Easton Parking Changes Unwelcome, Survey Says

The issue of how to best serve everyone when it comes to metered street parking is proving to be a difficult one.

Easton business owners and residents like the idea of parking meters that take credit cards. What they don't like: changing the meter-enforcement hours, enforcing meters on Sunday, and most of the other changes mentioned in the city's recent parking study. That's according to a survey on parking issues discussed Tuesday evening at the city's second public forum on the parking study by Desman and Associates.  Balancing the varying needs of the city, businesses and residents when it comes to metered street parking is proving to be a thorny issue, and there's still not a lot of consensus on the issues. While most of the 15 or so members of the public seemed in favor of reducing rates at the city's parking garage to encourage more people to …

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Easton Finds Funding For Ambassadors

Lafayette College, Crayola will help fund Easton's struggling Ambassadors program.

Easton's downtown will continue to stay clean now that the program that sweeps its streets has some more green. Mayor Sal Panto announced Friday afternoon that two groups have stepped forward to provide more than $50,000 to fund the Ambassadors program. Panto said Lafayette College will contribute $30,000 while the Crayola Experience will kick in $25,000 to keep the people wearing red jackets that you see in the downtown cleaning up and providing other duties for the city. "You won't see the Ambassadors program go away under my watch," the mayor said. Still, though, Santo stressed that the program has a funding shortfall of between $60,000 to $75,000. "It's not doomsday. But we're looking for contributions. Next year's budget for the …

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Amend Wun

9:46 pm on Friday, March 30, 2012

Gotta love the peanut gallery and it's empty "advice".   more ›

Letters to the Editor

Letter to the Editor: Downtown Easton After the NID

Easton city councilman says property owners need to share ideas on "how to bring more life to downtown."

The City of Easton has two incredibly successful programs that have helped shape and redefine our downtown over the past few years – the Easton Main Street Initiative and Easton Ambassadors.  Overall, the downtown community as a whole has come together during the programs’ tenure as we have come to embrace a bright and hopeful future for our downtown. However, this concept was recently, and I believe only temporarily, lost somewhere in the dark.  We unfortunately saw our downtown community splintered over the concept of implementing a Neighborhood Improvement District (NID). The proposed NID would have implemented a fee on property owners to help keep a dedicated source of income directed toward the Main Street Initiative and Ambassadors …

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Amend Wun

11:41 am on Thursday, December 22, 2011

I'm confused as to how I didn't address this merchant's issues. She says main street is only about tourist based businesses. I say, no it's about capacity, that my business actually pays to participate in main street activities. She asks what's in it for her. I say, it's grass roots and community based, that you get out of it what you put in to it. If the progress seen in the last 7 years that …   more ›

GEDP Says Ambassadors, Main Street, Will Continue

Despite NID's failure, group says public still supports Easton Main Street, Ambassadors programs.

Even though residents and property owners have rejected Easton's Neighborhood Improvement District, the programs that it would have supported will still continue. That's the message from the Greater Easton Development Partnership, which says it's committed to keeping the Easton Ambassadors and Main Street Initiative, despite the end of the NID. "While the proposed NID will not be a part of that funding plan moving forward, GEDP is committed to work with the City and other community partners to ensure that these programs continue," the group said in a news release. GEDP had hoped to use the NID to fund the Ambassadors -- the folks you see in red jackets cleaning up and doing other work Downtown -- and Main Street, which runs numerous …

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An Independent View

"Wealthy Minority" Killed Easton's NID

Columnist Jon Geeting says downtown Easton tax proposal failed due to outmoded voting procedure.

When the United States was founded, only white male property owners had the right to vote. This practice endured until the 1820's, when the property requirement was phased out in favor of a requirement that all voters pay taxes. In 1850, the tax requirement was overturned, allowing most white males to vote.   Today, these restrictions on the franchise seem repugnant to most of us. And yet, this feudal concept of democracy is still alive in Pennsylvania, at the foundation of Pennsylvania's Neighborhood Improvement District Act. which last week enabled a minority of Easton's wealthiest property owners to block a vote on the proposed Neighborhood Improvement District. The Act, passed in 2000 to helping Pennsylvania's older downtowns , allows …

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Jon Geeting

3:47 pm on Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Did you even read my column? Literally the entire first half is spent arguing that the state law is flawed. That's what the column's about. The need to change the state law. The second half is about how that flawed state law resulted in a process that, while unquestionably legal, has zero democratic legitimacy. I wholeheartedly support peoples' right to maximize their political advantage down to …   more ›

Downtown Easton Property Owners Reject NID

Eleven days before the deadline, 40 percent of property owners have registered their objection to the plan.

