Humbug Christmas Continues

On Saturday I put up a rare weekend post titled Humbug Christmas, in which Alan Jennings was taken to task for handing out ten dollar bills. Because Bill White has a Christmas Lights special each year, and Bernie O'Hare is trying to emulate him with his Municipal Christmas Tree posts, allow me a second in the Humbug Christmas series. The alternative caption for the photo shown above would be, For Whom The Bell Tolls, which I believe someone has already used for a book title. In my version, Mayor Ed is ringing the bell at the Lehigh Valley Mall in Whitehall. He's hoping it's the bell of redemption.

Humbug Christmas

Altruism?

On Friday night 69NEWS did a Christmas “story”of Alan Jennings handing out envelopes of cash in downtown Allentown. Point one: it wasn’t his money. Point two: how did 69 NEWS know about this event if they weren’t notified in advance by those dispensing of the “charity”? Isn’t anonymity a basic rule of charity? If so, it was totally blown in this story. While one might want to see the upside of any situation, this one strikes me as very galling. Alan could have done the same act with discretion but chose not to. To me, that makes all the difference.
                                                                                   Scott Armstrong

 Because, neither this blog or myself care about being perceived as nice, this submission by Scott Armstrong was accepted without hesitation. Alan Jennings apparently called both WFMZ and the Morning Call, to publicize the handout. He stated to them that the money came from a private donor, one hundred ten dollar bills.

photo: Sharon Merkel / The Morning Call

PPL Plaza Lawsuit

Yesterday, I said that I was deferring opinion of the Plaza lawsuit, the deferral is over. The building was purchased by New York investors with what I call a New York City frame of reference. At the time of purchase, they had no idea that Reilly/Brown would be scheming up the NIZ. They paid top dollar for a premiere building, with a blue chip Fortune 500 tenant. Because they didn't pay NYC prices, although an associate referred to it as a Philadelphia price, they thought it was indeed a solid investment. It is a unique building, which was custom designed to accentuate PPL's promotion of energy efficiency. Although the center atrium facilitated natural daylight, it wastes an enormous amount of space. The grass on the roof and other high tech energy concepts of that moment, bring no added value for other tenants.

The KOZ was originally conceived to help cities draw businesses to brownfields. That concept was bastardized over the years to regular parcels, including the former prime address of Lehigh Valley, 9th and Hamilton. With the KOZ expired, PPL having spun off Talen Energy, and Reilly and Jaindl competing for their tenant, their investment does indeed look like a white elephant.

The NIZ certainly does create an uneven playing field, but so did the previous KOZ's, to a much less extent. If class A space like the Plaza cannot compete, older office buildings have no future what so ever. If we had anything more than moral and mental midgets in Harrisburg, perhaps they would have thought through the NIZ,  in regard to the consequences to the greater marketplace.

link to companion post

LVHN Doctors To Reilly's Wallet

If you're in the hospital, you would like to think that the head honcho for your malady, the chief of staff, is near by. Well, he or she is not, instead they're above the arena entrance, in Reilly's portion of the building. Floors 6 through 9 of the PPL Center is the official address for the LVHN administrators, and chiefs of staff. This maneuver allows J.B. Reilly to harvest the state income taxes from the highest paid employees of the hospital. Although this is a ruse to funnel even more money Reilly's way, I only hope that these doctors do in fact spend their time at the hospital, and not above the arena.

The owners of the PPL Plaza office building, now occupied by Talen Energy, have filed a federal lawsuit. They claim that the NIZ makes the playing field so uneven, that the NIZ is unconstitutional. Although I'll defer opinion on the constitutionality issue, it certainly can spawn corruption. It appears that the NIZ is so lucrative, that it can even subvert the integrity of a large tax-free, such as LVHN.

As I often say, Pennsylvania is a corrupt state, and you are represented in Harrisburg by nobody but moral midgets. Although, I have exposed many shenanigans on this blog, today's revelation even surprised a jaded blogger like myself.

An Independent Lady

Although Allentown City Council is currently composed of all Democrats, there is an independent voice. On the vote for approving Eminent Domain, the only dissenting vote came from Jeanette Eichenwald. Whenever a group is being disenfranchised, they have an ally in Eichenwald. Her passion for prejudice reduction is well known in the community, and always supercedes any party affiliation or loyalty. Eichenwald's campaign budget for this coming election is $0.00. She feels that it's inappropriate for financial support to be a factor in City Council Elections. The moral compass in the Council Chamber has always pointed to her seat on the dais.

reprinted from October of 2011

ADDENDUM: I published the above endorsement of Ms. Eichenwald for the November 2011 election.  In looking back for this post, my archives revealed no less than thirty posts noting her independent stances on council. As an advocate for many issues over the decades, I can tell you that invariably council members know how they're going to vote before the meeting. Jeanette Eichenwald took her responsibility to a higher level, and rendered each decision based on the merits of the issue, not political alliances.  Jeanette attended her last meeting as a council-person last night.  Let us hope that somebody chooses to emulate her integrity.

Arena No Benefit For Allentown Taxpayers

There is fundamentally something wrong with a town that bestows a $Billion Dollars worth of real estate on one or two people, but gives everyone else a tax increase. While $34 million of our state taxes pay for Reilly's debt service this year, residents of Allentown will see a 24% increase in their city income tax. Mayor Pawlowski claims that the increase is necessary because of pension obligations, but that's why we supposedly leased the water system. In short, there has been no benefit to the public from the revitalization. We know that Reilly was revitalized, and that Pawlowski would have been, except for a pesky FBI investigator. While I  called for tar and feathers yesterday, where is the Morning Call? Save for Jeanette Eichenwald, where is city council?

This coming June, Allentown will host a convention of Pennsylvania bureaucrats, who will study the success of Allentown's inner-city revival. Ed Pawlowski, if not yet incarcerated, will be a speaker. State taxpayers will pay for these fakers to stay at the new hotel, eat at the new restaurants, and hear how we're benefitting from it.  If they're interested, I'm available as a speaker.

Molovinsky Holiday Cheer

I suppose that tar and feathering sounds a bit harsh, but a hundred years ago, a thousand miles to the west, Ed Pawlowski would have been coated already. I would prescribe the treatment not for his alleged abuses at city hall, but for his recent facebook posts, which have been insufferable. In a recent post, he's pictured with immigrants from Liberia. Tonight I welcomed members of the Liberian community in Allentown as they form a new organization to help bring reconciliation to their homeland which has been torn apart over the years by civil war. Picture after picture, Ed is with people who probably don't know about the FBI scandal. To them, and to Ed, he's still mayor.

While I'm spreading holiday cheer, allow me to address the recent Morning Call special on J.B. Reilly's investment in the NIZ. The report said that he's putting 5% down on the projects, which are approved by the NIZ board. The article omits the fact that he was loaned $20 million before any construction began, and before any specific project was announced. According to Mike Fleck, as reported in the Morning Call, J.B. had pledged $50 thousand dollars to Ed's campaign fund.

I think that local politicians, developers and reporters must have accidentally misplaced my address,  I have yet to receive any greeting cards this year.