handy and singing, the homeless too.

We could also possibly, I myself also go out there and help as well.

I do it on the low.

Um, you can do more for the homeless.

You gotta do out-of-the-box thinking.

There is empty lots out here that these businesses own, not within the city.

I get it, people don't want to see homeless people within a lot within the city.

But there's cornerstone lots that are on the edge of the town.

New York does it.

Um, I mean, out mid-west state does it.

You can somehow think out of the box and give the business a waiver for allowing the homeless camp there during the summertime or and stuff like that and build a fence around it and have somebody watch over it.

They do it.

We got to think out of the box when it comes to the homeless talking to say homeless is not a problem when it's in your city and within the county.

It is your problem.

So this is what you gotta have out of the box thinking.

Can we tax cuts to business partners, according to people?

Let's see what we can make happen.

You got malls that are sitting in the check them out.

You can't do a traditional traditional has not worked.

So you have to combine traditional out of the box.

Thank you.

Okay, so that was a small subtopic in our larger topic about public safety and public health.

Can I expand it a little bit?

Um, you know, how the city and the county can better integrate mental health, the crisis response and health services.

This was also another one that a lot of people wanted to talk about.

I'm not sure if anybody wants to kick this topic off.

I'll kick off with a frame that I use frequently when we talk about um emergency services and public safety.

When people call 911, they're calling the county.

When the county dispatches, the responders are coming from municipalities, whether it be a volunteer fire company or a municipal police force.

This is one of those really weird places where we have to operate and recognize that their services, human services that we provide that aren't dispatched by a 911 call.

We're we're trying to build and and create some infrastructure of that with our 988 system, trying to figure out ways in our relationship with providers like Pinebrook, which provide a community um intervention uh function for the county and also for the city.

Um I've long wondered how can we marry up public health, mental health with public safety response and break down some of those municipal county barriers.

Um it's a fluke of state law that separates the response and the dispatch.

Um, but I think good conversation can get us a little bit closer to it.

There's a about a two-hour conversation with attorney general Sunday last week at St.

Luke's, you know, I can call folks for the county that attended specifically on this topic.

Yeah, how we can get our jobs for mental health needs and keep people out of criminal justice systems.

I was excited to see uh district attorney Holland join us as well, and the chief record was there.

There's a lot of progress to be made uh there, a lot of I think excitement within the region.

I don't know if there's an update or anything accounting over the budget.

Um I don't think we have an update because none of us were in the room for that.

I did not handle the anybody that knows that um who's the guy from the the who does the for the Josh Bridges.

Yeah, after and so what the county's role has been is after the response, the emergency response, which usually involves EMS, police, or fire, um, the following day or shortly thereafter.

The the folks from Pinebrook are deployed with the list of services that are available to help that person, and that's where Josh and his team in our uh Department of Human Services really do their magic.

But it's like how can we get that closer?

So thank you.

Um, I'm very passionate about mental health, and as a chief of police here, it's one of my topics that I deal with every day.

In modern policing, it's not just about locking somebody up and throwing them in jail forgetting about it.

It's about how we work together in collaboration to solve those issues.

Allentown police have been on the forefront of mental health movements, right?

We established the community intervention specialists back in 2017 when they were actually called mental health leaders.

So we came up with that community intervention specialist.

Having said that, we are also invested in training our officers under the latest and greatest CIT model, um, officers.

And that is not just happening in the city of Allentown, but throughout all the police departments of Lehigh County.

So there is investment and a relationship between the county and the other municipalities along the city of Allentown to make our officers cognizant of those issues because you learn very quickly that a mental health call is not just a normal call, like a noise complaint.

There is more to it.

It's not just show up, address that, and move on to the next call.

It's about creating collaboration amongst the service providers.

And some of the things that we talked about with the AG was about establishing that and making it make sense.

Is it looking at changing the mental health law to better serve those who are experiencing those type of issues?

Is it providing consistent training to our service providers?

I'm not just talking to police first responders.

I'm also talking to the boots on the ground nonprofits that are doing the job every day, sometimes for free and just out of the goodness of their heart.

So it's about what we talked about in the beginning, leveraging these relationships to collaborate and have points of contact, either from the city or the county that will lead the way.

Allentown has invested in our mental health approach by putting a position, creating a position that oversees our community intervention specialist program that is our community advocate coordinator.