It's all but official—the proposed Neighborhood Improvement District has been rejected by downtown Easton property owners. Of the 488 affected properties, 198 had officially registered disapproval of the plan with the city clerk's office as of Thursday afternoon, City Clerk Thomas Hess said. By law, the plan is to be jettisoned if 40 percent of affected property owners, or in this case 195 of them, protest the move in writing. The deadline for such 'nay' votes is Dec. 12 and the city clerk's office will continue to accept and count objections until then, Hess said. The city had unveiled the NID at a public meeting in June, which revealed downtown residents and property owners were divided on the proposal. One property owner even led an on-…

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Take Our Poll: Easton's NID

The fate of the controversial proposal will be decided in a few weeks.

The next few weeks will decide the future of the proposed Neighborhood Improvement District (NID) for downtown Easton. The NID would impose a 5-mill fee on commercial property owners -- 1 mill for residential owners -- to help pay for programs like the Easton Ambassadors and the Easton Main Street Initiative. Property owners who live -- or simply just own buildings -- in the section of the city that would encompass the NID have until Dec. 12 to file objections to the plan.  According to the Express-Times, the city clerk's office had gotten 171 objections as of Wednesday. Under the law, the NID will fail if the owners of 40 percent of properties in the district object to it. So far, about 35 percent have objected. So what do you think? Take…

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Jon Geeting

10:34 am on Sunday, November 27, 2011

IMO, if Easton priced parking at market rates and replaced the property tax with a land value tax, that would achieve the same results people want from EMSI and the Ambassadors. Downtown probably isn't too far from being at a place where the demand for downtown land is self-sustaining. And at that point, you won't really need EMSI because the market will take care of attracting new businesses and…   more ›

Easton Council Holds Final NID Hearing

Speakers support Neighborhood Improvement District; opponents have 45 days to make their voices heard.

The next six weeks will decide whether Easton's proposed Neighborhood Improvement District lives or dies. That's how long opponents of the NID have to file their written objections to the plan, which assesses a yearly fee for property owners in much of Easton's downtown in order to help fund the city's Main Street Iniative and Ambassadors program. Some of those opponents spoke out Wednesday night as city council held its final hearing on the NID. Council also heard from people in favor of the plan, as well as those who had questions and trepidition about the NID. Members of the public walking into Wednesday's meeting were met with two people handing out flyers. One was a "Did You Know?" brochure listing all the accomplishments of Main …

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From the Editor's Desk

5 Things to Know Today

The mayoral debate arrives Tuesday, city council holds its final NID hearing, and more.

Good morning everyone. A busy week awaits us, as usual. Here are five things to know about it. 1. It's a little more than two weeks until election day, and we've got two nights of political debates here in Easton this week. The first is the Debate at the State, 8 p.m. Tuesday night at the State Theatre, with mayoral hopeful Mike Krill and Mayor Sal Panto. And on Thursday at 7 p.m., the League of Women Voters hosts a candidates' night at the Northampton County Courthouse, featuring candidates for county council. 2. Easton City Council will meet at Two Rivers Landing Wednesday night at 6 p.m. It's a regular meeting, but also a chance for you to tell council what you think about the city's proposed Neighborhood Improvement District. 3. …

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Here's Another Way to Fund Easton's NID

Why a land value tax makes sense for Easton's Neighborhood Improvement District.

With the Neighborhood Improvement District back in the news, and the different funding options apparently still in flux, it's worth taking another look at some of the economic questions around this issue. We want to figure out which funding option achieves the city's aims in the most fair, efficient, and cost-effective way for taxpayers. To review, the city of Easton has a limited supply of land. In recent years, the land closest to the downtown has become more attractive, and accordingly, more expensive. Most people seem to roughly agree that the Ambassadors program and the Easton Main Street Initiative deserve some of the credit for this. But now the funding for those programs will end unless city council comes up with a way to fund them…

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