Dear Friends,
Hello and I hope all is well. I want to start by thanking you for all your support over the past year to keep Allentown moving forward. Without the support of people like you, it would be impossible to keep Allentown moving forward.
I wanted also to take a few minutes to share with you my perspective on the state of our great City. To say that 2011 was an interesting year would be an understatement. It was a year filled with great challenges and a year filled with even greater progress. I was reminded of the Dickens quote from the Tale of Two Cities…”It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the winter of despair, it was the spring of hope.”

We started the year with sadness. A tragic gas explosion on 13th Street left six homes destroyed and five of our citizens dead. As a community we struggled for answers, came together in our support for the victims and reached out to both our state and federal legislators for regulations to make the pipelines which run through our communities safer.

We saw our economy continue to weaken, housing price remain stagnant, revenue decline and federal and state funds for cities diminish to their lowest levels in decades.

This was a tough year, but 2011 was also a year of progress.

We opened a much-needed police station on Hamilton and 10th streets and hired 3 new police officers and 13 firefighters. We saw crime in our city DECREASE for the sixth straight year. Part I crimes were down 8.29%, homicides, yes homicides…decreased slightly for the fifth straight year and overall crime decreased (a 30% decrease in the last six years).

Although all battles are not yet won, we are advancing the front lines.

We continued to improve Cedar Beach Park, started the renovation of Keck Park, expanded youth programming throughout the city, helped a struggling city in Haiti and were awarded the national title of Playful City USA for the third year in a row.

We also improved our infrastructure; beginning construction of a new water pipeline so we can transport and sell water to our suburban communities, secured a major multi-million dollar commitment from the state to replace water meters throughout the city, installed 11,350 feet of new water mains, rebuilt Hanover Avenue, repaved 4.1 miles of roads and installed solar trash compactors throughout the city to cut costs and reduce garbage on our streets.

Construction of a new arena began and kicked off the city’s 250th Anniversary celebration.

The state of our city is one of promise.

In this year of promise we will not only expect success, we will achieve it.

2012 will be a year of Promise because we will be able to leverage the progress we made over the past several years and turn that progress in success.

In 2012 we will see the seventh straight year of no property tax increases and the hiring of 20 new police officers to improve safety in our streets; several new streetscape projects in the 19th street business district and in the Old Allentown neighborhood; and the reconstruction of Hanover Avenue from Irving Street to Club Avenue. These new improvements will make it safer for residents to navigate traffic and improve road conditions on this critical city artery.

We will see the construction of a new fire station on the city’s eastside and the implementation of a trails plan to connect our parks and a citywide signage plan to help residents and visitors navigate easily through our city.

We will see new buildings constructed: Butz Corporate Center phase two, the first building of the new City Center development by JB Reilly and a world class arena that will be the new center of our city, attracting over 500,000 people into our downtown. These projects will all be brought to life this year.

In 2012 after talking about it for over 20 years, construction on the American Parkway Bridge, over the Lehigh, will begin. The 15th Street Bridge will be replaced and the Union Street Bridge and South Albert Street Bridge will be rebuilt.

In 2012 we will not only build physical bridges, but bridges to the future.

As we construct those bridges, this doesn’t mean we won’t have challenges. The ever increasing cost of our pensions is putting much of what we offer to our residents at risk.

In 2006 the City’s total pension obligation payment was $7, 073,998 and five years later, in 2011, that number was $15,732,982. Since 2006 the overwhelming majority of these payments were absorbed by City funds while a small portion of their cost was offset by state-aid.

To fill this gap over the years we have cut expenses in every department, cutting dozens of City employees and are now at our lowest staff levels in 40 years. We used one-shots, like the sale of City property; and we used much of our fund balance to close the budget gap created by these pension costs.

The City can no longer absorb these enormous costs. Hence, there are only two options left to resolving this challenge. We can either tax our citizens to meet these outrageous and increasing costs or we can dramatically reduce or eliminate our unfunded liability. I choose option two.
As enormously difficult as this may seem, I believe we can develop a plan so we can come close to fully-funding our plan in a safe, prudent and financially sound way. The alternative will be to tax ourselves into oblivion and that’s not going to happen on my watch.

My goal, a very ambitious goal, is to have this problem solved by the time we present the 2013 budget in November.

I am confident that with prudent fiscal policy we can manage our way through this. We have faced challenging times before, and we have succeeded in finding new and unique ways to deal with them and to thrive as a community. I have every confidence we will do so again.

We will need to not just recover but reinvent Allentown.

Recovery seems to say all we need to do is go back to the past. The past, whether we like it or not, is over. The old ways of doing things have literally run out of gas. All over Allentown, and throughout this region, we need to not just recover, not just rebuild, we must reinvent. We must reinvent how we create opportunity; reinvent a new way of working; and reinvent our partnership between citizens, businesses, schools and government.

We must come together and pursue our common interests, put aside petty differences and invoke the necessary changes that will benefit us now and for generations to come. I am so proud that in my years as mayor I have seen this kind of unity. Allentownians standing up and rising to the challenge.

There is a great quote from William Shakespeare which states: “What is the City but the People?”

Indeed, Allentown, like all great cities, succeeds because of the character, commitment and collaboration of its people. In this year, at this time, more than at ANY time, the future is ours to shape.

Allentown, we should never be content to crawl or walk, when we know this city was called to soar. Our City, our people, our history, is a resounding testimony to the achievement of the impossible. Our city is poised and ready.

Bring on the challenge. We will fight it.

Bring on the mountain. We will climb it.

Let the cynics shout, but Allentown will clam its rightful future. Allentown’s best days are ahead of us. I pledge to you that I will continue to work tirelessly to move our city forward this year and in the years ahead.

Roll up your sleeves with me, as you have done the last six years and let’s show what we can do when we do it together as one city. Thank you.