To the Editor:

Catasauqua's FL-Smidth project concept was really simple.

We need a fire station. We need a police station. We need an emergency management station. We need a fire police station. We need a borough hall – and we need to put these services in the best location possible at an affordable price.

We need to rebuild/increase our tax base to avoid the continued cycle of cutting services and raising taxes. We need to revitalize our downtown. We need to bring more services into our borough. We need to make sure the FLSmidth site is developed to its highest and best use so our borough residents will benefit the most from this important parcel located in our downtown.

Over the last decade, the Borough of Catasauqua has clearly identified all these needs, and that correcting all these identified needs at once, instead of individually, would be the most efficient and inexpensive way to correct them. The FLS project concept was designed to meet all of these needs.

The site soil and water had been tested for contaminants and met the requirements for the proposed development. Because of the borough's adaptive reuse of the plate shop structure for its emergency/municipal services, it would have cost about 20 percent less to complete than a new construction project. We had a developer attend our May 6 meeting who pledged to partner with us on the development of the project if we acquired the property. Two two others expressed interest.

The entire site was offered to the borough for $750,000 – $300,000 less than the asking price, and we have the funds in our emergency services building reserves. Once purchased, we could have subdivided the two needed acres from the parcel and sold the remaining 10 acres to a developer who probably would have paid us more than what we paid for the whole parcel – in essence we would have received the two-acre property for free.

The borough could have received as much as $884,000 from developers for tapping and recreation fees, and the anticipated residential development would have brought in up to an additional $200,000 per year in annual revenue to the borough – forever. This funding would have offset the cost to complete the proposed emergency/municipal services building.

The planning and zoning committee and borough council as a whole has spent the last three years reviewing the completed testing and research reports that substantiate the value of the project. We had conceptual plans in place showing the location and format of the building. Between that and legal fees, we spent more than $50,000 of Catasauqua taxpayer money. We also spent more than $150,000 of Lehigh County taxpayer money for the environmental testing and feasibility studies.

The project was supported by the state (top 10 project as of 2011), Lehigh County (top project as of 2011), LV Land Recycling Initiative, LV Economic Development Corporation, Renew Lehigh Valley and the Catasauqua Planning Commission.

But Brian Bartholomew, Alfred Regits, Eugene Schlegel and Mitzi Smith, four of the seven members of borough council, still decided to vote against it. Worse yet, not one of them has an alternative plan to correct even one of these issues or how to fund it.

There are no winners now, only losers: the volunteer firefighters, the police officers, the volunteer fire/police and emergency management staff, the borough and its residents, the county and the school district. Everybody loses something, while nothing is gained. And after 30-plus years, we are still no closer to a new fire station. What a sad day for Catasauqua.

Borough council had an opportunity to take a responsible, positive, giant step forward for the benefit and sustainability of Catasauqua. Instead council offers nothing.

In my opinion, there was absolutely no reason for this purchase and project not to have happened. A "no" vote was either political, a failure to understand the project or fear, and none of those reasons are acceptable. Nor are they in the best interest of, or any way to make decisions for, a municipality.

I hope you will attend the next council meeting at 118 Bridge St. 7 p.m. Monday, June 3, to voice your concerns and to demand more from your elected officials.

Demand accountability. Demand leadership. You deserve more. Remember, it's YOUR tomorrow.

Vincent Smith

Catasauqua

councilman

and planning and

zoning committee chair