{"id":26568,"date":"2017-01-26T20:05:08","date_gmt":"2017-01-27T01:05:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/?p=26568"},"modified":"2017-01-26T20:05:08","modified_gmt":"2017-01-27T01:05:08","slug":"pawlowski-delivers-state-city-address","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/?p=26568","title":{"rendered":"PAWLOWSKI DELIVERS STATE OF THE CITY ADDRESS"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Allentown Mayor Ed Pawlowski put the city through a complete physical during his 40-minute 2017 State of the City address and determined that it is in excellent health.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe prognosis is good,\u201d said Pawlowski as he delivered his remarks this morning at The Barristers Club to a sold out crowd of 150 members of the Allentown Chamber of Commerce and Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce.<\/p>\n<p>Pawlowski told a story of how the city\u2019s heart, circulation system, brain, backbone, muscle, skin and soul function to create \u201ca healthy, vibrant, livable Great American City.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The mayor rattled off statistics like a six point improvement in the city\u2019s unemployment rate since taking office, 1800 total new jobs in the downtown, more than 300 low\/moderate income owner-occupied properties rehabilitated, more than 75 miles of paved streets, a recent 23.8% increase in overall recycling and a 48% reduction in Part I crimes.\u00a0 He touted an improved bond rating and fully funded pension plan and bridge construction and rehabilitation projects.<\/p>\n<p>The 2017 city budget holds the line on the property tax rate for the 12<sup>th<\/sup> consecutive year.<\/p>\n<p>Pawlowski pointed to the future announcing that he would create an Office of HOPE \u2013 which stands for Housing and Opportunities for People Everywhere &#8211; that will bring a coordinated and comprehensive approach to the policies, programs and projects that will impact Allentown&#8217;s housing affordability.\u00a0 He reiterated plans to establish a 311 Center after the state\u2019s mandated merge of the city\u2019s 911 Emergency Center into the Lehigh County operation, start-up a Cultural Center in Alliance Hall and pursue additional funding for the Allentown Promise endowment.<\/p>\n<p>Pawlowski concluded the event by asking attendees to promote kindness asking, \u201cThink of how different this city would be if we all just practiced one act of kindness each day.\u00a0 I challenge you to join a movement for Allentown to be known as a City of Kindness.\u00a0 Think of what that would do to attract people to live and invest in our city.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Chamber event is the first in what is usually a series of invitations for a mayoral address from service clubs in the city.\u00a0 The state of the city report is a requirement of the city charter.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<br \/>\nInformation provided by:<br \/>\nMike Moore<br \/>\nCommunications Manager<br \/>\nMayor&#8217;s Office<br \/>\n435 Hamilton Street<br \/>\nAllentown, PA 18101<br \/>\nMike.Moore@allentownpa.gov<br \/>\nhttp:\/\/www.AllentownPA.gov<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div class='adkingprobanner sidebar banner3023'><a href='http:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/' target=\"_blank\" data-id='3023' data-ga='{\"campaign\":\"\",\"banner\":\"\",\"implemented\":\"universal\",\"imp_action\":\"Impression\",\"click_action\":\"Click\"}'><img src='https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/inpostblank.jpg' alt='' \/><\/a><\/div>\n<div class='adkingprobanner sidebar banner7036'><a href='http:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com' target=\"_blank\" data-id='7036' data-ga='{\"campaign\":\"\",\"banner\":\"\",\"implemented\":\"universal\",\"imp_action\":\"Impression\",\"click_action\":\"Click\"}'><img src='https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/inpostblank.jpg' alt='' \/><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"&hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/?post_type=adverts_posts&p=7036\" class=\"read-more\">Click here to read more... <\/a>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19935,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[69,482],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-in-the-valley","category-press-release-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Allentown-City.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26568"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26568"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26568\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}