Politics & Government

Public Safety Will Be Top Priority, Donchez Says

Democratic mayoral candidate says he wants to increase size of police force, bring a fire truck back to Dewberry Avenue and maintain the city's 911 emergency communications center.

Surrounded by past police commissioners and representatives of the city’s police union, Democratic mayoral candidate Bob Donchez pledged Thursday that maintaining a safe city will be his number one priority if he is elected.

The five-term city councilman said he would examine increasing the number of uniformed police officers, support the continued maintenance of the city’s independent 911 communications center and look at re-establishing fire apparatus at the Dewberry Avenue station, which was recently converted to an EMS-only facility.

“Public safety is a key component of economic development,” Donchez said during a media event in front of the West Bethlehem police substation at 434 W. Broad St. “A safe community encourages businesses to invest in your community, which provides jobs and expands the city’s tax base.”

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Donchez accepted endorsements from past Police Commissioners Randy Miller, Gene Learn and John Yerk. Wade D. Haubert Jr., president of the Bethlehem Star Lodge 20 of the Fraternal Order of Police, also announced the police union’s endorsement of Donchez.

Donchez said he is concerned that the police department is too thin with a complement of 149 officers, though he acknowledged it is more than the city had 10 years ago when Mayor John Callahan took office.

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He said that the department’s response to a historically violent gun battle outside the Puerto Rican Beneficial Society in December—which resulted in one death—might have been inadequate had a number of officers that had been on “roster duty” assignments in private establishments not responded to the scene.

After years of ramping up department staffing in response to the anticipated opening of the Sands Casino Resort, the department hit a peak of 159 sworn officers in 2010.

But faced with budget difficulties, the city began to trim staff across all departments soon after. Seven police officer jobs were cut when the 2012 budget was adopted.

The candidate said he would like to bring at least one fire truck into the Dewberry Avenue station, which was shuttered as a firehouse at the end of 2011 and subsequently converted to a center for the city’s ambulance corps and reopened in 2012.

Callahan touted the controversial move as one that would save the city the cost of building an entirely new facility from which to dispatch its ambulance fleet while continuing to provide good fire protection from the Easton Avenue station, which is a mile and a half away.

At the time, Donchez said he was disappointed with the move, but he and most of council ultimately supported a budget allocation to make the needed renovations at Dewberry Avenue.

Donchez also pledged his continued support for the city’s independent 911 emergency communications center.

Three-quarters of this year’s 7 percent real estate tax increase in Bethlehem was devoted exclusively to the continued operation of the communications center, which city officials say is no longer adequately supported financially by the Commonwealth.

Bethlehem is one of only two cities in Pennsylvania—the other being Allentown—that has its own emergency communications center. The rest of the state is covered by county centers.

All communications centers in Pennsylvania are financially supported through telephone taxes that are not applied to cellular telephones. The taxes have not been increased in more than a decade.

As mayor, Donchez said he would work to lobby Harrisburg to increase its reimbursement for 911 centers.

“I think we have an excellent 911 system and I would do everything I could possibly do to keep it,” he said.

Donchez is opposed in the Democratic mayoral primary by fellow Democratic City Councilman J. William Reynolds, who had a news conference earlier in the week. No Republicans are currently running, so the matter of who becomes the Bethlehem’s 12th mayor could be decided in the May 21 primary.

Callahan has served his mandated maximum of two terms in office and is running for Northampton County executive.


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