Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Republican majority chooses Northampton County Councilman John Cusick as president for another year.
Reorganization doesn't seem to be simple, at least where Northampton County Council is concerned. Last year, Council President Ron Angle lost his seat after his fellow Republicans instead backed Councilman John Cusick. This year, Cusick kept his seat, but only after a challenge from council's Democrats on council that ended with a tie vote, causing council to put the meeting on hold until member Bruce Gilbert arrived to break the tie. Councilwoman Peg Ferraro -- who was re-elected Vice President without challenge -- nominated Cusick. Councilman Lamont McClure, a Democrat, was also nominated as president. The resulting 4-4 vote meant that council effectively had no president, and thus the meeting was put on hold until Gilbert arrived. But …
40.68707
-75.21676
Northampton County Government Center
669 Washington St, Easton, PA
/articles/northampton-county-council-keeps-same-leadership
873971
/locations/6116884
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Only 4 council members vote in favor of budget, which means another meeting next week, or an automatic 9 percent tax increase.
After more than two hours of discussion Thursday night, Northampton County Council tried, but failed, to adopt a budget for 2012. Council had spent much of the night hearing from residents on proposed budget amendments, debating spending cuts and arguing over salary freezes and increases. But when it came time to vote, only four council members said yes to County Executive John Stoffa's $331 million budget. "Yes, we have no budget," Council President John Cusick said minutes after the vote. Councilman Ron Angle -- who lost the presidency to Cusick at the beginning of the year -- told Cusick he should have worked harder with the rest of council to get the budget passed. "It was your job to produce this budget. You have failed," said Angle…
40.68707
-75.21676
Northampton County Government Center
669 Washington St, Easton, PA
/articles/northampton-county-council-fails-to-pass-2012-budget
873971
/locations/5931500
Monday, June 13, 2011
Northampton County councilman says he thinks he has the support to take over finance director role.
Northampton County Councilman Bruce Gilbert says he has no plans to back away from his appointment as the county's new director of finance. On Monday afternoon, blogger and Patch columnist Bernie O'Hare wrote a piece arguing that "recent discoveries make it unclear whether Gilbert can manage his own personal finances." Those discoveries included a series of financial judgements against Gilbert -- including one from the IRS -- as well as a bad check charge in 2003, which was withdrawn when Gilbert paid a penalty. Less than three hours after O'Hare's column was posted, Gilbert called a news conference in which he announced his hopes to still take the job as finance director, and explained the marks on his financial history. Before the …
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
One option: Put money from the 2001 bond issue back into the nursing home.
Most of the money from the $111 million bond issue Northampton County floated in 2001 has been spoken for. But some members of county council want to use what's left -- close to $1.6 million -- on Gracedale, the nursing home voters have just decided needs to remain publicly owned. With that decision comes a dilemma: the county can't sell Gracedale as planned, but it also had only budgeted $3 million for the home for this year. "I don’t think it’s going to be enough," County Executive John Stoffa told council's finance committee Wednesday. He's at work on finding a new management company to come in and run the Upper Nazareth nursing home, but doesn't anticipate awarding a bid to someone to do that work until August. Stoffa said the county …
40.68707
-75.21676
669 Washington St, Easton, PA
/articles/with-gracedale-decided-county-asks-now-what
/locations/4370935
40.73827
-75.338169
2 Gracedale Ave, Nazareth, PA
/articles/with-gracedale-decided-county-asks-now-what
/locations/4370936
