The Gems of Allentown

The press release announcing Weitzel's departure, describes the combining of Allentown's Park and Recreation Departments as an accomplishment; It was of course a disaster. Weitzel, with a background in recreation, turned some of the parks into an overused playground, while completely ignoring others. The combining of the positions, while sacrificing the historical park system, saved the city no money;Pawlowski meanwhile created a host of new positions at the top level of his administration. Unfortunately, the traditional guardian and benefactor of the park system, the Trexler Trust, became dominated by Pawlowski sycophants. The current major plan for the park system's future centers on cycling, creating a network of interlinking paths between the parks. With the exception of myself and a few others, there are no defenders for the historical system, what were the Gems of Allentown. Pawlowski has politicized the parks, like everything else. The Friends of the Parks, are in reality, friends of Pawlowski. When I, with appreciated help, dug up the buried Boat Landing  in the Parkway, neither Pawlowski or Weitzel had known it ever existed, nor did they care. The Morning Call never ran a story on the subject; A WPA built structure buried for over 40 years by a former Park Director. Let us hope that Pawlowski now hires someone with some appreciation of our classic park system.

Doomed For Failure

The Allentown Hockey Arena is doomed to fail. With only 40 home games, 325 nights is too many to fill. The Sands Casino has already sucked the air of the local concert market, with one name act after another being announced. The Sands can well afford to use their concert venue as a lost leader for their casino. Ironically, while the price tag for Allentown's white elephant is now $220million, the Sands Concert space only cost $12million. While wide eyed Pawlowski and the profiting minions envision a hotel, no minor league hockey fan has ever stayed in a hotel. I have coined the phrase Hockeygate for this misstep in Allentown redevelopment. While the main victim of this fiasco will be the taxpayers of Allentown, other victims and scapegoats will be sacrificed. I would imagine that Scott Fainor, CEO of the main lending bank, KNBT, has been having some sleepless nights. Assuming the minions get pass the lawsuits, the bonds will be a hard sell, requiring that higher interest be returned to the risk takers. After about five years of underperforming, the city will announce a new manager for the arena. Ten years after that, a new mayor will suggest it's demolition. I recall when the canopy was supposed to save downtown Allentown; We know how that turned out. This post adds a few thoughts to my former post, Pawlowski's Expensive Hole.
photo credit:The Morning Call/Harry Fisher

Consigliere's Marathon

The photo shown here is one year old. Last year at this time, O'Hare and I were engaged in a Blog War, passionately taking opposite sides on the Gracedale issue. Because Bernie has the expertise to file lawsuits, I actually cropped off his stomach in the photo, as not to enrage him. I labeled the photo The Consigliere. I reprint it now because yesterday Bernie ran and completed a half marathon. Anybody who can lose that much weight and prepare to run 13 miles in less than a year is probably nuts, just the same, congratulations.

Park Director Departing

molovinsky on allentown has learned that park and recreation director Greg Weitzel is planning to move on to new pastures. Although only here for five years, the scar he leaves on the parks will last for decades. Trained as a recreation specialist, he had no feel for what was the gem of Allentown, our park system. Obsessed with cycling, he paved all the paths in CedarPark, and added an additional path across the previous open space. He then purchased exercise stations and other novelties for his newly paved roads. Meanwhile, the irreplaceable features of the park system were allowed to deteriorate; The WPA stone structures are in a perilous condition. These assaults against our heritage were enabled from the politicization of the Trexler Trust, the main benefactor of the park system. The Trust is dominated by Pawlowski confidant Malcolm Gross. Although not a dollar was spent on the WPA structures, the Malcolm Gross Memorial Rose Garden, named after his grandfather, was completely renovated. When Pawlowski departs Allentown, we will be encumbered with the arena, a $200million dollar white elephant. Weitzel is leaving us with crumbling infrastructure in the parks, but a grand cycling network, inter-connecting all the neglect in our parks. Pawlowski, preoccupied and consumed with the arena project, and opposition to it, might appoint park superintendent Rick Holtzman as Weitzel's replacement. Expect The Morning Call to verify this story by Wednesday, but once again fail to credit this blog.
UPDATE:  Both Devon Lash of The Morning Call and Colin McEvoy of the Express Times reported  Monday afternoon, at the exact same time, 2:53pm,  that Weitzel is resigning.
Official Allentown Announcement

Bernie's Blogosphere

This post is about Bernie O'Hare. Because I haven't seen him in about a month, and he's been losing about 20lbs. a week, I decided to represent him with the high energy geezer from the amusement park, instead of an outdated photograph. Last night Bernie wrote 7 posts on his blog. The Morning Call had 8 local stories, but they were written by seven different people. In addition to being the most prolific writer in the local blogosphere, he attends more meetings than the newspaper staff(s) combined. (Morning Call and Express Times). In between he writes for the Free Press, runs off 20 lbs. a week, and operates his title search business. I write one post six days a week, and next to Bernie, may well be the most productive blogger. (definitions of productive and blogger may differ). In tribute to his productivity, or obsessions, depending on your point of view, I publish this today, instead of tomorrow.

Molovinsky Breaks Stories

April of 2011 was a big month for this blog. On April 14, I broke the story that former school superintendent Zahorchak had hired Joyce Marin,

 to accommodate Ed Pawlowski. The hiring was snuck into a long list of minor personnel changes, and unnoticed by the school directors. Two days later, I broke the story that the City was buying up the arena block, and using a straw buyer to boot. As I worked the Marin story, it would come to include an email exchange between myself and Zahorchak, acknowledging the hire, and a public statement by school director Zimmerman. Zimmerman's note confirmed the subterfuge used by Zahorchak. On April 19, Morning Call caught up on my stories about Joyce Marin and also the Arena. Education reporter Steve Esack wrote about the Marin hire, crediting this blog. His editor, Mike Miorelli, changed "molovinsky on allentown" to "local blogger". Needless to say, I didn't take that well. I wrote a post criticizing Miorelli for failing to give proper attribution. Yesterday, the School Administration announced that Marin's position was eliminated. An article in today's Morning Call mentions the controversy and Zimmerman, but not this blog. Although it's my normal practice to link to Morning Call stories I refer to, and credit the reporter, I'll skip that courtesy today.
 UPDATE: Several days ago I noticed that my November post, entitled Mayo Can't Add, which took the new superintendent to task for not undoing some of Zahorchak's manipulations, was getting multiple views. Yesterday, Mayo announced the elimination of some new positions created by Zahorchak. Regardless of what factors influenced Mr. Mayo, I congratulate him for tightening up the ship.