Molovinsky For Allentown

Before this Molovinsky On Allentown blog began in 2007, there was Molovinsky for Allentown mayoral campaign in 2005. If you think that this blog is ignored by the Morning Call now, you should have seen the treatment they gave me in 2005. Actually, you couldn't have seen it, because they ignored my press conferences and only mentioned me in a smearing way. Although I was on the ballot as an independent, they never once published my photograph, or any picture with me in it.

I bring this up now, nineteen years later, because of current news about the Allentown Parking Authority. I was on their case, even back then. I held a press conference in front of their then headquarters at 10th and Hamilton Sts. The MC reporter ignored me, and instead interviewed the Authority's director at the time, and wrote about the wonderful things the Authority was doing for Allentown. 

The roof of that headquarters was the original Park&Shop parking deck, first in the country! When Park&Shop became less viable, the Allentown Parking Authority was started to take the big boys, including Morning Call owner Donald Miller, off the hook. The Parking Authority has been a behind the scenes handmaiden for the big boys ever since. 

Currently, the building is a satellite police station. The Tuerk administration now wants to sell it back to the Authority. The mayor is offended that some people think a shenanigan might be cooking. Whatever the backroom deal is, I'm sure you'll never read about it in the Morning Call.

Pictured above in 2005, I'm explaining the recent history of a restored house on Liberty Street. It had been restored, at our expense, three times in two years. If you want to know more about that, you won't find it in the Morning Call, they ignored that news conference too.

shown above screen grab from WFMZ

A Call To Arms

The above poster was circulated on social media Tuesday afternoon. The photo used, taken by this blogger last year, features many of those activists who feel disenfranchised by the Tuerk administration. At issue on the citizen side is which non-profits are supported by city hall, and which aren't.  At issue on the city council dais is the decorum of the protesters. 

If all the above wasn't enough for a lively meeting, not all city council members are on the same page. While Candida Affa is traditionally a staunch supporter of current administrations, Ed Zucal shares more and more sentiments with the citizen side. The protesters are particularly interested in a proposal to divert left over grant money to the general fund, as opposed to funding more non-profits. This proposal was forwarded by both Affa and Zucal, illustrating the ongoing dynamic tension between council, city hall and the activists.

One of the protesters is Jessica Lee Ortiz. This past weekend her organization, The Ortiz Ark Foundation, ran a highly successful, well publicized Easter Egg hunt at Stevens Park. 

Everyone has their own agenda,..I'm always promoting long overdue WPA restorations in our park system.

ADDENDUM: Jessica Lee Ortiz and the non-profit advocates prevailed. The city will set up applications and a scoring system for allocation of $1.2mil.

Municipal Wishful Thinking

One of the things that annoys me most is municipal wishful thinking. Perhaps nothing exemplifies that more than bicycle lanes. 

In the grit of real center city, cyclists are pre-teen boys, who haven't yet acquired enough for their unlicensed dirt bike. Instead, they pop wheelies on their bicycles, like their older brothers do on their loud dirt bikes. and ride down the middle of the street. 'They practice going the wrong way, and ignoring traffic lights. 

Meanwhile, in Delusionalville, elected officials  takes credit for the bicycle stencil grants, wasting our tax dollars on complete uselessness. I remember the trash compactors, as if they would solve the littering problem.

If my tone sounds somewhat more bitter than usual, it's because I think time's running out for the Allentown I knew. This city west of Bethlehem will still be called Allentown, but it won't resemble anything I remember. Likewise, I'm sure the old timers in Reading can say the same thing.

As I peck away on the typewriter with this municipal obituary, I do take solace from pictures of an inner city Easter Egg hunt.  Those mothers want better for their children. I would have liked to see more fathers there, but there were some. These are tougher times in every way than my Allentown was. All these new buildings on Hamilton Street mean nothing except to the few people who own them. The smoke stacks are long gone, and so are the high paying union jobs that they fostered. Immigrants still want to come here, the left over bones from our industrial past are still more than from where they come from.

How to fold this all together, the memories with new realities, is a tough recipe. 

