Reactions to the plan
City Council member Ce-Ce Gerlach still feels the process is not strategic enough. Rather than evaluating projects on a rolling basis, the city should have developed a specific, targeted strategy on how it will spend the extra money, she said.
“I don’t believe that it’s a best practice to piecemeal a budget together where the administration gets one proposal and another proposal, when we have no idea if the proposals will relate to each other, support one another,” Gerlach said. “I don’t think it’s wise to spend $1 million here, $2 million there, $5 million there without knowing what the full scope is and having a really comprehensive view.”
She wants to see the city take a targeted approach to address the needs of Allentownians most acutely affected by COVID. Research shows the pandemic exacerbated racial inequality in education, health care and economic status.
Tuerk said approving applications on a rolling basis affords the city increased flexibility. The city has until 2024 to allocate the funds and wants to begin funding projects as soon as possible, he said. He added that Vision 2030, a series of progressive policy proposals City Council approved in 2019, would act as a guiding plan for how the money could be spent.
“Councilperson Gerlach wanted to see a hard plan that had everything set in stone, and I think we are better off if we can be flexible,” Tuerk said.
City activists who lobbied the administration last year for more money to nonprofits and small businesses are pleased to see a larger sum set aside for that purpose.
Kim Schaffer, executive director of Community Bike Works, said her nonprofit “really appreciate[s] [Allentown’s] commitment to supporting local nonprofits who have been doing on-the-ground work to support kids and families who have been struggling.”
Dawn Godshall, director of Community Action Lehigh Valley (formerly the Community Action Committee of the Lehigh Valley), hopes to partner with the city on affordable housing projects and a new community center for Allentown youth via American Rescue Plan money. But she wishes even more money would be available to nonprofits to fully fund projects.
“The mayor is taking this opportunity to change and fix a lot of things that need to be addressed for the city, and I understand that,” Godshall said. “I just feel like it gave a lot of nonprofits a little bit of false hope that there would be more available for things that we, as nonprofits, feel are important for the people in the community, not necessarily the aesthetics of the community.”
Justan Parker Fields, executive director of local nonprofit Change Now, was also glad to see an increase in the amount of funds available to community nonprofits. But he worried that allowing City Council to have the final say on ARPA funding could pose a conflict of interest. Several council members sit on nonprofit boards, work for nonprofits or are related to leaders of nonprofits.
“I think there’s too much conflict for City Council to make these decisions,” Parker Fields said. “I’m glad the funding’s there and I have a lot of faith in Mayor Tuerk’s administration, but I’m just a little concerned with City Council making the yay or nay vote on this.”
Council passed two ordinances in February intended to limit conflicts of interest related to ARPA funding. Council members are required to disclose any conversations they have with nonprofit leaders about American Rescue Plan money. Nonprofit leaders applying for American Rescue plan money are also prohibited from using the money to pay their own salaries or salaries of family members.
The city’s code of ethics prohibits elected officials from acting “in an official capacity on matters in which the employee or official has a private financial capacity, on matters in which the employee or official has a private financial interest clearly separate from that of the general public.”