Framing his first term as a disruption of the city’s status quo and a move toward a safer and healthier city, Allentown Mayor Matt Tuerk touted the city’s progress and laid out plans for the future in his annual state of the city address.
During the Wednesday afternoon address, which was hosted at Archer Music Hall and sponsored by the Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce, Tuerk drew on his “punk rock” origins in Philadelphia’s underground scene in the ’90s as a symbol for his approach to city leadership.
To illustrate that point, he pulled up a photo from early in his first term where he hosted local officials and the public for a “bench bashing” event. His office invited members of the public for a photo op, taking a sledgehammer to old, worn out benches that were due to be replaced as part of a $10 million Hamilton streetscape improvement.
“It’s April, a sunny day, and there is a decrepit bench at the corner of Sixth and Hamilton,” Tuerk said. “It’s really less of a bench and more two slabs of crumbling concrete held together with some slimy, rotting wooden slats. But what it really is is a ghost from our past, haunting our progress. So to kick off a transformational streetscape project, I grab a sledgehammer, and I smash it to bits.”
Throughout his first term, he went on to metaphorically take a “sledgehammer” to aspects of the city processes that he saw as outdated and unhelpful.
That included an overhaul of the city’s zoning code that dated to the 1950s, a streamlined process of approving permits and building inspections, and rethinking the city’s infrastructure to prioritize pedestrian safety.
“Punk rock taught me to question authority,” Tuerk said. “In the past four years it showed me that City Hall can change Allentown for the better when we question the status quo.”
Some of the key accomplishments of his first term, he said, include ushering in the lowest rates of violent crime since the 1980s, securing a competitive $20 million grant to address unemployment, and overseeing a boom in downtown development including the Archer Music Hall and Da Vinci Science Center.
He conceded that housing and a lack of economic opportunities are perhaps the biggest challenges that Allentown faces. The city still has a higher rate of unemployment than the national average, and rates of homelessness have soared as housing prices have increased.
Tuerk said those will be priorities for the next four years, as the city works to implement its comprehensive housing plan, unveiled early last year, and increase employment access via the $20 million grant.
The address was the first of Tuerk’s second term as mayor; he was reelected in November to serve another four years leading the city.
Reporter Lindsay Weber can be reached at Liweber@mcall.com.