O'Connell Sells The Myth

O'Connell's editorial in the paper starts out with usual political patter. He credits himself with increasing public safety by hiring more policemen and fireman, fair enough. However, as his sermon drones on, it becomes less credible. He associates his mayorship with Reilly's construction. He concludes by completely buying into the deception that the Allentown Myth is reality.

To quote City Center President and CEO J.B Reilly from a story in this newspaper, over the past five years, no other city in the nation has “experienced this amount of development or seen this kind of transformation.”

What Reilly, The Morning Call and now O'Connell don't reveal is the reason for all this development; The construction is being financed by diverted state tax dollars, in a one of a kind state program called the NIZ. It allows a developer (J.B. Reilly) to use all the state taxes generated by payroll, sales or whatever, to pay the debt service on the new buildings. With this unique arrangement, of course he continues to build.

Unfortunately for every other community in the valley and the state, all these new businesses are simply poached from surrounding communities...There has not been one actual new employer brought into this mix. With no new employers, and the taxes from the relocated ones being used for Reilly's new construction, the citizens of Pennsylvania are on the hook for the diverted taxes.