And through that, we're talking with our neighboring jurisdictions and we're looking at best practices.

And to tell you the truth, this is about not just making it up as we go, but looking at what the data shows.

We want to be data-led, right?

And we wanna be able to do that.

Currently in the All of Town Police Department, we have a two-year grant that we're studying the effectiveness of our CIS program.

And I love the collaborative relationships with our county counterparts with Josh Josh Bridges and others.

And it's important that we don't lose sight that this mental health approach also has to impact the most vulnerable that we serve out there.

But keep in mind the police officers that serve, the firefighters, the paramedics, those who are seeing these scenes every day.

And I think we realize that we see a lot of trauma.

And it's important that we provide opportunities and support from the county and the city together to provide help for our first responders.

You know, sometimes you see a cop committed suicide, and you wonder how did they get how'd you get to that?

You know, or why is this person in this situation?

I think at the end of the day, when you look at all these issues that we have here, is that we lead as a as a heart-centered, mind-centered organization from the city and the county, along with our other municipalities to do the good work and highlight those things.

Because I think a lot of people are doing the good work, but I think it has to be coordinated and focused so that we you know, we we all have budgets that we deal with, and making sure that we were inputting the money and helping people out to create growth opportunities is some of the best ways.

And to that purpose, you know, I think it's important to realize that we as an organization can't do it in silos.

So let me try something here, Chief.

Is there an opportunity for coordination with the city in the county on something like that?

I would say it's it's happening.

It's happening, it's happening.

Drew Taylor from Lehigh County, along with uh Dr.

Bang Yos, who's a retired AP sergeant, by the way.

Um, we're doing the work, you know.

But I think it's something that we have to highlight.

A lot of times, you know, we think and look at outside at other places of what they're doing, but it's also important that we as a community come together and find what is the best process for us.

And it takes some tweaking and error, tweaking and stuff like that, but we have to not be afraid to experiment to truly serve our community.

I just wanted to say, so in the health care, we also have public health paramedics and they uh work closely with our CIS and our police department, but they also have a very good relationship with many of the county personnel.

The one thing I would ask is that you get more county personnel doing this work because we'd love to work even closer and better and have a more robust structure there.

Um, yeah.

I I think this all kind of hits to the core of everything that we're here to do tonight.

And I think it comes down to the education of it all, you know, understanding that you know someone who is in a state where they need mental health attention and support, could uh put them in a position to potentially end up with precarious, you know, standing at their job, which then leads them to lose their funding, to lead them to lose their housing.

And I think so much of what we do should also be based off of making sure people in our county, in our city understand the services that we're providing and understand that there are these resources for them.

And I think we should make that push because not just are we doing the work, but how are we communicating that so people know these resources that exist for them, not just for those who want them, but there's also folks who maybe come from backgrounds where the stigma is exists.

And I think so much of that is about our communication and our education behind it.

And I would love to see that, you know, when we talk about what can we do, well, how can we partner with the the small organizations, not even not even talking to nonprofits uh as an organization, but churches, different groups where you know, how can we spread the news of you know we have to take care of our people uh in these small ways so that way they don't grow and become these larger uh structural issues.

Yeah.

Okay, great.

We have a few minutes left.

So I'm just gonna move it along a little bit.

Um we will end on time, I promise you.

Um you guys should all have like little notepads.

What I want you to do for the next few minutes too while we just continue the conversation is just write down some of the areas that feature interest that you would like to continue conversation and collaboration on, and then um give them some meeting, and then we'll you know, compile them and and send some follow-up after that.

Um, but uh I'm I'm gonna maybe I'm gonna see the last couple of minutes just to talk about constituent services and communication delay, because that was also um a big topic and um Councilman Pungo mentioned uh communication of resources and how we can um better message some of the mental health support.

So I don't know if uh commissioner Alvarado, this was something that you were interested in talking about in terms of communication.

Um would you like to just say a few words?

I think uh hit the nail on the head with what is that a lot of what I need this I talk pretty loud.

A lot of what um I hear from folks in the community is the lack of knowing where they can obtain resources.

So I think it's always important not only at the county level and the city level is where they can get the resources, or sometimes they don't even know where to go.

Uh, they think they can call their state rep for a service that the municipal government is is offering, right?

And we get that at our office, uh when I say our office as the state representative's office all the time.

A lot of times folks in our community don't understand our levels of government and what each entity does, whether it's municipal, whether it's state government or county government.

