Dec. 29, 2025
We need more skepticism in local government, particularly when it comes to dispensing taxpayers’ dollars.
Consider PBS39, the Bethlehem Co-Op Boondoggle and the Da Vinci Science Center.
PBS39 sits on about $80 million of public money, courtesy of a federal auction of airwaves.
The Bethlehem Co-Op Boondoggle has spent more than $3.1 million of public money and is not open.
Da Vinci promised the world when seeking public money for its $75 million Allentown science center. It delivered considerably less, missing its forecast in Year One by 60%.
Local and state government and its affiliate, the Allentown Neighborhood Improvement Zone District Authority (ANIZDA, an acronym so ugly that it discourages critical thinking) didn’t ask tough questions when Da Vinci asked for money.
Mainly, how is a “science center” in downtown Allentown going to deliver about half as much attendance as The Franklin Institute in the middle of Philadelphia?
A missed opportunity. Da Vinci promised to serve 400,000 people in its first year at 815 W. Hamilton St. It actually reached about 160,000, maybe even fewer people than when it was at Cedar Crest College.
How was it going to more than double attendance in one year? Hmmm.
The person most responsible for this is Da Vinci Executive Director Lin Erickson, who will retire in June. Some people leave jobs with fanfare, a banquet and a lucite keepsake. Others are just told, “Your services are no longer needed.” How many Da Vinci workers have lost their jobs?
Meanwhile, Erickson made $197,852 in the fiscal year ending in June 2024. Is this performance-based pay?
So who is accountable? Who will pay if it fails? The taxpayers, of course. We have already paid.
Next, perhaps the most blatant and ridiculous boondoggle, the Bethlehem Co-Op Boondoggle. Note, I’m breaking a journalism guideline by using a word such as boondoggle twice in a sentence, but I like the word, and after all, it’s just a guideline. Oops, I did it again!
The No-Op Co-Op has been promising opening dates for years, and it has spent more than $3.1 million of public dollars in the process of not opening. The Boondoggle is active on social media, though, and it has revised its bylaws, so it’s not as if it’s not doing anything, mind you.
When the Co-Op Boondogglers went before Bethlehem City Council to plead their case, they found a friendly audience. No surprise. Most of the council members were already Boondoggle members.
Bethlehem City Council didn’t ask tough questions. It didn’t do its job. Instead, it led cheers for an organization that has no idea of how to open or run a grocery store. That support led to federal and state money for the Boondoggle.
By the way, it needs more money, in case you want to throw good money after bad. Be consoled that it’s waste in pursuit of a noble cause.
Finally, the Boondoggle I looked at first, PBS39. The media outlet/television station/radio station that “informs, educates, and entertains while serving as a catalyst for civic engagement” has $80 million or so of public dollars, gleaned from the earlier-noted sale of public airwaves.
Yet it still goes about hat in hand, asking for money. It even sought a whole $8,000 from the City of Easton, and got it. That $8,000 might have done some good in Easton, but this is PBS, which in one fiscal year spent an amazing $1,000 more per hour than it took in.
To its credit, PBS39 has cut back. Unfortunately, bad decisions made in earlier years meant actual working people had to lose their jobs but it’s well past time for this outfit to learn to live within its means.
It’s time to hold people accountable. It’s time for local government to do its job and ask tough questions before throwing money to public-spirited messes that benefit individuals and interest groups, not the public.
I’ll have more on this later. The Boondoggling never ends in the Lehigh Valley.
Boondoggle On!
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