Norco revisits project funding
Vote on IronPigs stadium, hydropower proposals set for Thursday meeting
A majority of Northampton County Council is having second thoughts on funding renovations to the home of the Lehigh Valley IronPigs and a hydroelectric project.
During Tuesday’s amendment meeting for the county’s 2023 budget, members were skeptical if they should continue funding the projects.
About $50,000 is slated for Coca-Cola Park, which would go toward $10 million of renovations mandated by Major League Baseball. Another $1.15 million is slated for New England Hydropower Co.’s project to build small hydroelectric generating plants at three Lehigh Valley canals.
Commissioner John Cusick led the opposition on both items, saying money could be better spent on other priorities, such as student loan repayment programs to attract professional workers to county positions and preserving open space.
“This is nothing more than corporate welfare,” Cusick said of the hydroelectric project. “And I just felt that the county taxpayers should not be venture capitalists, and I’ve always opposed this in that it shouldn’t be in the general budget. If anything, this should be under the auspices of the [Industrial Development Authority], not the county general fund.”
Council President Lori Vargo-Heffner reminded the audi
ence that final consideration on these items will be Thursday, when the council votes on Executive Lamont McClure’s budget and the amendments put forward Tuesday. The proposed 2023 budget is a $544.8 million spending plan that would not raise property taxes.
“I wanted to clarify that if we vote to move any of these forward, it’s just that we’re moving them forward to Thursday. This does not mean that it’s a final vote on the item,” she said.
Coca-Cola Park
Northampton County has been asked to contribute $50,000 from its hotel tax fund as Major League Baseball has threatened to move minor league franchises that do not complete upgrades to their stadiums, including larger clubhouses, coaches’ offices, training rooms, weight rooms, kitchen and storage areas for both teams — plus a women’s locker room.
Coca-Cola Park, which is in Allentown, is owned by Lehigh County, though Commissioner Tara Zrinski pointed out that it employs many people from Northampton.
Allentown City Council voted in October to deny $1.5 million in American Rescue Plan funding for those upgrades, while Lehigh County said it has committed up to $4.5 million toward the stadium improvements. The IronPigs have vowed to remain in the Valley.
“The answer is very simply that Coca-Cola Park is located in Lehigh County, number one, and number two, the municipality in which it is located, Allentown, chose not to fund it at all,” Cusick said.
Commissioner Kevin Lott said minor-league affiliates are being held hostage by the majors and found that process “aggravating” especially with the profits the parent club, the Philadelphia Phillies, is making.
“Major League Baseball spends a lot of money bragging about how they’re so community oriented and yet they put it on the affiliates and on the community,” Lott said. “I think that’s dead wrong, but the problem is if we end up losing a baseball team, it will be devastating to the growth, the energy and the marketing that the Lehigh Valley has seen in the last several years.”
Commissioner Kerry Myers said Allentown’s reluctance made him a yes vote on the proposal.
“This is crazy when the local jurisdiction won’t give them a dime. I think that’s the embarrassing part about it,” Myers said.
Council voted 6-2 to move the funding denial forward.
Hydropower
Zrinski said pulling money from New England Hydropower’s project would open the county to litigation from the company, which has been slowly moving forward with the projects along the Lehigh Canal in Easton and Allentown, and the Delaware Canal in Williams Township. The company said several issues have slowed those plans, including the pandemic, supply-chain challenges, rising costs for materials and labor and a state ruling regarding selling power.
“It’s my understanding that this would be a breach of an agreement, a contract that we’ve already committed to,” Zrinski said. “New England Hydropower has already engaged in some actions, at least $285,000 from this year and $85,000 pending next year. We would be liable for that.
“We’d also be liable for any damages because they would have to forfeit the match from the commonwealth of Pennsylvania that would open us up to a lawsuit because of that breach of contract,” she said. “This money has been allocated for several years now.”
Council voted 5-3 to move that proposal forward.
New England Hydropower proposed the plants in 2018 and ’19 to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The company has received a $1.4 million state grant, matched by a $1.4 million fund pledge from Northampton County toward the Easton canal.
The company, which operates a small-scale generator in Meriden, Connecticut, wants to cut a trough laterally from the Lehigh Canal beginning about 1,000 feet from Lock 47, also known as the Abbott Street Lock, and the park. Water would flow from the canal through the turbines and discharge into the river. The river-fed canal offers a steadier supply of water compared with the river, which is subject to low flows during warmer months. Electricity would be fed from distribution lines to transmission towers nearby.
Cusick noted that the estimated price has doubled to $10 million from $5 million in four years.
He said using the funding for a student loan forgiveness program would be an advantage to attract applicants for positions that require college degrees at places such as Gracedale nursing home and the district attorney’s office.
“We need some sort of incentive and bonus to bring people in,” he said.