So I think we need to continue bettering better our communication in the languages that our community needs.

Um, because we do live in a city of Amazon is the majority of Hispanic population.

And many times when they don't see the information in their language, you know, they're going to get confused.

So it's the constant um translation of the information that we are sharing, whether it is just programs that are available for our community, whether it's emergency services that you know the city is coordinating.

I think that should be constantly shared in both English and Spanish and Syrian, because we do have a large Syrian population in our city as well.

So it's just important that we continue to share what our services are, where they can find it, and when someone calls the city, or when someone calls the county, at least they know, you know, this is the entity that's going to serve, or this is where I should be calling for um for housing information or how to get a grant to fix my porch because my porch is not looking well.

So that's my take on communication.

The other point that I was um sharing with with Chair Brace was perhaps some form of communication that can come from council to commissioners, just to kind of keep us in the loop, things that we can continue collaborating on, or things that the city is working on that maybe they need some support from the county.

Um because I I understand our our meetings are public and our agendas are long, right?

But maybe if there's something set up that can be shared with the commissioners that can keep us in the loop to what's going on at the council level, that way then we can also share that with our constituents whenever we're out in community meetings because we go, we all go to different meetings.

So I think that's another form of of communication.

Um I think from a communications perspective, I know there's always a push to put everything out on social media for advertising, that kind of stuff.

But when it comes to authoritative information, we have a city's website, we have a county's website.

And I think oftentimes they're not approached in looking at what does it look like if you're the resident and you're trying to find where these programs are and what they look like.

So I think it should be framed in understanding that we point towards those as a source of truth.

Um because as we move forward, I think it's going to get harder and harder for residents to be able to discern what is and is not correct when it comes to social media and when it comes to things that are being generated.

So I'd like to see if we can focus on making sure that those uh two respective things are actually accurate.

So from what I hear, there is an opportunity to maybe do um some sort of communications coordination um group with us between council and the city to the commissioners and the county, is that fair?

Maybe we can do some of those points that you mentioned.

Yeah, I this has been something that in the early uh days of our administrative transition has been kind of a hot topic.

And the the county's infrastructure has been woeful in in this regard.

Um Bob Elbick is here.

He and I've had these conversations now, eight years.

And um I I'm I'm hearing from the administration a plan is is moving forward.

Um, we're in March now, and I I expect some some results as the the year goes on as and and that'll give us a tool forward-facing tools that people can use from the county's perspective.

Um, I would say that the the uh the um sharing of of information, cross-linking to each other, you know, having a feed on our respective websites that helps to communicate because roughly a third of the county lives in the the city.

That's that's a sizable portion, you know, anything that we can do to repeat what the city's saying and vice versa serves all of our residents.

Thank you.

Um, one of the things that came up frequently when I go to community group meetings that is seeming to be lacking is that um calendar.

Um you can look at a lot of different locations out in various areas and they consolidate that information and it gives it good point for people who residents to see, and it's actually a good marketing thing because it shows actually how much is going on within the city and within the county.

So oh that looks like I think I had some ideas on it, but it would be great to have when you have all these organizations be able to ingest that data and actually present it in one location.

So I definitely could say that Kelly does a good job of putting information out there.

I actually myself you know, administrative assistant, um, she can set pamphlets for me and I carry them around with me and I hand them out to everybody when I'm out.

I do them at the community events.

Um services, people like like he said, people are scared to reach out for services sometimes and scared to ask.

You have to push the community in a way that they're trusted.

So there is ways of getting out that information, like I say, and honestly say that I'm not seeing as a room for improvement, but I can honestly say that we high county has a very good way of having an information out there on the website.

There is room for improvement, but it's definitely there.

Thank you.

Right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, a little paper talk.

Very good.

Yeah, do it both.

If there's equipment, I I had another thing that didn't fit tidy into any of the prescribed areas.

Um previous position for eight years, uh, intermunitional intermunicipal cooperation.

Um, one area that was easy and resulted in a lot of savings, uh, upper Mac and Lower Mac worked very closely together.

And maybe this is already happening and we're just not aware of it.

Um, but in the areas of public works, I mean, I don't know how much cooperation there is between county public works and city public works.

Obviously, we don't have roads, you guys have a ton of roads, um, but we both have parks.

Um, we have bridges, you have bridges, we both have covered bridges.

Yeah.

