For generations, Americans learned in school what public servants should be--totally devoted to the public interest, incorruptible, ready to help. Hardly anybody lived up to this standard, not even Washington, Jefferson, or Lincoln. (If nothing else, many of the founding fathers were inordinate land speculators and got themselves into great financial trouble that way. And we will skip the whole slavery issue, which is a whole other can of worms. Except to say that because of the thoughts and actions of some of those slaveowners all of us, including the descendants of their former slaves, are better off.)
But to return to the ideal public servant image--we have been well served because that image exists. In city and town halls across the country, especially on the local level, there have been people--town councillors, mayors, and aldermen--who have tried hard to live up to that ideal; and we are all richer for it.
I believe Councilwoman Jean Belinski is one of these, and as such represents a treasure to the City of Bethlehem.
But Mrs. Belinski is up against a new/old phenomenon, what I might call the Politics of Corporate Acquisition. As I have indicated, there is nothing new about this. America's post-Civil War era was noteworthy for a generation of entrepreneurs we still call robber barons.
The difference between those robber barons and the modern breed of Corporate Acquirers--those I call the People With Plans--is that the former built useful things, things like railroads and industries. The latter just-acquire.
And the public should beware. The things they want--and intend--to acquire include facilities and services that are vital to society's health and way of life. Once these things are privatized--and they include things like watersheds, landfills, and sewage facilities--how many of the public will be able to afford them?
And how will the public be able to guarantee that these things will be run well and with safety? When you get a glass of water from the tap, can you guarantee that it will not give you dysentery? The odds favor you now; but what if the water system were run for profit, and costs were cut on disease controls?
Or what if you cannot pay your water bill? According to the Christian Evangelical left organization Sojourners, the Detroit water system is owned by a German corporation. Those who cannot pay have concrete dumped into their pipes--by city employees. We are talking about water here, an absolute necessity for life.
To me it seems clear that former Bethlehem mayor Don Cunningham, now running for Lehigh County executive, and current Bethlehem mayor John Callahan, apparently, alas, undefeatable in this electoral round, are politicians in the People With Plans mold. I had the first hint of this some years ago, when I went to Easton to check on Cunningham's campaign contributors.
For years I was a little confused, even after he dumped the landfill at a cost Bethlehem taxpayers still are paying. I could not imagine why a candidate for mayor of Bethlehem needed contributions from New Jersey corporations. But the scales fell from my eyes, as they say, when I saw Callahan, Cunningham's protege, behaving in exactly the same way as his mentor. They are politicians in the new/old school of Corporate Acquisition. The change they are working toward is a future in which average people have few rights and no recourse. It is logical for a giant corporate entity like the Chicago Tribune/Morning Call to support them; and the CT/MC does just that.
Then there is Councilwoman Jean Belinski, a public servant in the old, honorable civics class style, an independent and highly effective thinker, a fighter for ordinary people and for what she believes to be right.
No wonder "They" are after Belinski.

In endorsing candidates for Bethlehem City Council--something it seems never to have done before--the Morning Call was once again its smarmy, duplicitous self. The incident suggests that Councilwoman Jean Belinski must be doing SOMETHING right, to have earned the dissatisfied attention of the Call and its owners--who I believe to be the Chicago Tribune at this point.
It also suggests that the Call cannot be relied upon for straightforward and honest local reporting. I suspect this is true throughout its circulation area, but of course to Bethlehem area residents the coverage of their town is most notable. And notably deficient. At least three Morning Call reporters, whose names will not be mentioned here, have been noted for distorting news out of Bethlehem City Hall. The misdeeds of one were so egregious that apparently he was fired. A sad fate, if true, but his own fault. The last time this writer heard of him he was working for Don Cunningham, who is trying to unseat the steady, reliable Jane Ervin as Lehigh County executive.
Speaking of steady and reliable, Jean Belinski has been a real people's advocate for all her years in public life. She has a way of tracking down information that People With Plans do not necessarily like. It was she who fought against the incinerator, who fought fruitlessly to save the landfill, who "blew the whistle" on what is happening at Bethlehem's magnificent and irreplaceable watershed. She is the one and only true environmental candidate in the field, and was endorsed by the Sierra Club in the primary. She also is someone who will go very far indeed to help the ordinary citizen. In short, she is a quality public servant, and should be retained.
More on this next time. Or: Why are they after Belinski?

It would appear that the St. Luke's Hospital spokesperson, Susan Schantz, said exactly what I THOUGHT she said about the Benet/Colby House matter. It doesn't make any sense at all, but that's okay. Or for now it has to be.
In a nutshell, she said the hospital applied for--and, unfortunately, got--a demolition permit for the house to hedge its bets, in case the borough of Fountain Hill exercised its prerogative to establish a historic district. In that case the hospital still would have its right to destroy the property "grandfathered in," so to speak, and could bring up the wrecking ball right away. It's heads, they win, and tails, the borough's heritage loses.
Ms. Schantz suggested, in a Bethlehem Press article, that there is still room for compromise. I've seen plenty of willingness to compromise among the citizens who are fighting to save the house, but so far little if any on the part of the giant institution that seems bent on destroying it.

I have had occasion lately to visit an old acquaintance--a giant 14-inch battleship gun from the USS Mississippi, currently stored on the old Bethlehem Steel site. It represents the historical period when Bethlehem impacted not just on its region, state, or even nation, but on the entire world.
It seems that day is past; but there are many of us who would like to see to it that it is remembered.
An email I just received from Republican write-in mayoral candidate Charlie Tommor indicates that he has a different take on how to accomplish this. Tommor is an engineer and an opponent of slots and casinos. He regards the Steel site as too valuable to be "wasted" on a casino and mall. Recalling the days when Bethlehem Steel made giant guns like the one I have recently visited, as well as armor and other irreplaceable defense products,Tommor would like to see its old location transformed into what he calls a "Living Museum," a modern era defense manufacturing plant where the weapons and tools needed to win our current war (he calls it "World War 3") will be made.
Although I agree with Tommor that we are indeed at war, and a highly dangerous war, I believe the tools to win it will be made in small, high tech, cybernetic or digital plants--whatever those terms might mean. To me, and I do not say this jokingly, they mean "incomprehensible." But I do not believe they will require anything like the same amount of space the old Steel plant required. Hopefully, in other words, we can have our new era defense and the old era's heritage as well.
If any reader wishes to know more about Mr. Tommor and his views, his website is at: www.tommor.org.

When the South Bethlehem Historical Society first suggested the idea of a historic district on the South Side of Bethlehem, we were told it would never fly. Too much of the South Side business district had been destroyed, too many holes poked in the overall architectural fabric for such amenities as parking lots and gas stations. We stopped concentrating on the undoable and concentrated instead on such things as historical markers--which were very doable, and perhaps in the long run helped make the case for the historicity of the neighborhood.
Time passed; some minds changed. And South Side merchants and residents were able to push through a historic conservation district to cover a significant part of the business district. But a heavy price was paid.
For one thing, the shape of the district was changed to accomodate a McDonald's restaurant that had found favor with Don Cunningham, then-mayor of Bethlehem and now candidate for Lehigh County executive. And, to placate some other politician, the beginning date of the historic conservation district seems to have been changed. This allowed a contractor named Posh to smash down a ramshackle but interesting corner at West Fourth Street and Broadway, and to erect a CVS drugstore on the ruins.
Fast forward to now. Now we finally seem on the verge of having the area win approval as a National Historic District, with special tax breaks available to building owners who want to improve their properties but keep the historic look.
It seems a good idea, long overdue. Only I can't help wondering what else will be destroyed to make it possible.