Housing Court For Allentown

The Morning Call picked up on a woke premise that perhaps Allentown should have a special tenant court, which would provide or steer tenants facing evictions to legal council. With such council, tenants have statistically staved off eviction longer.

I happen to know quite a bit about this. For 35 years I operated a number of apartments in center city. In all those years I never received one building code violation, or had one complaint by a tenant. However, I did have to file evictions. 

Allentown became a poorer city quite rapidly. Competing social agencies handed out money for rent and security deposit. As news of these giveaways spread to New Jersey and New York, low income people flocked to Allentown. 

Allentown now has a large core of low income people. Unfortunately, some of these people are also low-discipline. While they could afford their apartment, paying rent isn't a priority for them. At the same time real estate prices have risen dramatically. Recent landlords need a steady rent flow to meet their debt service. 

What would be worse for Allentown than evicted tenants, much worse, would be abandoned buildings.

The Shadow Returns

In 2009, I presented a series of posts as the Shadow Mayor. I contended that I donned a janitor outfit and worked undetected in City Hall, where I was able to ascertain secrets and shenanigans concerning the Pawlowski Administration.  Whether that disguise was real or fictional, this blog's disclosures, along with those of blogger Bernie O'Hare, became of interest to the FBI years later, in their investigation of Allentown.

The Shadow retired during Ray O'Connell's time in the fifth floor, but now is coming back, to monitor Matthew Tuerk. I must clarify that I suspect no shenanigans or illegality from Tuerk, whatsoever, but rather think that his policies need surveillance. 

I have been told that he has run out of flags to raise from the Caribbean, Central and South America, and now is looking to Africa for sister cities. He also supposedly wants to make Genderfluid Identity Support a cabinet position.

I apologize for being a dinosaur, and thinking that Mayor Tuerk is too concerned with things beyond the proper scope of city government.  Although I will not reveal my new disguise, I will admit that I have dyed my hair. Although Tuerk wants to protect every possible type of personal choice, I heard that regard for the elderly isn't high on his priority list. In Tuerk's younger and younger City Hall, my gray hair would have given me away.

above reprinted from November of 2022 

ADDENDUM MARCH 6, 2024:Mayor Tuerk is excited about the iconic PPL building being sold for apartments. It sold for $9million, which is less than a fraction of its replacement cost. As a Shadow Mayor, I would be excited if it was being turned into condominiums, where a group of invested owners might create a demand for some vibrancy downtown.

Meanwhile, outside of Reillyville in Realityville, there was another shooting this past weekend on the east side. We learned that the victims are not cooperating with the police...Apparently, there were no innocents involved.

As  Shadow Mayor, I would be excited to take non-cooperating shooting victims and roust them out of town!

RADIO MOLOVINSKY

Wednesday morning, March 6th at 6:30AM, I hope to kick off a live internet radio program. I'm starting with 15minute segments as I explore and learn about the medium. I invite my fellow early morning humans to join me putting together an alternative talk venue for independent conservatives. Use the link below to find the program.

Radio Molovinsky

Speaking Nonsense In Allentown

Allentown's gaggle of elected for life gathered in front of Reilly's Marketplace on the Arts Walk to endorse the state's new Main Street Initiative to spend $25 mil to boost the state's main streets. Never mind that although over a $Billion dollars of development went into Reillyville, not one original business or eatery has survived. Despite each new business given free promotion from the Morning Call, not one of them still exists. 

Among the lifers speaking were state reps. Schlossberg, Schweyer and Miller.*  

Perhaps I will have to renew their Molovinsky On Allentown subscriptions to instill a smidgen of real into our elected officials, but I don't think that their voter base holds them too accountable in regard to reality.

* lifer in training

A Jewish Sport

Jewish fighters dominated boxing between the World Wars. In around 1930, a third of all fighters were Jewish, by far the largest ethnic group. Some fighters even purported to be Jewish when they were not, such as the Baer brothers. Jews ruled the light and welterweight divisions, with long time champions Benny Leonard and Barney Ross. Ten world championships were fought with both men in the ring being Jewish. Boxing has long been an economic ladder for immigrant and minority groups.
photo of Jewish heavyweights King Levinsky and Art Lasky, 1934

reprinted from February 2011

Jostling With Windmills

I had a chance encounter with an opponent of the water lease plan in the grocery store. The person mentioned how tiring the battle has been, and how difficult it will be to succeed with keeping the water system in the citizen's hands. I know a little bit about this exhaustion, I have been fighting City Hall for well over a decade, as an army of one. The last group I belonged to was the Cub Scouts. I ran as an independent for office. I think my visits to City Hall inspired some of the security buffers now in place. There are few reporters, or editors, at The Morning Call that I haven't had words with, at one time or another. I could list a few victories here, but I won't risk jinxing my limited success. Blogging has been a fortunate vehicle for me. My detractors would be shocked to see a who's who of my readership. I thank you for that.                                                                     Michael Molovinsky 

above reprinted from September of 2012 

ADDENDUM MARCH 1, 2024:I'm a certified slow learner. Although over another decade has passed, I'm still jostling with the windmills. The first mayor I wrestled with when starting this blog is now up the river. While the current mayor makes junkets to the Caribbean to visit his voter base, and my downtown early morning coffee shops, along with the buildings they were in, have been demolished and replaced by NIZ boxes, I still forage out looking for the remnants of Allentown's past.