And there's a lot of green work happening on the covered by a few months ago.

We covered again soon.

So I I'm just interested uh how much of that is already happening and what potential is there for more cooperation between public works, things we did uh in the on the McConji's, we bid out for road salt together, you know, or sharing equipment, et cetera.

We both have trails.

So I think that's that's a big area for cooperation, um, trail networks, and as we all work forward in unison to complete regional trail connections, which is something that there's a lot of good work going together.

How can we work together with our public works departments to make that more efficient, cost effective?

I think that there's an opportunity there for certain.

And I think that's the motive is driven just through relationships.

And I know that council or excuse me, executive seagull uh has expressed.

I would think we all make back the county executive sequel and I have talked about multiple uh future opportunities for collaboration and money.

Is it Adam or Andrew who's the true?

Yeah.

Uh who's the general services person who's uh you're gonna be able to coordinate with our shot at I the one thing you know, we are we do have a significant public operation and our city council will tell you uh probably underfunded public works operation.

There's a lot of uh we're we're stretched pretty thin.

Um it can be hard sometimes to look for those coordination opportunities, but um we're we will dedicate some time to it at the executive level for sure.

So you can keep plowing the snow.

I do not want to absorb that responsibility.

Let's apply it into the neighboring municipalities.

I've got to right now.

Uh I do want to say I we did actually on the point of coordination that is a topic we actually explored today with uh I met with my director administration, Jessica Barricade, who almost knows the city.

Uh, we're already talking about kicking around some ideas about um, you know, little things, janitorial supplies.

Can we work with the school district, the city, and the county to just do basic purchasing orders together, both purchasing orders on basic supplies.

Um on some of the larger big ticket items, uh, you know, um, one of the topics of discussion is you know, reference-based pricing.

Can we peg what we pay, the cost of health care too, to the cost of Medicare.

Um, we're kind of small on our own.

We don't have enough of a market share in our own right that we could probably make that demand of a hospital network and have necessarily the market leverage.

But if, say, the city and the two counties and a number of school districts basically went in together and did as a collective entity.

We have a lot of market share there in terms of the total employees under care.

And um there's considerable health care savings that we could materialize from that alone.

Um, you know, the reference-based pricing is somewhere between like two and a half to three million dollars on the county end.

It's gonna be considerable on the city's end as well.

And uh, I mean, think about what that three million dollars means for us at the county.

Um, that's a considerable internal investment, alleviates most of our structural deficit.

Um, so I think there's a lot of opportunities on small end collaboration, but some of the more big ticket items were frankly, we have a lot of leverage when we bind together and we use our employees uh as a larger pool and a larger market to stand together and kind of bid down the costs of some of the bigger things we buy.

So we are exploring those opportunities.

Those are both your closing statements.

I have three things.

So uh Shaw mentioned the need for constituent services.

One that I do have to mention the city's Allentown Works program.

We're hiring resource navigators that will be specifically tasked with helping people connect to not just job opportunities, but all the available resources.

There's our two positions are posted that are being hired through Allentown Economic Development Corporation collaboration with the workforce investor or workforce board, we have alley.

That is a step in that direction, and it's a step that we hope will be uh that we can magnify as well.

Thanks.

Great.

So we have a lot of ad hoc task forces, uh, coordination groups that will stem from this conversation and council person that way.

We can just close it off.

Um, I'm still gonna give uh county executive Siegel an opportunity because I'm he's our guest, and uh really appreciate you having here.

So um if you have a closing remarks or statement.

Yeah, just briefly I do want to thank you, uh Santo for putting this together.

Um, I think these sort of collaboration between the city and the county is critical.

Um I also add, I think I hope this instigates an opportunity for us to do maybe something similar with some of our surrounding municipalities.

I think it would be good for the county to replicate this with some of our larger jurisdictions, Whitehall, South Whitehall, the McCundis.

Um, I think that you know, any time we've got cross cross municipal collaboration is a good thing.

Um I just think for our part what I would say is um I was talking to the mayor today, and I think like the value we provide is as the full-time administrators, we can provide a lot of the level setting, the coherence, and we can kind of continue these conversations full-time.

And I think these meetings are something we should continue to do.

I like the idea of maybe a quarterly summit where we come back and we have a sense of where our performance metrics are, what our progress is.

We should actually be trying to measure the success of these meetings in terms of actual results and actual deliverables.

