Bethlehem is generally one of the more harmonious municipalities in the Lehigh Valley. It’s ruled entirely by one party, and for whatever reason has less infighting traditionally than Allentown, per se. Next year will begin Mayor Reynolds second term, and he will have a council that is mostly supportive (mostly is doing some work here). Anywhere from five to six members will vote with him most of the time. It’s not for me to say if that’s good or bad, I’m not a voter in Bethlehem. The reality is though that things should go smoothly for Willie.

Tonight though, they’re going to fight a bit, and it will be over fire- not literally over a fire, but over fire fighters. In the one corner, members of council who want to pass a budget amendment to add new fire fighters. In the other, the administration and some council members who don’t think it’s necessary or want to raise the revenue to do it. From the way it was explained to me, I’ll try to give you the most fair and balanced arguments I was told.

• The administration holds that they don’t need to hire four new fire fighters this year. The fire chief wrote a memorandum saying as much. They don’t think it’s necessary this year to raise taxes or move money around for it.
• Their opponents maintain that the fire department is under staffed and at risk. They say that a majority of the current fire fighters can retire at any time now. They also say that one fire house has no officer actually on duty at any given time, and is splitting an officer with another fire house.

So basically the fight is over hiring four new fire fighters to send to the academy, and then asks to promote four existing fire fighters to the rank of lieutenant. Obviously this would amend the budget and present a need for new revenue to pay for it.

I’m not an expert on staffing levels for a fire department. Generally speaking though, safety is the number one want of most citizens in most places. You need to have enough cops and enough fire fighters in a city like Bethlehem. It’s a safe place, and that reputation is a big part of why people like it there. At a minimum, if there’s a lack of officers currently, they need to promote some people. If there aren’t enough fire fighters in general, you need to hire some. I generally loathe tax increases and wouldn’t normally be for them. Raising taxes to have the manpower to fight fires might just be a good enough reason to do it. I know it’s not politically popular to raise anything, especially in an economy this poor. This isn’t some wasteful boondoggle though.