EASTON, Pa. – Fresh off this week’s primary election, Northampton County Council is extending protections for election workers.

At its regular meeting Thursday night, council approved an ordinance first proposed by Commissioner Jason Boulette that designates certain actions against election workers as summary offenses punishable by a fine of up to $1,000.

The ordinance defines those “unlawful practices” this way:

It shall be unlawful for any person, directly or indirectly, to use or threaten to use any force, violence or restraint, or to engage in doxing or harassment, or to inflict or threaten to inflict any injury, damage, harm or loss, or in any other manner to practice intimidation or coercion upon or against any election worker which may result in such election worker to fail, decline or refuse to perform any election-related duty.

It shall be unlawful for any person to intentionally interfere with, hinder or delay or attempt to interfere with, hinder or delay any election worker in the performance of an election-related duty.

Boulette noted that while Pennsylvania election code already provides protections for certain election officials, others fall outside those parameters, such as members of Northampton County’s election staff, board of elections and election commission, as well as temporary staff who assist with processing mail-in ballots and counting votes following the election.

“These people serve our democracy; they serve this county. Many of them are volunteers. Ones who are not volunteers work for this county,” Boulette said. “They are the employees of this county, and we have an obligation to support them and to protect them from threats, harassment and intimidation.”

The vote to approve the ordinance was 8-0; Commissioner Tom Giovanni was absent.

LERTA repeal pulled 

Also on Thursday night, an ordinance to repeal a Local Economic Revitalization Tax Assistance (LERTA) designation for the River Pointe Logistics site in Upper Mount Bethel Township was withdrawn.

No reason was given. It’s unclear if the ordinance will be reintroduced during a future meeting.

The ordinance sought to repeal a separate ordinance from 2023 that extended the 10-year LERTA, which was first established in 2018 after being approved by Upper Mount Bethel and the Bangor Area School District.

The River Pointe project was billed as a massive industrial site spread across 12 buildings on more than 800 acres. But development has been slowed by litigation and other problems. Amazon was rumored to be considering building a data center there, but the deal fell apart.

Parking garage contracts approved

Northampton County Council approved a series of contracts related to the forthcoming replacement of the parking garage at the county courthouse at 669 Washington St. in Easton.

The contracts are with Alloy5 Architecture (increasing the contract value from $463,000 to $525,00), Diefenderfer Electric ($2,067,675), Mohawk Group ($11,525,500), and the Warko Group ($89,200 and $378,980).

The readjustment of the Alloy5 contract was to pay for the inclusion of a second entrance on the design plans for the three-level deck, as well as a solar array on the top of the structure.

During a finance committee meeting on Wednesday, the 260-kilowatt solar feature was described as three rows of solar panels spanning the length of the deck. It was also estimated that the total cost of adding the array to the project (including steel framing and electrical work) would be about $1.6 million.

During her remarks Thursday night, County Executive Tara Zrinski said the solar project would offset the county’s energy costs by at least $40,000 a year.

County Council approved a $35 million bond to pay for the new deck and other projects in February of 2025. About $24 million of that total is going toward the parking garage.

At its next meeting on June 4, Northampton County Council will hold a public hearing on a proposed lease agreement with Easton’s Shiloh Baptist Church to rent space in the church’s parking lot at 403 Pastor Fred Davis St., so county employees can park their vehicles there while the parking garage is under construction.