Ex-councilman, longtime fiscal watchdog of Allentown dies
Former controller monitored money issues for decades
Louis J. Hershman, a fixture in Allentown City Hall who scrutinized budgets for decades as city controller, councilman and private citizen, died Sunday at 84, his family confirmed.
The East Side resident served as the city’s controller from 1976 to 1999 and then on City Council from 1999 to 2007. He unsuccessfully sought re-election to council as recently as 2015 and 2017.
The tax preparer faithfully attended council meetings until earlier this year. He never missed an opportunity to critique monthly finance reports and offer a recommendation or seven. He treated council’s courtesy-of-the-floor time limit as a suggestion rather than a rule, with considerable success.
Not a fan of email, Hershman faxed typewritten memos on a weekly (and sometimes daily) basis to city administrators, elected officials and Morning Call reporters. Though many a sentence was inscrutable, the memos’ broader message was always clear: You can do more for the residents of Allentown.
As recently as last week, Hershman phoned City Clerk Michael Hanlon to request a mailed copy of the city’s August finance report.
“He’d still call a few times a week,” said Hanlon, who dealt with Hershman since becoming city clerk in 1989. “He loved the city, and he was always kind.”
Brent Hartzell, who served as the city’s finance director from September 2015 to February, called Hershman a “dedicated and tireless advocate for Allentown taxpayers.”
“We disagreed a lot, but he always pursued wise stewardship of city funds,” Hartzell said
in a text message. “He often influenced my thinking positively and led me to reconsider and modify proposed fiscal actions. I will remember him fondly.”
In recent years, Hershman has attended council meetings with fellow residents Glenn Hunsicker and Tom “Grumpy” Hahn — otherwise known as the 3H’s Consulting Firm, or the H Crew.
Hahn, himself a master of the streamof-consciousness-style email to public officials, on Monday called Hershman a “champion of the East Side” whose attention to detail extended beyond line items to quality-of-life issues, such as preserving the Allentown State Hospital, finding funding for city-run youth activities, or improving pedestrian access at certain intersections.
“Lou asked the questions nobody wanted to answer,” Hahn said. “‘Do you need this or do you want this?’ ‘Are you doing this for political purposes, or because you think is it the right thing to do?’”
A Slatington native and Slatington High School graduate, Hershman served two years in the Army in the immediate aftermath of the Korean War, his son Michael Hershman said. He worked for the Pennsylvania Department of Revenue before starting his own tax preparation business, Hershman & Associates.
When it came to politics, Hershman
did things his own way from the get-go. After being elected controller in 1975, he and Councilman-elect Alton W. Frey Jr. held a separate swearing-in ceremony from the rest of council, breaking longstanding tradition.
A Democrat while in office who later became a Republican, Hershman was already considered a “representative of the old guard” by the time he sought his second term on city council in 2003. The year before, he and Republican Councilman David Bausch unsuccessfully opposed council’s decision to add sexual orientation and gender identity to the city’s human relations law.
During the final meeting of the 2002 budget season, city council voted on 20 Hershman proposals for either raising non-tax revenue or cutting spending to avoid a 24% tax hike. Hershman also identified $2 million in unbudgeted revenue, and council ultimately pared down that tax hike to 16%.
There wasn’t always a method to the madness. A 2003 Morning Call article described Hershman’s tendency to “flood” council agendas with quixotic legislation, and noted, “The blizzard of memos he issues ... have become the subject of local political lore.”
Hershman’s doggedness could overwhelm and annoy officials. Bill Heydt, who served as mayor from 1994 to 2002, told The Morning Call in 2007 that he received as many as 500 memos a year from Hershman when he was controller.
“Every now and then he had something that made a lot of sense,” Heydt
said at the time.
The public hasn’t been allowed to attend City Council meetings since March, but Hershman’s absence has been particularly felt. The fax machine on the fifth floor of City Hall has basically sat silent the past six months, Mayor Ray O’Connell said, and Right-to-Know requests are down noticeably.
O’Connell will miss Hershman’s shuffle from the back of council chambers to the podium at the beginning of each meeting. Before addressing council, Hershman would always turn to his left and give O’Connell a wink, the mayor said.
O’Connell intends to install a memorial plaque on a chair in the back of council chambers.
“Lou was one-of-a-kind,” he said. “And he always tried to do right by the people of Allentown.”
Michael Hershman said his father’s first priority was always his late wife, Anita, three sons (Shane, Michael and Lou Jr.) and five grandchildren. Lou Jr.’s family lives in Bethlehem, and Hershman attended as many of his grandsons’ baseball games as he could up to a few weeks ago, Michael said. He also enjoyed traveling to visit the families of Shane and Michael, who both serve in the military, and called them frequently.
“He was a very dedicated father and grandfather,” Michael Hershman said.