Oct. 1, 2026
— Jeff Ward, Lehigh Valley News Briefs
Who could have imagined back in October 2011, when somebody couldn’t find a pepper, that 15 years later Bethlehem would have a big, beautiful co-op?
If somebody had imagined that, they’d have been wrong. The Bethlehem Co-Op Boondoggle isn’t open, although it will hold some introductory events starting today and the opening is now set for December 5.
I commend that move. Better to open and risk failure than to pretend to be a force for good and justice without ever opening.
So let’s all sit around for a moment and just beam about the opening. Truly, it’s a triumph of the human spirit — the spirit of hustling the taxpayers and making false promises.
For a few days, the Happy Boondogglers can forget about their debt (which exceeded $1 million last year) and back rent, and the marketing study that said an earlier study was too optimistic, and the many failed attempts to open.
So Happy 15th Birthday, you big bodacious Boondoggle! I don’t know what day somebody couldn’t find that pepper, so Oct. 1 will do. The inability to find the pepper (they should have called me and saved millions) led to the formation of the Boondoggle.
That pepper has cost about $6 million or so, just my estimate, including spending and debt. That estimate is probably light. I paid 95 cents recently for a pepper, and I thought that was high but that pepper wasn’t blessed by the seven or eight or nine or whatever Co-Op Principles.
It was just an ignoble pepper from an evil corporate store that pays taxes and employs people, and has been selling food for years. Running dog of capitalism that I am, it tasted pretty good. Like a pepper.
The Boondoggle previews will feature goods from vendors, not from the shelves of the Boondoggle. By the way, the Boondoggle refers to itself as the Bethlehem Co-Op Market, no longer the Bethlehem Food Co-Op. Two names before opening? That’s the essence of boondoggling.
If it does open at 250 E. Broad St. on Dec. 5, I will no longer refer to it as the No-Op Co-Op, but it will always be a boondoggle. That’s what happens when a private organization takes more than $3 million in public dollars and squanders it on consultants, rent, utilities, salaries and whatever else a No-Op Co-Op can spend money on.
A few things to take from the past 15 years: the city, state and federal governments had no business directing money to this nonsense.
An affluent, educated interest group went to public meetings and proclaimed their righteousness, and Bethlehem City Council, state Sen. Lisa Boscola and former U.S. Rep. Susan Wild decided that this market, sitting beneath 42 yuppie-type apartments, deserved to get money from the rest of us. That didn’t make sense then or now.
In an astounding display of arrogance, the Boondoggle took the public money and has now shut the public out of its meetings.
That’s a big middle finger to the taxpayers who involuntarily paid for this nonsense.
That $3.1 million has been used up. Let’s make sure the Boondoggle doesn’t get back on the public dole. It is a private business, and those grants benefited Boondoggle members, who will get discounts that we taxpaying saps won’t get.
Stop chiseling the taxpayers for vanity projects. As for those who approved giving the grants to the Boondoggle, I hope this taught them a lesson.
It probably didn’t, but there’s always hope.
Boondoggle On!