Um for our part um I do want to make sure that you know take take a notes, listen as much as I could to you know bring everything in.

Um I think the goal here now is to have the two administrations sit down and start to bring some of these tangibles to council.

Um I was thinking about our demolition fund that I know um previous board took some leadership on.

Uh, we applied a fee to the sheriff's sales.

Um I was thinking bladed housing.

We have a really robust demolition fund.

I think there's ways we can actually further capacitate that.

So there's some exciting ways that I think the county can bring resources to bear around housing that could help with infill development and additional development of the city.

Um, but I think we can continue the conversation and make sure that our respective legislative bodies are getting those updates on where the fruits of this conversation have went.

So thank you.

Thanks again.

And uh we'll we'll kind of wrap this up.

And listen, I want to thank you all again.

I mean, this is really um impressive, and I'm really happy that we had this participation.

Um, our residents don't always agree on everything, obviously.

Um there's a lot of um disagreement out there, but what's I think they can agree on is seeing us together and seeing us discussing these these issues, comparing notes, identifying ways to work together, and um we have a lot of shared challenges.

So I think they can agree on that, which I think is great.

It's good government.

Um we cover a lot tonight.

There's more to come.

And on behalf of Alentown City Council, um, just want to thank all of you for being part of this conversation, also our department uh folks, Chief Roka, David Cinnamon, Mark Hardeny for sticking around and being part of the conversation.

Really appreciate it.

And um, thanks to our willing to attend it and uh we'll keep it going.

Uh what yes, uh there will be uh we did have uh moment for public comment, so uh we will offer that now.

Thank you, Ms.

Garlock.

Yeah, um she turned green for you.

Yeah.

Um hi, my name's Corey Arner.

I work at the conference of churches on Fifth and Allen.

And it's if you're not familiar with it, there's a day shelter called Daybreak, and we serve three meals a day there, along with um place to be Monday through Saturday.

I I've worked with the homeless population for a really, really long time, um, day in and day out.

And I, you know, navigating complex health systems is hard just for me.

And I have a house and you know, um some a little smart and you know, have the things I need to be able to do that.

So um every single day, whether it be tent side, because I go to the tents and see my clients there who can't even access the day shelter and my clients that come in, walk in.

One of the best things that I love about our program is that it's a low barrier.

So many things to get to qualify.

These people need to qualify, they need to go through all these process intakes and paperwork, and there's bureaucratic issues, and there's all these things that prevent them to getting the things they need.

And it takes a lot of manpower to help each individual when they're having when they're suffering from their mental illness or their substance use, or they just never they could be 40 years old and have never experienced what it's like to not be homeless because they grew up only living in shelters and group homes.

Um I'm just saying this, I don't know about the money, I don't know who has the money.

I don't know the funding stuff.

Um but I do know that I love people, and that's there's nothing I love more than people, and that's why I do this.

And I'm almost as equally as as passionate about relationships and collaboration and the thought of relationships ever being severed terrifies me because it's what gets the work done.

Um so I don't know who has the money here and how you guys distribute it.

I'm gonna be honest, I'm not very into politics.

I don't know.

I just do the work.

And um, if I had any suggestions for the people that want to take on the leadership role of like the better housing or whatever, um SROs was a big deal, single room occupancy.

Um I would go the direction of a hotel style SRO because shared equals fights, and um some people are just not ready for transitional apartments.

But an SRO-styled hotel style um living situation for case managers to support people in that interim phase.

It's not a warming station, it's not their own apartment, it's not PSH, but it's a place of their own where they can have the essential things to um to live and be supported by the our community partners, or if there was one on site or however that would look.

It's not their own apartment, it's not PSH, but it's a place of their own where they can have the essential things to um to live and be supported by the our community partners or if there was one on site or however that would look, but um there's some evidence around that where it was done, I believe like in New York or somewhere where they took an old hotel and and made it like single SROs, but I don't know, I'm just saying that, but I I do love all my computing community partners and um just come to daybreak if you ever want to.

Most people do.

Thank you.

How do you make it?

Chef is like it's Chef, he's awesome.

Sorry, that's a public comment.

Hey guys, Rebecca Sons of Israel now in town.

Uh just wanted to say I remember when they said that Avengers Infinite Infinity War was the most ambitious crossover in history.

This one comes pretty close.

I want to tell you guys so much.

That's all any additional public comments.

Thank you.