Radio Molovinsky Wishful Thinking PodBlast

The Bicycles Of Allentown youtube by Gary Ledebur

The Weigh-In

                                            Madison Square Garden, March 27, 1942
When they met for the first time the previous March, Abe Simon battled Joe Louis for 13 rounds. The Detroit crowd went wild that the Jewish giant from New York could absorb Louis's punches. Louis had the power of Mike Tyson and the finesse of Muhammad Ali. When it was revealed that Simon had fought with a broken hand, the Madison Garden rematch became a big ticket. Louis knocked Simon out in the sixth round. It would be Simon's last fight.
click on photo to enlarge

DECEMBER OF 2012 IS FIGHT MONTH, WITH 29 JOE LOUIS ERA FIGHT POSTS

Allentown's Poor Park Decisions

Allentown had one of the finest park systems in the United States, but one national fad after another has diminished it. 

After the Park and Recreation departments were combined, former mayor Ed Pawlowski  hired a succession of recreation trained directors, who in turn farmed out park policy to the Wildlands Conservancy.  The Conservancy, like many of our other local sacred cows, have more influence than expertise, and promote trendy fads, not always site appropriate.  

While the banks of our park streams were secured with Weeping Willows, rather than replace the aging willows, the Conservancy pushed for Riparian Buffers.  The buffers become infested with invasive species which have to be cut down several time a season. Several years ago Allentown was warned by the DEP about Poison Hemlock infecting our drinking water supply from the Little Lehigh. Before the downside of these buffers were fully realized by the park department, all the new trees were planted out away from the creeks, only complicating the grass mowing. In the meantime, our citizens are cut off from both access and beauty of the creeks.

The Wildlands Conservancy, also in alignment with national trends, demolished two important dams on the Little Lehigh. After demolishing the Fish Hatchery Dam, that facility suffered the biggest fish loss in its history from flooding. Demolishing the Robin Hood Bridge Dam has despoiled the beautiful bridge piers and that immediate area, which formally was the pride of the park system.

I take great pride in having fought against all the above violations by the Conservancy. While I lost those battles in Allentown, I was able to help save Wehr's Dam in Covered Bridge Park from their schemes.

What brings me back to the parks today* is the announcement that Allentown has secured a grant to continue its plan to connect the parks with a trail. While the promotion states that the Trail Network is for walkers and cyclists, reality is very much different. As a walker, I can tell you that any of the Allentown parks is long enough...The connection is really for the cyclists. Any walker in the park will tell you that it's frightening and dangerous when a cyclist zooms by you. 

As a longtime advocate for the parks, I could show the city where this grant money could be much better spent in restoring neglected existing features in our parks. We do not need to connect the neglect, but rather address and save our separate parks.

Decades ago picture postcards of our park system would be sent across the country. Now-a-days. those images are nostalgic reminders of what we've lost.

1955 picture postcard of Lehigh Parkway, before being despoiled

*Over the weekend Mayor Tuerk admired the creek bank in Lehigh Parkway. He should realize that by mid-summer that bank will be hidden with a 6' tall weed wall under current park policy. Also over the weekend state representative Pete Schweyer announced Allentown was awarded the grant to connect the parks. He should realize that we would be better off restoring the parks, instead of connecting them.

Whose Parks Are They?

  photocredit:Denise Sanchez

I used this picture of a cute little girl in 2010 fishing with her daddy, using her Barbie fishing pole. Although the post at that time had her name, now fourteen years later, using it would it be an invasion of her privacy. My point then, as now, is that the park department should keep the creek banks mowed, so that a father and daughter can share such an experience. 

Although Mayor Tuerk and Mandy Tolino, Director of Parks, may not realize it, I have been very gentle toward them compared to their predecessors. But, as my hair thins, so does my patience. Parks and Recreation are combined departments. While I have no opinions concerning the recreation programs, I feel strongly about the parks, especially the WPA structures. 

As the summer progresses, I will be sharing those feelings here on this blog.

photocredit:Denise Sanchez