sponsored a resolution which would have called on Controller Jeff Glazier, the city\u2019s independent financial watchdog, to \u201cconduct a detailed audit of all travel-related expenses submitted by the Mayor since he took office.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\nTuerk has been absent for the last three City Council meetings; city managing director Frank Kane has attended in his place. According to his social media posts, he travelled to Madrid, Spain, and Riverside, California, last month. Several council members said they have fielded complaints from residents about the mayor\u2019s posts on social media documenting his travel.<\/p>\n
Council opted to refer their resolution to a committee for further discussion. But in their Monday memo, Affa and Mota said they are revoking their support for the resolution because its referral to a future committee meeting \u201chas only created additional confusion and delayed access to basic public information.\u201d<\/p>\n
Instead, they are calling on the mayor to release the report within 14 days.<\/p>\n
Without offering specifics, Mota said that she has faced \u201cresistance\u201d from members of the administration when asking for the public release of all travel-related information by the mayor\u2019s office.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have been requesting this for a long time and it\u2019s sad we have to come to this, because we get bits and pieces here and there; give us the entire picture,\u201d Mota said in a phone interview.<\/p>\n
The mayor\u2019s office has allocated $22,000 for training and professional development and $400 for mileage expenses in 2026, according to budget documents.<\/p>\n
Tuerk has never exceeded the amount budgeted for travel in any of the years he has been in office, according to managing director Frank Kane.<\/p>\n
Kane said Monday that he would prepare a report before next week\u2019s City Council meeting on the mayor\u2019s travel, related expenses and the benefits it has brought to the city. He denied that any city leaders are resistant to releasing the information.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople have a right to ask questions but this is already \u2014 these are budgeted items that have already been approved,\u201d Kane said. \u201cWe are happy to do a presentation.\u201d<\/p>\n
City Council will meet at 6:30 p.m. May 20 in council chambers.<\/p>\n
Reporter Lindsay Weber can be reached at Liweber@mcall.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two members of Allentown City Council are calling on the mayor to voluntarily release a comprehensive report of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":190711,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120,433,182,139,28,50,432],"class_list":["post-190710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news","tag-lehigh-county","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-politics","tag-top-stories-tmc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190710\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/190711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}