Pawlowski's Facebook Responses

Having a problem with Allentown city government, you might want to try Facebook instead of City Hall. Early this morning,  Mayor Ed Pawlowski used Facebook to assure Joanne Bauer that he would have the new police chief investigate her complaints. Joanne had her car stolen, and that was only the beginning of her ordeal. She wasn't happy with the way the Allentown Police responded, or didn't, along each stage of the crime. Bernie O'Hare will report on Joanne's full story tomorrow.  The mayor regularly answers questions on his Facebook page, but also reaches out to concerns posted on other pages.

UPDATE: Bernie O'Hare has an excellent post on Joanne's ordeal, and concludes that the Allentown Police Department fails it's citizens, partially because of low man power.  I had similar experiences with the police department 20+ years ago, when manpower wasn't an issue.  In truth, gathering evidence from a stolen car would be a low priority task in the best of times.  While it's a trauma for Joanne, Pawlowski managed to gain some public relations miles from the incident, via Facebook.

Allentown Weather Forecast

Expect chairs in the street and angry neighbors. Smaller streets and alleys will see no service. Center city shoppers should expect no cleared parking spaces, but parking tickets continuing throughout the day.

Auburn Street train tower, 1964

High Culture - Free Admission

Getting Mail by K Mary Hess       Photos of Lehigh Valley                                                      

The $4 million Dollar Question

The Morning Call reported today, in an excellent article by Emily Opilo, that Allentown spent $4 million in legal fees, consultants and public relations to shepherd through it's controversial water lease. An issue not addressed by the article was the failed referendum by the citizen group. The referendum didn't fail with the voters, it failed to get on the ballot, despite containing about 4,000 signatures. It was determined by election officials that the referendum wording put the initiative into the realm of the city charter, and required a different time frame than that used by the petitioners. With the administration spending $4 million on opinion benders, imagine the pressure that might have been applied to those empowered to reject placing the referendum on the ballot.

The Gentle Giant

For a few years Abe Simon was the biggest man in the ring. Because of his size and the family's need for income in the 1930's, Abe got into the ring, and fought the best of them. He was a gentle man and didn't have the usual boxer's temperament. He had a winning record, including knocking out Jersey Joe Walcott. He endured 13 rounds of punishment in his first title fight with Joe Louis, earning him another chance, and another beating by Louis. Those interested in the Louis era can click on December of 2012 in the archive section, on the right sidebar of this blog.

Allentown, All Future No Present

Except for the 800 block of Hamilton Street, the merchants of center city are on their own about snow and litter. After the snow finally melted, the parking spaces and sidewalks were back to the accumulated litter and left over leafs from the fall. Although disruption of service can be expected with so much construction, what we're seeing is total disregard for the existing, taxpaying businesses of downtown. Although their state taxes are being funneled to the beneficiaries of the NIZ, they are not receiving even basic service. Although Pawlowski and Company may think that they can deter service until the arena project is complete, do a cleanup, and people will come, the locals don't roll that way. Perceptions and patterns are made over time, and a few new shiny buildings won't change that.