Using Trump As A Local Slight

Before the mass media coined Trump Derangement Syndrome,  I had noted on this blog that people, mostly women back then, were losing their minds over Trump.  The dislike of him  spread to the media, with CNN now the leading obsessor.

Locally,  the Morning Call's Bill White has been possessed.  He now links Trump to the tragic shootings at the Gazette newspaper in Annapolis,  even though he knows that the shooter had a long term grudge against the paper, because of its reporting on harassment charges against him by a girlfriend.  Another local blogger has painted this blog and its readers as Trumpters,  because he considers that designation an insult. Those types of accusations amuse me.   My post yesterday about the shooting by Dorney Park was met on social media with speculations about my having White Privilege attitudes,  or worse,  hidden racism.  I have become somewhat immune to these types of accusations...  I understand that they're intended to intimidate me for my bluntness.  In that sense I take them as a compliment.  This ties back to Donald Trump.

One of the many reasons that Trump infuriates so many liberals is that he's not crafting his words to be politically correct.  I'll leave it to future historians to evaluate any accomplishments of his term.  However,  I must confess that it amused me that he called in to Rush Limbaugh to compliment the radio host on his show.  Listening to the liberals mutter about that will be priceless.

Shameless Over Police Shooting

It appears to me that some people are shameless about the hay they want to make out of the South Whitehall shooting. “This act of extreme police brutality is not a fluke or an accident, but part of the police system that regularly works to detain, deport and kill black and brown people across the country,” Make The Road said in the release. As someone familiar with South Whitehall, I can assure Make The Road officials that South Whitehall has no such agenda, if they have one at all. Perhaps the person trying to make the most exposure from this tragedy is Mark Pinsley, who is running for State Senate. The Morning Call describes him as a South Whitehall Commissioner. In truth Pinsley announced his candidacy for state senate before he even began serving his first term as commissioner this past January . He now is asking District Attorney Jim Martin to hand the case over to the State Attorney General's office. As someone who has attended dozens of South Whitehall meetings, Pinsley was never involved in community government until he decided to run himself. He should be ashamed of his grandstanding. 

Yesterday a liberal friend asked me why the police officer couldn't have wrestled the man to the ground, instead of shooting him. I have included a picture from the Morning Call of the shot man above, I think the answer to that question is self explanatory.

I have no opinion on the properness of the shooting. I will leave that determination to the authorities. I do have an opinion on the local haymakers, they're shameless.

photo from The Morning Call

Misplaced Anger Over South Whitehall Shooting

While a coalition of Allentown minority groups were scheduling a protest over the police shooting in South Whitehall Township,  there was at least one stabbing and a shooting in center city Allentown. Three more shootings occurred Tuesday afternoon in South Allentown. Although resident on resident violence has been commonplace,  police shootings have been very few and far between.  This is not to say that there hasn't been police overreaction elsewhere,  but not here. As for the incident on Hamilton Blvd by Dorney Park,  it is too early to make conclusions on the appropriateness of lethal force in that case.  With the incident being investigated by no less than two separate entities, hopefully a finding satisfactory to the community will emerge.

This particular protest is being organized by various minority leaders in Allentown, some of whom have been both elected and appointed to oversight functions in our local government.  I believe that by prematurely questioning and accusing our local law enforcement, they may be inadvertently sending the wrong message to their own youth.  Instead of being scared for their children about the police, they should be scared because of the violence within their own communities. While they protest against an isolated police incident, they remain silent about all their own shootings.

I expect that my politically incorrect, blunt appraisal of this situation will not be warmly received by some segments of the community.....  So be it.

photocredit:The Morning Call

Molovinsky On Philadelphia

Molovinsky On Allentown has rented temporary space in Philadelphia to help in predicting Allentown's future.  I use my father's old meat truck route all the way down Broad Street to get to the new office,  which is high over the city near Rittenhouse Square.  Although J. B. Reilly hopes for a taste of the sophistication which surrounds Rittenhouse,  I think that he better not hold his breath.  The area between Broad and Rittenhouse is full of beautiful classic buildings,  unlike Allentown, where the older buildings have been demolished to make way for new plain mid-rises of architectural meagerness.

However, lets get back to the meat truck route. North Broad Street is a litter filled desolation of urban decay.  Apparently gentrification doesn't spread like wildfire.  I'm afraid that J. B. will have to learn how to clone the few millennials he supposedly attracted to the Stratas.

In conclusion, I give Reillyville a slight chance of success in terms of any energy resembling the Rittenhouse area of Philadelphia. Fortunately for him it's our tax money funding his NIZ.  For Allentown beyond Linden and Walnut Streets, my best recommendation would be a trash can every ten feet.  Maybe some of the litter will accidentally land in them.

