Allentown News and molovinsky on allentown

Today, I was going to do another Yom Kippur post, this time on the 1973 war in Israel. On October 6th, Yom Kippur in 1973, 500 Israeli soldiers defending the Sinai, were attacked by 80,000 Egyptians. Instead, I'm going to write about a really surprised and outnumbered group, the Allentown taxpayers. Although, I would prefer to concentrate on the progress of the baby ducks at Cedar Park, Bernie O'Hare and Bill White compel me to indulge in this political stuff, as Emma of Allentown's past would say.

Today, O'Hare at Ramblings, writes about the NIZ not being accountable, if he only knew to what extent. In my recent sit down with Alan Jennings, he had the same complaint, and he's on the NIZ board. With passing through over $30 million in state tax dollars each year to J.B. Reilly, that amount exceeds the budget of many Lehigh Valley municipalities. It's ironic that the ethics of Kathleen Kane are being are scrutinized, when the state has neither a budget, or one responsible representative in Harrisburg. To heighten the irony, we have the largest full time statehouse in the country, or in other words, the most crooks.

While all this is going on, Bill White is emailing me, that my comment to his recent article, about how good the Morning Call coverage of the NIZ is, must have been deleted by an automatic program, which hunts and deletes inappropriate words. I suppose that telling the truth about Allentown's Revitalization is inappropriate.

So my friends, you are truly under served by me, who prefers to write about the WPA walls in Lehigh Parkway. You are also left uninformed by the Morning Call, which insists that it's cheerleading for Reilly's empire is actually hard news.

Yom Kippur 1965

Scott Armstrong, Magnet For Controversy

Of all the candidates running for Allentown school board in November, and there was perhaps the largest primary field in Allentown's history last May, none is more controversial than Scott Armstrong. The irony is that none of the candidates are more plain spoken and straight forward than Scott. In a city dominated by liberal Democrats, a conservative Republican becomes a lightening rod. Armstrong actually criticizes the teacher's union for their contract demands, and defends the superintendent. Here's a sample of the current frenzy worked up about Armstrong.

I think that fellow incumbent Scott Armstrong is a right-wing extremist who is not only racially divisive but an obstructionist to getting anything done by the rest of the board. He creates such a toxic environment at school board meetings that I cringe just being in the same room with him. He is not only not a part of the solution, but also he is a big part of the problem on the ASD Board, and he has to go.

The above slur appeared on facebook. For two terms now, defeating Armstrong has actually been a campaign theme for some candidates. As an writer on Allentown, and politically independent, I could endorse no better candidate than Armstrong. He's a home owner near Allen high, sent his kids there, and has been involved in every aspect of Allentown School District for the last decade.

It's going to be a knock down race this November. Ce-Ce Gerlach has developed nothing less than a grass roots machine. Charlie Thiel, first part of the Pawlowski chosen slate, has been positioning himself for the post Pawlowski period in the local Democratic machine.  But only Armstrong, truly represents the taxpayer with no ambition beyond the school board.

Readers of this blog know that in addition to addendum's and updates, I also do unannounced rewrites. Consequently, the post you read at 7:30 AM, may be quite different than the version at 5:30PM. This post may well become part of that category.

Allentown's Deluded Of The Month

I'm not sure who's more deluded this month, Mayor Ed Pawlowski, or Morning Call columnist Bill White. Since Pawlowski got visited by the FBI, he can't get enough of the little people. He's been attending little hispanic churches and posing with center city children. Two months ago, he was dining in NYC, and bending arms for campaign contributions. Ed's fall came from simple greed. Years ago he spend over a $million in taxpayer money to make City Hall user friendly. This year, he and his campaign manager instead conspired to sell access to him and city hall, quite a difference. Truth be told, Pawlowski and Fleck had nothing to do with the arena and that NIZ $billion of taxpayer money, so they went for their own little taste.

Bill White is offended because the blogs have reported that both he and his paper have been lite on scrutiny of the mayor and Allentown's Revitalization. Although he wrote an article detailing his and the paper's articles, he didn't mention these blogs by name. When I filled in the names of those blogs, he deleted the comment. Another truth be told, there has been nothing written or revealed of substance about the NIZ, which did not appear first on this blog, including information provided by others in my comment section. The paper was even officially comprised by having their building included in the NIZ, when it was the only property on north side of Linden Street included. Now, that would be something for Bill to write about.

ADDENDUM: Bill White states by email that he did not delete my comment on mcall.   He states that there is an automatic program, which deletes comments which contain offensive words. There were no such words in my comment, and it was deleted, within 24 hours.

screen grab from Pawlowski's facebook page, which is now a study in humility. 

A Fib and A Truth In Allentown

In a recent piece, Bill Kitten White explained that although the paper may have fibbed once or twice about Mayor Pawlowski, they are telling the truth about the NIZ, and it's wonderful. As if on cue, today's paper states that the Reillyville restaurants are preparing for the 10,000 Men Unity Conference at PPL Center on Saturday. After getting past the headline, and reading the article, Shula's better hold off on ordering more steaks, but perhaps Chickie's and Pete's might need a few more hot dogs, but I doubt even that. We find out that 3,000 tickets have been distributed, but the organizers are hopeful that more men attend. It's intent is to encourage men to fulfill their obligations, in regard to family and children. As if the restaurant bull wasn't enough, the article explains that a number of rooms at the new Renaissance Hotel have been set aside. Since they go for about $200 a night, those men would be better off saving that money for their children. Did I forget to mention that Ed Pawlowski is going to the event. He said that "It's important to take a step back from all the distractions in our lives...". Wonder what's distracting him?

