'We have to set the model': Allentown City Council looks to ease tensions with new code of conduct

ALLENTOWN, Pa. — Allentown City Council could adopt new rules in a bid to take some heat out of its chambers.

Members this month started discussions about a new code of conduct to govern their interactions with the public and each other.

Council Vice President Cynthia Mota kickstarted the conversation March 12, calling for “guide rails for our meetings.”

And she asked City Clerk Mike Hanlon to develop “a primer on how council works” and a document that sets “some standards and operating procedures.”

Those would help “create an efficient and effective decision-making process that ends with productive results,” she said.

Councilman Santo Napoli said the code of conduct would offer consistency and help members be more productive, efficient and “actually find more ways to improve the lives of our residents.”

That’s “something we all strive to do,” Napoli said. “Having this code of conduct and having standard operating procedures helps us get there a little bit better.”

Lowering the temperature

Council has had many contentious meetings over the past two years. 

Residents flooded council meetings in early 2023, angered by what they called over-enforcement by Allentown Parking Authority.

Council faced residents’ rage for months — and parking authority officials were similarly flamed at a public forum — before officials altered the agency’s enforcement practices in May 2023.

In September of that year, Daryl Hendricks — who was then and again is council’s president — faced sharp criticism after he interrupted multiple residents and ordered one removed from the room.

Hendricks defended himself then by saying he was trying to maintain decorum, as “people have gotten out of hand” recently.

And tensions in chambers often rose during council’s many discussions and votes on investigations into racism allegations and a related lawsuit that never went to trial.

Several members last week emphasized they support discussions with residents during committee meetings as they work to craft and improve proposed legislation.

But Councilwoman Candida Affa said council’s “problem lies” with the public-comment period at the start of its meetings.

That segment, in which residents can speak about any city-related issue, has spurred regular moments of tension among some members in recent years.

Affa sat through a steady stream of comments — both for and against her — after she was accused of creating a “racially hostile environment” in a federal lawsuit filed in November by a city employee.

She urged Hendricks, as president, to enforce council’s rules that limit comments to three minutes and urge residents not to directly address members.

“But [residents] tend to think that they can say anything they want, they can be as disparaging as they want, they can lie all they want,” Affa said.

If council’s rules were better enforced, “we wouldn’t have that problem,” she said.

Let them speak: Gerlach

Affa also suggested members have an opportunity to respond if called out by name.

But Councilwoman Ce-Ce Gerlach urged her colleagues to allow residents to speak without interruption or “debate and argument.”

“People get upset when that happens,” Gerlach said.

“That just escalates it and causes tension. If someone’s saying something we don’t like, as long as it’s not offensive, just let them talk. They’re gone in three minutes.”

Gerlach called on council members — some of the city’s highest-ranking officials — to set a better example for residents.

“We have to set the model," she said. "We can’t expect of the public what we can’t model ourselves.

“If we’re expecting the public to maintain decorum and we’re expecting the public to be respectful and not make disparaging remarks … we can't be up here doing that, too.”