Covid Funds And Bureaucrats

With the Covid pandemic, the Feds pumped more money into the municipalities than they know what to do with. Never fear, the non-profits and bureaucrats are stepping forward with solutions for that dilemma. 

Allentown City Council is allocating a $millon for affordable housing on the former parking lot of the former Lehigh Valley Club. In more prosperous days of yesteryear, that facility hosted wedding receptions for the well heeled. 

There's another proposal up the block on the county level, to restart the Lehigh County Redevelopment Agency. You would think that after the state diverted a $Billion to Reilly for his privately owned, publicly financed empire on Hamilton Street, we wouldn't need another redevelopment agency.  But let's not co-mingle Reilly's good fortune with bureaucratic opportunities.

Actually, that redevelopment agency might be needed sooner than this post indicates. I believe that current prices being paid for downtown rental units exceeds the cash flow that they will yield. I'm expecting a lot of boarded up buildings, but that will be a post topic in the future.

The postcard shown above is of the dining room in the former Lehigh Valley Club.  Its former parking lot will now  house affordable housing, built by a development company seeking $1million from Allentown's federal Covid fund chest.

Mistake Of Parking Authority/Lanta

At the Allentown Speak Out forum, Zee, an elderly neighborhood woman, referred to the new Lanta Terminal as Port Authority. She has a point, did Allentown need a Port Authority? In reality the mission of both the Parking Authority and Lanta has become political and distorted, to the detriment of those whom they were intended to serve. I have referred to the Parking Authority in previous posts as a Frankenstein monster who preys on Allentown's poorest residents. Its appetite has recently expanded to include poorer merchants. If it wasn't enough for Lanta to remove the transfer stations from the historical stops near Hamilton Street, the Parking Authority now provides eating and shopping venues for their captured bus riders at the "Terminal". Once upon a time, in Allentown's heyday, the parking meters were monitored by two meter maids in golf carts, employed by the police department. The original mission of the Parking Authority was to facilitate parking for the merchants' behalf. Lanta was suppose to provide the public with transportation to those destinations which enhanced the economic well being of both the riders and the community. The new Allentown Transportation Center fails to serve both the merchants and the riders, conversely, it serves itself by being a mini-mall with virtual prisoners. Allentown City Council now has a member who is on the Lanta Board. The previous Council had a member on the Parking Authority. All the merchants are suffering on Hamilton Street, and already three are closing their doors; City Line Creamery, Hamilton Perk Cafe, and Mish Mash Boutique. The Terminal, new or not, should be closed, and the transfer stops on Hamilton Street should be restored. The public interest is better served by the survival of the Hamilton merchants, than the utilization of the parking deck's adjacent Lanta Terminal.

above reprinted from January 20, 2008

ADDENDUM March 23, 2023: I'm glad to see the Parking Authority coming under scrutiny. As a blogger who has been taking them on for over 15 years,  I marvel at how long they got away with their shenanigans. To a large part the Morning Call was responsible for them not being held accountable. When myself and others would speak out and even document their abuses, the paper turned a blind eye. In 2014 I conducted two press conferences about Authority abuses. One conference the paper ignored, and for the other they took the Authority's answers as gospel. With the press now paying attention, perhaps the best interests of the city and citizens will finally be served.

Crimes By The Wildlands Conservancy

photo by Tami Quigley

The top photo shows the Robin Hood Bridge, before the Wildlands Conservancy demolished the little Robin Hood Dam, just downstream beyond the bridge. The dam was only about 10 inches high, and was built as a visual effect to accompany the bridge in 1941. It was the last WPA project in Allentown, and considered the final touch for Lehigh Parkway. Several years ago, the Wildlands told the Allentown Park Director and City Council that it wanted to demolish the dam. The only thing that stood between their bulldozer and the dam was yours truly. I managed to hold up the demolition for a couple weeks, during which time I tried to educate city council about the park, but to no avail. If demolishing the dam wasn't bad enough, The Wildlands Conservancy piled the broken dam rubble around the stone bridge piers, as seen in the bottom photo. I'm sad to report that the situation is now even worse. All that rubble collected silt, and now weeds and brush is growing around the stone bridge piers. I suppose the Wildlands Conservancy considers it an extension of its riparian buffers.

