It appears the months-long budget battle in the city of Allentown is over. Despite the urgings of Mayor Matt Tuerk and his controller and finance director, City Council approved a 2024 budget which includes no tax increase. Tuerk says he's disappointed but says he's waving the white flag. "For the sake of the residents of the city of Allentown and the employees of the city of Allentown, I don't have any plans to veto this budget," Tuerk says. Months ago, Tuerk proposed a tax hike of nearly seven percent, but after council rejected that, he trimmed the tax increase down to two percent. Tuesday night, council members Cynthia Mota, Ed Zucal, Natalie Santos and Ce-Ce Gerlach vote in favor of the zero tax hike budget while Daryl Hendricks, Santo Napoli and Candida Affa voted against it. The mayor says council’s vote leaves the city with a deficit of more than $762,000 next year, but he says he and his staff will find ways to cut spending in order to balance the budget, and to avoid taking money out of the city’s cash reserves.
Lehigh Valley Health Network's new Health Center at Macungie opened Tuesday. The three-story medical office building is on the site previously occupied by the Weis Market along Route 100. The still-under-construction Lehigh Valley Hospital-Macungie will be located next to the new building, which includes a family practice, orthopedics and cardiology practices and outpatient adult rehabilitation. The hospital is scheduled to open next year.
Police are looking for who fired a gun from a vehicle Monday night, hitting two homes in South Whitehall. The shooting happened about 8 p.m. on Huckleberry Road and Center Street. No one was injured in the incident.
There are now three of ten Wind Creek Steel Stage shows booked for the 2024 edition of Musikfest. Lynyrd Skynyrd is making its third appearance at Musikfest on the night of Wednesday, August 7th. Tickets go on sale to the general public this Friday morning at 10 o'clock. Musikfest previously announced country stars Old Dominion and rapper Ludacris as Steel Stage acts.
Gas prices both across the commonwealth and here in the Lehigh Valley continue to dip. According to AAA East Central, the average price for a gallon of gas in Pennsylvania was $3.49 as of Tuesday, six cents lower than the previous Tuesday and 26 cents below last December 12th's price. In the Lehigh Valley, the average price is $3.36 a gallon, nearly eight cents less than the week before and 24 cents less than one year ago.
The Tuesday afternoon ride home from school ended in a crash for first and second grade students at the Phillipsburg Primary School. This man saw and heard what happened. "I saw a bus. You know, I saw kids crying, and that's, that's the first thing I got. You know, I went outside trying to go to the bus," the man says. The bus collided with a car on Route 22, leaving some students with what are called minor injuries. While police aren't saying much about the crash, there are reports they quickly surrounded the car involved and ordered the driver out of the vehicle.
A 32-year-old man is accused of raping a girl in October in Quakertown and investigators think there may be other victims. Miguel Sanchez, of Sellersville allegedly assaulted the girl Oct. 24 in a vehicle in the parking lot of the Giant at 1465 W. Broad St. Investigators were able to track Sanchez down using surveillance footage from the parking lot. At the time of the alleged assault, Sanchez was free on bail while facing charges in Montgomery County including indecent assault. He remains in Bucks County Prison without bail.
This year's Wreaths Across America Day will take place on Saturday and Cory Lamb is helping lead the push to make sure America's veterans buried at Fairview Cemetery in Allentown aren't forgotten. And he's looking for volunteers to help the cause. "Just come to the cemetery. The wreaths are going to be delivered this week. We will be unloading them, sprucing up the bows and laying them on the graves," Lamb says. He says any volunteers for the Fairview Cemetery should arrive by noon on Saturday. Several other local cemeteries will be decorated Saturday as well, including Morgenland Church Cemetery in Orefield and the Jordan UCC Cemetery in Allentown.
Electric vehicle owners in Pennsylvania could be required to pay potentially the highest annual fee in the country to drive that EV. The House Transportation Committee approved the Senate-passed bill that would set the fee at $290 a year starting next year but the amount of the fee continues to be a subject of ongoing negotiations. Senate Transportation Committee Chairman Wayne Langerholc is a Cambria County Republican and is pushing for the legislation, saying this is money that's being left on the table every day lawmakers fail to act.