Lehigh Valley
Lehigh and Northampton counties. Roughly 700,000 people in one metro, governed by 62 municipalities, two county governments, and seventeen school districts.
Allentown, Bethlehem, and Easton are the three cities. Everything else is a borough or a township, and that is where most of the land use decisions are actually made.
This is a guide to the governments that make decisions here: who they are, when they meet, where to watch them, and how to speak at a meeting.
Start here
| Watch meetings | Every government video channel we have found, live and archived |
| Who governs | The bodies we track, and what a city, a borough, and a township each decide |
| When they meet | Schedules as standing rules, not a stale date list |
| Agendas | Where each body posts them, and how far ahead |
| Minutes and records | Where the official record lives, and how to request more |
| How to speak | Public comment rules, deadlines, and time limits |
| About | What this is right now, stated plainly |
What we track today
20 governing bodies.
- 2 county legislative bodies
- 3 city councils
- 6 township boards
- 3 borough councils
- 5 school district boards
- 1 regional planning commission
Each of the twenty has its own page, reached from who governs: its meeting cadence, its video and agenda platforms, how far its archive reaches, and the rules for speaking at it. Where a body page and a summary page disagree, the body page is the later research.
Not yet tracked: the other 50 municipalities, twelve school districts, every planning commission and zoning hearing board, the transit authority (LANTA), the airport authority, the municipal water and sewer authorities, the redevelopment and industrial development authorities, and the Valley's delegation to the Pennsylvania General Assembly.
The one thing to know before you go to a meeting
In Pennsylvania you have a statutory right to speak, and it belongs to residents and taxpayers. Section 710.1 of the Sunshine Act requires the board or council of every county, city, borough, township, and school district to give residents or taxpayers a reasonable opportunity to comment before it takes official action.
That is stronger than New York, where no right to speak exists at all. It is also narrower than California, because the Pennsylvania right runs to residents and taxpayers rather than to the public at large, and a body may lawfully draw that line. One Lehigh Valley council has already voted on whether to draw it, and four of the five school boards tracked here have drawn it. See how to speak.
One subsection lower, the statute does something it never advertises. Section 710.1(c): "Any person has the right to raise an objection at any time to a perceived violation of this chapter at any meeting." Any person, not residents and taxpayers, and at any time, not only during the comment period. If a board will not let you comment because you live in the next township, that provision is still yours.
Why this exists
Pennsylvania puts more governments per resident than almost any state. Sixty-two municipalities for 700,000 people means a warehouse gets approved by a five-member board of supervisors that meets on the first Thursday at seven o'clock and has never had a reporter in the room.
Every one of these bodies meets in public. Most of them post an agenda. Fewer than half put a camera in the room. Almost none of what is said gets written down anywhere searchable.
Verified 2026-08-15. Everything on these pages was checked against the government's own site on that date, and every page says what it has not confirmed. The government's own page is authoritative.