Allentown Rubber Stamping Even Stuns Local Newspaper

Nobody has ever accused The Morning Call of being analytical about the NIZ. To the contrary, I've accused them of blind cheerleading and outright promotion in their articles about the Renaissance. However, even they found the recent Allentown Planning Commission meeting lacking in scrutiny. The meeting pertained to maintaining a warehouse on the waterfront parcel, to take advantage of the  cigarette tax loophole.

Planning commissioners asked developers almost no questions before unanimously approving the proposal, but Chairman Oldrich Foucek III questioned whether the operation, which would have one to two tractor trailer deliveries daily, would have any impact on the health and safety of the community.

Jaindl's attorney answered "No, it won't adversely effect anybody's health or safety, and here's a puppy biscuit for your good question."

Fading Park Postcards Of Allentown

While Allentown continues it's efforts to establish a dog park, the parks themselves are going to the dogs. Take an aging park system, combine it with an administration composed of people from out of town with no institutional memory of the city, and the the famous images of Allentown are disappearing . This year the dogs got more time in Cedar Beach Pool than the residents. Cedar Beach is closed for the season; Of course, that's what they said when Fountain Pool first closed. The stone stairwell, going down into Union Terrace off St. Elmo Street, is crumbling. The park is now called Joseph S. Daddona Lake and Terrace. With Cedar Pool closed, Irving Park, with the first pool in the city, will be renamed Andre Reed Park. One stone staircase in that park was removed several years ago, rather than repaired. It won't be too long before people look at an old park postcard, and wonder where that picture was taken.

Allentown's Success Based On Smoke And Dummies

J.B. Reilly and Joe Topper have purchased a cigarette distributorship and moved the business address to their 702 Hamilton Street address. This maneuver allows their company, City Center Own Allentown, to use the $1.60 per pack Pennsylvania cigarette tax toward the debt service on their growing empire. Perhaps this was the conflict of interest which propelled Reilly to resign his position on the hospital board. One would like to think that tobacco taxes are used for health care, not private enrichment.

UPDATE: The above is reprinted from February of 2012. The cigarette loophole proved enormously lucrative.  Instead of relying on employee taxes poached from other places in Lehigh Valley, the NIZ barons could now build more and more buildings, funded by smokers everywhere.  While originally building just for the poached businesses, it allowed the barons to start building on speculation.  The Jaindl Company,  now following that successful game plan, is also purchasing a cigarette wholesaler.  This means that instead of tenants waiting for completion,  we will have new empty buildings waiting for tenants.  It gets much worse if we use a moral compass.  The cigarette taxes had been used to fund CHIP,  children's health insurance, and other health related programs. A large portion of those funds now go to finance these privately owned real estate empires.  HOW DID THIS HAPPEN? In the last election for state representatives, seven of the eleven incumbents were unopposed.  They are, to a person, inept and complacent.  Of course, the dirt dumb voters also deserve credit.

Blogging Lite

I saw this picture this morning on the page of a facebook friend. In real life we don't even know each other. The strawberries were meant to be nothing more than strawberries. Another friend asked where he got them, and the poster gave the address of the fruit stand. I thought how much more relaxing that would be, instead of writing that the mayor should fire the police chief, for being involved in unnecessary tension between different police agencies. I also think that it would be more relaxing to just give directions to farm stands, rather than receiving antagonistic anonymous comments all day. I probably won't turn into a food or puff blogger, it's not my nature, but here's one portion anyway.

Pawlowski Double Downs On Fitzgerald

Pawlowski has put on the happy face by linking on facebook to articles proclaiming Junior Fitzgeralds' not guilty decision, but he knows the situation is far from innocent. Even the most avid supporters I know were disappointed when they found out that the Fitzgerald family turned down the ARD offered by Martin. They believed that the family was defending Juniors' future, so he would  be able to follow his parents footsteps in law enforcement. The Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition program would have allowed that, by expunging the arrest record. The Fitzgeralds declined, because Junior would have to admit that he pointed a gun and apologize to the detectives. Supposedly, he was a model suspect because he did apologize while in custody. Handcuffed to a wall in the Whitehall Township police station, Christopher Fitzgerald apologized for pulling a gun on two detectives and insisted he only did so because he was scared. The Morning Call, May 29, 2015. Another condition of the ARD was that their attorney, Jack McMahon, would have to retract his assertion of racial profiling. Even though McMahon was willing to do that, and recommended accepting the ARD program, the Fitzgeralds declined on principle. So, the chief and his family had an opportunity to avoid the trial, avoid the insinuation of racial profiling, and most importantly, avoid the tension with fellow law enforcement, but chose not to. Pawlowski can double down with facebook, but lets hope he's not really proud. The credibility of law enforcement was eroded by a man that we brought here, and are paying to defend it. Although those who defended the Fitgeralds,  before knowledge of the ARD offer became public, are privately disappointed, you won't hear them admit it. It's too politically incorrect, they would rather double down.

Stairway To Shame

In the mid 1930's, Allentown, and especially it's park system, was endowed with magnificent stone edifices, courtesy of the WPA; Works Progress Administration. This was a New Deal program designed to provide employment during the aftermath of the depression. Stone masons from all over the country converged on this city and built structures which are irreplaceable. The walls and step structures in Lehigh Parkway, as the Union Terrace amphitheater, are legacies which must be protected. Pictured above is the grand stairway from Lawrence Street (Martin Luther King Drive) up to Union Street, built in 1936. The steps are in a state of disrepair. They lead to the great Union Street Retaining Wall, twenty five feet high and two blocks long, which was completed in 1937. I call upon the Trexler Trust and Allentonians of memory, to insist that these steps are re-pointed and preserved. The current Administration knows nothing of our past, and really has no commitment to our future. Save the things in Allentown that matter.
reprinted from September 2008

UPDATE JUNE 2015:It's seven years later, and I'd like to say there has been some progress, but it hasn't happen. While Pawlowski is on his third term as mayor, we're on our third park director, and not one $dollar has been spent on one WPA project, in all these years. Actually, the state of our historic structures has significantly declined. An indifferent administration allowed The Wildlands Conservancy to demolish the scenic Robin Hood Dam, which was only ten inches high, and was the companion piece to the Robin Hood Bridge. Built in 1941, it was the last WPA structure completed in Allentown. Union Terrace, which was the last large scale WPA project, built in 1937, is rapidly deteriorating. While the park department concentrates on playgrounds and parking lots, it's losing the stone structures which make the park system iconic. They will never be able to be replaced.