The Liberal Dilemma In Allentown

In 2005 when I ran for mayor, I stated that Allentown was a poverty magnet, and unless certain policies were changed there would be consequences. I spoke of a normal income bell curve, and its importance for a healthy community. At the time I was accused by a few of employing code for racism. The reality of the situation was that as a landlord I was being approached all day by people moving here with no work history, looking for apartments. They were being staked to move-in money by no less than three organizations.

Move ahead 13 years, and this weekend I read on facebook a piece by a well known local liberal, lamenting the over presence of the low-income in Allentown. He was complaining about quality of life issues, and the daunting challenges facing the Allentown School District as a result. His recommendation is a code war on center city apartments, essentially those occupied by the low income. He figures that if enough of them are torn down, Allentown's problems will also disappear.

 I was suggesting in 2005 that we tell the welcome wagons to stop handing out money. He is now suggesting that we essentially chase people away. I won't pass moral judgement on his plan, as was done to mine. However, I will say this...  My plan at the time would have worked, his will not. You cannot undo the transformation that changed Allentown from quaint to intercity urban... there is a new Allentown.

If this gentleman, who lives in the Old Allentown Preservation District has his way, we'll be condemning hundreds of buildings at great expense. Such experiments in urban renewal and social engineering have a proven history of failure. It would be much cheaper for us to buy him a new house elsewhere. He's away every winter anyway.

photo above: In the early 1970's, Allentown demolished the entire low-income neighborhood between Wire and Union Streets

The Morning Call Compromised

Hell broke out last night between myself and Bill White of the Morning Call.  In his blog post about The New York Daily News, he once again couldn't refrain himself for complimenting the Call on maintaining their journalistic standards.  I wasn't having it. We had the following exchange on his facebook page.

I wrote:
  the Morning Call hasn't done one honest story about the NIZ. Although I concede doing so wouldn't change the paper's economic reality, at least you would be doing the journalism that you purport in your piece.

 White replies:
 The Morning Call has done a great job reporting on the NIZ. You don't like it because you preferred downtown the way it was before all this started.

 With Bill White being the professional journalist, and me being the lowly blogger, Bill couldn't resist describing their coverage as great, and dismissing my point as coming from a malcontent. I decided to spell out the Morning Call compromises loud and clear.

My reply to White:
 "I don't like it" because the paper promotes Reilly's apartments like it's news. " I don't like it" because the paper never discussed why the Morning Call building was included in the NIZ, when it is on the other side of Linden Street. "I don't like it" because the Morning Call never reported that the Hospital has ghost offices on the top floor of the arena, so that the state taxes from their highest paid employees can be used for Reilly's debt service, a story I broke and you ignored.


photo above: molovinsky at a Morning Call function, before being outlawed for candor

A New Allentown Park Director

This post is meant as an open letter to Ray O'Connell.  In 2005, Allentown combined the park and recreation departments.  This merger in itself wasn't a bad idea,  but the implementation was flawed.  The first combined director was hired by Francis Dougherty, as were the next two.  Each of these hires had the same background, a graduate degree in recreation.  The first hire came from Lewisburg, and he eventually purchased every item manufactured by a Lewisburg company, Playworld.  Before he left for another position,  he planned an enormous water park for Cedar Beach, stretching up to Hamilton Blvd.  Parking for this monstrosity would have taken up the remainder of the park.  Not having a background in parks,  he turned to the eager Wildlands Conservancy for advice and cooperation.  By the time his replacement arrived,  the Wildlands was so entrenched that they dictated that Allentown remove its small ornamental dam at Robin Hood, and totally obscure the stream banks with Weed Walls. The recent former director assumed the same protocols of her predecessors.

As someone who is familiar with the current park department, I know that the next director need not have the same background.  On the contrary,  he/she shouldn't.  There are managers in place for all the existing recreational components.  The new director should be a competent administrator,  who cares about providing Allentown's children with recreation, but also has an appreciation of the beauty and serenity that the parks can provide all citizens of Allentown,  irregardless of their activity level.

The four remaining swimming pools should be kept in operating condition, and fully staffed. The parcels purchased by Pawlowski, if not offered for sale,  should not be developed until which time the park department catches up with deferred maintenance.  Frankly, that will take at least a decade.

Allentown had an iconic designation park system which adorned picture post cards for decades.  It is time to put away the Playworld plastic catalog and restore the gems in our park system.

a picture post card from Allentown park system's past