Politics & Government

Gaming Authority Will Re-Evaluate Grant Applications

After questions about the scoring process for grant applications submitted by numerous Northampton County municipalities arose, a decision was made to start the process over.

It’s back to square one for a Northampton County Gaming Revenue and Economic Redevelopment Authority subcommittee tasked with scoring grant applications submitted by in uncommitted funds drawn from casino revenues.

A decision to re-score the applications—all 46 of them—was made at the authority’s Feb. 28 meeting, after Chairman Jay Finnigan said he was uncomfortable explaining to municipal officials how their applications for the grants were scored.

In January, Bushkill Township Manager Brian Harris requested $50,000 toward the cost of replacing the dilapidated Keller Road Bridge, and Stockertown Police Chief John Soloe requested a new $30,000 police vehicle and a $5,200 computer server.

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“In the first round, on the restricted funds (grants), I was very comfortable…in explaining to the borough of ‘Timbuktu’ that their application was lacking in this area, this area and this area,” Finnigan said. “I don’t have that comfort in this round.”

Moore Township officials, Finnigan explained, recently submitted a letter to the authority asking “where they stand” with respect to the other grant applicants.

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Finnigan said he had not responded to the Moore Township letter because he was unsure about what to tell them.

In response to Finnigan’s concern, gaming authority solicitor Graham Simmons, of the law firm Tallman, Hudders & Sorrentino, advised him and the other members that they “need to be able to support the fact that (you) scored them with the guidelines and here’s how they ranked…. Whoever scored it, whoever ranked it, I want to be able to see that.”

Of the 53 applications for uncommitted funds grants that were received, one was later withdrawn and six were for projects that had already received grant funding from the gaming authority’s pool of restricted funds, said authority member Tom Nolan, who was one of three authority members on the subcommittee that scored the applications.

Gerald Yob and Christopher Bodnar—who resigned from his seat on the gaming authority at the beginning of this year—were the two other subcommittee members.

“It was a somewhat detailed review,” Nolan said of the scoring process.

In order for an application to be chosen for review by the full gaming authority--and for municipal officials to be invited to make a presentation before it--there had to be a unanimous decision by all three subcommittee members to advance it to the top tier of applicants.

Ultimately, 16 applications were chosen for review by the nine-member gaming authority and five formal presentations were made in January, before presentations were halted when questions about the scoring process and accountability arose.

“We were very objective in our review and we’ll stand by it right now,” Nolan said. “I will personally stand by it.”

“We’ll just have to move forward,” he added.

Yob, when questioned by Nolan, affirmed Nolan’s statements.

“I am not comfortable with the way it’s vetted,” Finnigan reiterated, adding that Moore Township had requested to know why its application for funding for a road culvert replacement “wasn’t in the first 16.”

The scores are not part of the public record at this point, Finnigan noted; a fact that was confirmed by Simmons, who said the score sheets are considered “deliberative materials,” whose release is at the discretion of the authority.

“Start over. Take the trouble to do it. This is the recommendation of the solicitor,” Simmons advised.

Because Bodnar is no longer a member of the gaming authority, Hellertown representative Stephanie Kovacs was appointed to replace him on the subcommittee.

Finnigan instructed Kovacs, Nolan and Yob to rescore all the applications and independently submit their scores to county Economic Development Administrator Alicia Karner, so that presentations may resume when the authority meets again at the end of this month.

In other business, Lower Saucon Township representative Priscilla deLeon resigned from her position as the authority’s appointed Right-to-Know officer, citing the fact that she is not involved in county-level affairs on a day-to-day basis.

The board accepted her resignation and unanimously appointed the offices of its solicitor to replace her.


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