ADDENDUM: Bill White's piece does NOT concede any fibbing about Pawlowski,  and defends it's coverage of the NIZ. It does take molovinsky and Ramblings to task, (but not by name) for our  criticism of the Morning Call coverage. Although White claims that the paper broke numerous stories, he omits the fact that his paper has never given attribution to this blog, for the stories broken here.  I found  White's version of the paper's coverage so distorted, I must have hallucinated that he admitted fibbing.

ADDENDUM 2: At the carnival, when you spin sugar fast enough, it becomes cotton candy. Likewise, when the paper indulges in spinning an event, especially to an absurd degree,  (such as this Unity event,)  it does become a fib.

UPDATE: Bill White deleted my comment off his mcall article,  criticizing him for not mentioning this blog by name.  Furthermore,  today(September 20th), a year late, the Morning Call finally gets around to reporting that the Allentown Arena was the most expensive arena ever built.

Rumble At the Reagan Library

As a conservative independent, I have no use for Hillary Clinton, and less for Bernie Sanders. Even though I'll be late opening the bakery this morning, I stayed up last night and watched the debate. I was actually more impressed with the undercard. Sans Santorum, Pataki, Jindal and Graham were compelling. But, as Marshall McLuhan said, the medium is the message, and those gentlemen, relegated to the second tier in the second debate, are no longer part of the medium.

 On the main card, the overly crowded field was almost like cage wrestling, too many people vying for camera time. In that regard, I felt that CNN had the camera on Trump a disportioncate amount of time. For foreign policy geeks, hearing that Trump will surround himself with experts, as opposed to being one, must be excruciatingly painful. I believe that if Marco Rubio could make himself appear older, he would be a real contender. I might send him some of my gray hair dye, it has helped me looked more distinguished. Getting back to McLuhan, Trump may have again stole the show by default. Although Jeb Bush was more aggressive, he only managed to play into Trump's portrayal of him as unenergetic. In that regard, Ben Carson appears to be self medicated. The other doctor, Rand Paul, also cannot shed the Trump barbs. Huckabee has cast himself more as a pastor than a viable politician. Both the governors, Walker and Kasich, failed to stand out. Ted Cruz presented himself well, but the media has marginalized him as too right for America. Although Christie held his own, he still looks like he caused that traffic jam at the bridge, trying to get to the donut shop before it closed. Certainly, Carly Fiorina also held her own, but I don't think that she has enough spunk to break through this large men's field.

I'm back to Marshall McLuhan and the persuasive media. If Trump produces some commercials which succeed in adding some world expertise to augment his bravado, the White House might become the next reality show.

Abuse At Cedar Park

After the previous park director, John Mikowychok, was here only three weeks, he endorsed the Wildlands Conservancy demolishing the Robin Hood Dam. To add insult to injury, he allowed them to pile the destroyed dam rubble around the stone piers of the Robin Hood Bridge, depreciating the beauty of a view enjoyed by generations of Allentonians. I told Mikowychok at the time, that however long he stays in Allentown, he will never climb out of the hole in damage he allowed. As it turned out, he  stayed only about a year.  The new park director, Lindsay Taylor, has already dug her self a rut. This past weekend, after last Thursday's rain flooded Cedar Park, the heavy support and supply trucks for Artsfest rutted the soft park ground. The ArtsFest is a nice event, but it's held in the wrong place. It's the wrong place for the overused and abused park, and it's the wrong place for the arts festival. It should be held in an urban environment, downtown. It could be a real boost for center city, either on Hamilton Street, or by the Alternative Art Gallery, on N. 4th Street.

The festival was held in area much larger than necessary to accommodate the event, and it rained two more times during the festival. Consequently, the large box and flatbed trucks necessary to supply and support the event did extensive damage to the park.  I do not blame the organizers of ArtsFest in any way.  There's a long history of such events in the park section east of Ott Street.  However, this is the first such event held west of Ott, in the Rose Garden section of the park.   Although this western section has been used before, it was confined to spill over from Sportsfest, and involved only golf cart type vehicles. The combination of soggy ground and heavy trucks produced 12" ruts through out the park. It will take the park department no less than $30,000 in material and manpower to restore the area,  assuming that they do. This is the good news, the bad is that nobody, save this blogger, may care. The Morning Call mentioned nothing of the damage in their review about the festival.  I know that Mayor Pawlowski didn't care about the parks before his own current problems, neither did City Council.

At the very least, as long as the park department is going to allow such events and damage in the parks,  they should have a designated park for such fairground type use.  That park should have an area which stays dry from creek flooding.  It's time for the Department of Parks and Recreation to show more respect for the classic beauty of Allentown's parks.

photograph by Harry Fisher/The Morning Call