The Wildlands Conservancy is now going to demolish Wehr's Dam at Covered Bridge Park in South Whitehall. The township commissioners are cooperating, by having a grossly inflated price associated with repairing the dam, to justify a disingenuous referendum. Sadly, by next spring I will be showing you before and after pictures of that crime.

top photo by Tami Quigley

above reprinted from August 2016

UPDATE: To everyone's surprise, especially the Wildlands Conservancy and the South Whitehall Commissioners, the referendum to save the dam was approved by the voters in November of 2016. The Wildlands Conservancy and the South Whitehall Commissioners are now conspiring to have the dam demolished anyway, by exaggerating its problems with the Pa. DEP...I have documented the communication between the Wildlands, State and township,  As for Lehigh Parkway, the Wildlands Conservancy should be made to remove the former dam rubble that is despoiling the vista of the Robin Hood Bridge piers.  I have been trying to interest the Morning Call about the voter suppression in regard to the Wehr's Dam referendum.  In today's paper there is an article about the danger high hazard rated dams pose to residents downstream.  I hope the paper's article today is a coincidence, and not intended to serve the Wildlands conspiracy about Wehr's Dam.  BTW,  Wehr's Dam is rated low hazard, because it poses no danger to residents.

reprinted from November of 2019 and before

UPDATE MARCH 22, 2023: I'm pleased with my part in saving Wehr's Dam. In 2014, the former commissioners were ready to approve the dam demolition by the Wildlands Conservancy, and I prevailed upon them to give a couple more weeks for public input. After Allentown city council approved demolishing the small Robin Hood Dam, the Wildlands had it removed within two days. The articles about that South Whitehall meeting alerted several people, including the descendants of Wehr family. The Wehr's and others did a great job campaigning to save the dam. After weeks of rejecting my editorial letter, the Morning Call finally printed my plea to save the dam before the referendum vote. 

The former commissioners still cooperated with the Wildlands Conservancy in their efforts to demolish the dam, even after the referendum. The dam's future was only actually secured with the new current set of commissioners, and the dam itself was only finally repaired this past summer and fall. 

While I now have faith in the future of Wehr's Dam, the Robin Hood Bridge remains a sorry sight. In my opinion, the Wildlands should pay to have the rubble they deposited by the bridge piers removed. But in the meantime, the city should remove the rubble this summer, and pay the bridge beauty some overdue respect.

A Park Primer For The New Administration

A local activist, Tyler Fatzinger of Fairview Cemetery fame, wrote on Facebook yesterday...

I once attended a community meeting and the mayor was there. The community said how ugly the (park) banks were and wanted them back to how they were for so many years. The mayor responded that the banks were for erosion control and he trusted those individuals who made those decisions because they went to school and had a degree in that field.

In the early 1920's,  Harry Trexler had the park system designed by Meehan Associates of Philadelphia,  the country's leading landscape architectural firm of that time.  They specified that willow trees be planted along the creeks. The spreading shallow root system of those trees  held the banks firmly in place for over 70 years. More so, they allowed both view and access to the creeks.  Families and their children enjoyed the parks for generations.  In 2005, mayor Pawlowski hired a series of  park directors who all had the same background in recreation from Penn State. They were content to farm out park maintenance decisions to the Wildlands Conservancy, which was more than glad to administer grants for the park system. The Wildlands harvested 15% administrative fee for each grant. Their specialty is popular conservation trends, regardless of local specifics. They instituted riparian buffers, which are supposed to filter lawn fertilizer runoff from entering the creeks. In Allentown, however, the storm sewer system is piped directly into the creeks, under the buffers, making them useless for that designated purpose. Meanwhile, as the willow trees started dying out from age, they were not replaced.  This series of recreation trained directors, all from out of town, couldn't care less that both the view and access to the creeks were blocked. One of them told me that when you can only catch a glimpse of the creek, it is more exciting.  Neither The Wildlands Conservancy,  nor their park director lackeys,  realized that these weed walls would cultivate invasive species, including Poison Hemlock.  So the buffers still have to be cut down several times a season, especially with the Little Lehigh and Cedar Creek being sources for the water plant on Martin Luther King Drive.

