South Whitehall approves COVID-19 relief money for small businesses

Approving $115,000 in COVID19 relief money for small businesses in South Whitehall Township proved a nearly threemonth-long task for commissioners, stagnated by both technicalities in the municipal legislative process and unmovable positions over a central disagreement: Should a township use its own taxpayer money to help businesses?

Commissioner Matthew Mobilio introduced the idea in November, officially proposed a program in December, turned it into an ordinance to be advertised in early January, and Wednesday night, saw it approved — barely.

Each meeting, township leaders rehashed the same hard-line arguments in lengthy disagreements. Wednesday night, 45 minutes in, Mobilio had had enough.

“This discussion is exactly what is wrong with municipal government. It is paralysis by analysis,” he said. “They don’t need a bunch of commissioners to dawdle and twiddle while the township burns. They need help now.”

Through the new program, which will be administered by the township and the Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce, small businesses in South Whitehall can apply for grants of up to $3,500 for coronavirus-related expenses. Businesses with annual revenue of less than $750,000 that are operating or have a reopening plan in place are eligible.

Other small business relief programs that have cropped up in the Lehigh Valley — in Allentown, Bethlehem, Lehigh and Northampton counties, and Lower Macungie Township — have all sourced their funds from federal dollars, either from CARES Act money or Community Development Block Grants.

At issue in South Whitehall was the proposed source of the $115,000: the township’s fiscal stability fund.

“The intent of that money is to run our government,” Commissioner Diane Kelly said at a previous meeting. “I’m not convinced using the money in this form is the right use.”

She and Commissioner Michael Wolk said they support the premise, but not the source of the money, proposing to use federal coronavirus relief dollars the township received instead.

The $326,000 federal relief money the township received has all been spent or accounted for, and went toward township operating expenses, board President Christina Morgan said. Even so, she argued, federal grant money, like township revenue, also consists of taxpayer dollars.

She argued the use of the fiscal stability fund makes sense, because it would be an investment in businesses that bring communal and economic stability to the township.

“We invest in them; it comes full circle,” she said earlier in the month. “Without good, stable small businesses in our community, our community would suffer.”

The township’s fiscal stability fund has about $2.2 million, finance director Scott Boehret said, which is about 14% of the 2021 operating expense budget.

Wolk and Kelly found backing in resident David Fritz, a business owner, who argued the role of the township should be to fund roads and infrastructure, not private business or social programs.

“I continue to believe this is a completely benevolent idea; however, it’s bad economic policy for South Whitehall Township,” he said.

Even township solicitor Joseph Zator was skeptical about the township’s legal ability to fund this program, he said at a December meeting. Townships cannot wantonly enact legislation, but can only exercise authority given by the state or federal government. Prior to recent changes in the first-class township code, which only took effect at the end of 2020, the township might not have been able to do this.

The amendment provides commissioners the general authority to adopt legislation that “may be expedient or necessary for the proper management, care and control of the township and its finances, and the maintenance of peace, good government and welfare of the township and its trade, commerce and manufactures.”

Other small business relief programs in the Lehigh Valley have expired, some commissioners argued, making this one all the more urgent.

Lehigh County distributed $8 million to small businesses, but the chamber is still receiving requests, said Jessica O’Donnell, executive vice president of affiliated chambers. There were many who were doing fine initially and didn’t apply, reserving funds for others who needed it more, she said.

“Through your leadership, this could quite possibly be a lifeline for these businesses,” she told commissioners Wednesday.

Still, what the township can do and what it should do is disagreed upon. Given that the deadline for spending federal coronavirus relief money has been extended by a year, Wolk argued that the township should make an effort to reallocate.

“I would hope that we can find the accounting method to do the right thing here,” he said.

To reconsider the program using federal coronavirus relief dollars as the funding source, as Kelly made a motion to do, the township would have to change that portion of the ordinance, and thus, readvertise it and delay a vote until at least the next board meeting, solicitor Zator said. That motion failed, and the board then voted on the ordinance as it stands, 3-2.

Despite tensions and terse words exchanged, after the vote, Wolk thanked Mobilio for what he called a valuable program. On that, Kelly agreed.