who has been trying to reform ANIZDA since taking office in 2023, told The Morning Call that the appointments violated ANIZDA bylaws on how new members are appointed. Tuerk along with the state senators and representatives who represent the city each have the power to select new members.<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cThe authority has to follow its own bylaws,\u201d Coleman said in an interview before the meeting. \u201cWe may have to go to court if it approves any type of financing. There could be repercussions about the validity if the board violates its own bylaws.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the letter addressed to Traub, Coleman said the new members, who would vote on funding for projects, need to be approved by all parties.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn particular, the Senators and representatives have collectively not concurred in the appointments being presented to the Board, and such disapproval was communicated as required on June 15, 2026, to Mr. Traub and Mayor Tuerk,\u201d the letter said. \u201cDespite this disapproval, the Mayor, in violation of the process set forth in the Bylaws, submitted his member Selections to the Council and Authority for action.\u201d<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for Tuerk said the mayor had no comment.<\/p>\n
ANIZDA Solicitor Paul Frank said he isn\u2019t sure what will happen next. He received Coleman\u2019s letter shortly before the meeting. ANIZDA Executive Director Steve Bamford said he had just received it, too.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, there\u2019s a lot to digest,\u201d Frank said. \u201cThe position we take is that we have no say in how the board is appointed. The bylaws were an attempt to encourage cooperation amongst the politicians in making those appointments, but underlying it all is the enabling act for the authority, and the home rule charter, and those supersede our bylaws. At least we believe as such.\u201d<\/p>\n
Coleman tried to address changes to the ANIZDA board in Senate Bill 367 that was introduced in 2025 and co-sponsored by Sen Nick Miller, D-Lehigh. It passed unanimously, but stalled in a House committee.<\/p>\n
The bill would establish a new board and process for selecting members: three appointed by the mayor, one by each of the three state representatives representing Allentown, and one by each of the two state senators, with a third selected by the senators jointly. The members will have staggered but fixed terms.<\/p>\n
Miller said he wasn\u2019t opposed to the new members, but said the process \u201cneeds to be improved.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s because there are so many vacancies and expired terms on the board,\u201d said Miller, who is introducing his own ANIZDA reform bill<\/a>.<\/p>\nMorning Call reporter Evan Jones can be reached at ejones@mcall.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A challenge from a state senator to three new members Allentown\u2019s mayor wants to appoint to the city\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12759,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[119,153,155,154,433,157,182,139,28,50,432],"class_list":["post-233709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-allentown","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-lehigh-county","tag-lehigh-valley","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\/233709","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=233709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233709\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}