The time has come to restore the Allentown parks to their former glory.  It's time to plant new willow trees along the banks. Allentown was known for its park system, featured on numerous picture postcards...Let's restore that fame.

postcard of Robin Hood Bridge, Lehigh Parkway, 1955

A Duckling Story In Allentown

Local noted photographer Hub Willson took the extra cute capture shown above in 2010, at a Rose Garden pond.  In the last few years such a photograph would not have been possible, no ducklings survived the grass mowing.

Readers may recall that last year, and in the recent preceding years, I tried to prevent that carnage here on this blog.  Last year, in addition to the park leadership, I even contacted Mayor and Mrs. Tuerk, all to no avail. 

The problem is the fake riparian zones.  The park department feels that they must mow in the spring to curtail the invasive species. Although they claimed to look for nests before mowing, that was like looking for the proverbial needle in the haystack.  If they would keep it mowed, as they did in 2010, the ducks would still find suitable spots for their nests. However, when they don't mow during mating season, then mow after the nests are built,  the season's ducklings are destroyed.

The park department either needs to keep the banks mowed on a regular schedule, or wait to mow after the ducks have left the nest. At that point the grass would be quite high, and it would involve more machinery and labor. 

The park department realizes that because the storm water system is piped under the buffer, directly into the creek, that the buffer doesn't really buffer.  However, it does provide an excuse to cut back somewhat on the mowing budget.  However, the invasive species thrive along the uncut banks, especially Poison Hemlock. Late last summer the park department was mandated to cut the banks, because the invasive situation was so out of hand.

The time has come for the department to return to regular cutting of the banks, as they do with the meadows. Ironically, now it will be more costly, because they planted the new trees along what they hoped would be the outer buffer line. Nevertheless, the health of the park and the ducklings demand it.

Parking Authority Probe

Mayor Matt Tuerk has announced that the city will re-evaluate the usefulness of the Parking Authority to the city and its citizens. In doing so, he stated that the Authority was started back in 1984 to address the parking issues of that day...That was the city line back then, but in reality it was started to bail out some influential owners of Park & Shop. As retail commerce shifted to the malls, the Park & Shop lots no longer thrived as before. 

As an activist and blogger, I have followed the Parking Authority shenanigans for four decades.  As an independent mayoral candidate in 2005, I conducted two press conferences about the Authority.  It was never easy gaining traction against the Authority, because the former private owner of the Morning Call was one of those influential Park & Shop owners. At the time, I was protesting meters extending way out beyond the then existing shopping district, and penalizing the poorest citizens, mostly apartment tenants.  The newspaper instead interviewed the Authority director,  and didn't attend my second conference at all.

Years later, when the Authority doubled the meter rates, I documented to City Council that the Authority fabricated their notion that the merchants wanted the increase. Since at least two members of council were sitting members of the Authority board, that revelation of mine also went ignored.

The Morning Call and the Parking Authority still have been intertwined in conflicts of interest in recent times. The Morning Call building was included in the NIZ map, although it was across Linden Street from the rest of the zone. Authority surface lots, which provided easy convenient parking, as opposed to decks, were sold to chosen developers for low prices. Ethical questioning of that practice was limited to this blog. Former Morning Call property has been transferred between the Authority and a private NIZ developer, for mutual benefit. 

I'm glad to see that recent public outrage over the Parking Authority ticketing practices has prompted the mayor into action. Kudos to Betty Cauler and others for their current activism. If the city really needs to spend $10K to $20K in their evaluation is questionable, but hopefully the outcome will justify the expense.

Shown above is the Parking Authority ticketing people for street sweeping in 2008, despite the snow.                                                                                                                                         

photo and outrage by molovinsky