Morning Call Whitewashes Wehr's Dam

The reporter in yesterday's Morning Call article about Wehr's Dam went out of her way not to mention me. I say this because for five years I have been urging the paper to write about the status of the dam's repair.  After a heated discussion with the current editor this past February, he finally assigned a reporter to the topic, one year after agreeing to do so in February of 2020.  Although the reporter did use some material that I supplied her with, and she did interview a former commissioner I recommended,  for an advocate in her article she used someone not involved with the issue since 2016.  I suspect that the reluctance against mentioning me came from her boss's attitude about me and other bloggers. 

Worse than my slighted ego is the whitewashing of what has transpired, and the chicanery of the Wildlands Conservancy.  The reporter quotes a Wildlands director saying... 

“We don’t go pushing it if it’s not wanted,” she said. “It’s really the township’s call."

Actually, they did go pushing, and they pushed very hard.  The Wildlands communicated with the state back channel attacking the structural integrity of the dam.  The reporter knows this, because I supplied her with copies of the letters.

The only reason the township is beginning the repair permit procedure is because one of the main Wildlands supporters, Tori Morgan, lost the primary election.  However,  the director of public works in the township, Randy Cope, continues to stall, because he is the son of a former Wildlands director and joined at the hip with them.

Had the Wildlands Conservancy not muddied the waters with the state, the dam repair would have cost 50K and been done five years ago.  It will now cost 700k and take years.

photocredit:Gregg Obst

ADDENDUM: In the last state inspection all the state wanted was one small crack filled in, and the one bank downstream fixed. The township allowed the Wildlands Conservancy to go back-channel with the state DEP, and raise numerous superfluous issues in an attempt to fiscally condemn the dam. We will now have a dam way over-repaired, costing the taxpayer 10 times more than necessary. Hopefully the new commissioners will reconsider the township's relationship with the Wildlands Conservancy.

The Vegetable Gardens Of Allentown

When Charles M. Ritter passed away in 1964, his obituary headlined that he was a star athlete at Allentown High School when graduating in 1910. He spent most of his working career at Kuhns and Shankweiler, a major men's clothing emporium at 7th and Hamilton. In 1948 he was president of the Kiwanis Club.  During that era,  many men belonged to one service club or another.

He and his wife Anne lived near 12th and Linden, where his row house yard was dominated by a summer vegetable garden.  They had an outside cellar entrance,  basement stove and sink to facilitate canning vegetables.  

Their long, old harvest table shown above probably came from his rural childhood home in Orefield.  By summer's end it was covered with mason jars filled with vegetables, like those grown in hundreds of other backyard gardens across Allentown.

Morning Call Malarkey

Mike Miorelli published an editorial on Sunday about the charges against Ce-Ce Gerlach. He defended the paper not publishing the allegations against her before the election...  But there was never a political consideration given to not publishing that story. We would have done the same for any politician, or official for that matter, of either party.

Mr. Miorelli, not quite for any politician. You certainly didn't extend that courtesy to Emma Tropiano, when you assigned a reporter to ambush her at the Women's Club debate.

You certainly didn't extend that courtesy to me in 2005,  when your daily debate promo only showed pictures of two candidates, when there were three on the ballot. In addition to excluding me from the mayoral debate, you never ran a profile on me, or published my picture.

You certainly didn't hesitate to write an explosive article about Marty Northstein, right before the congressional election.

Mike Miorelli can claim that the paper treats everybody fairly, but its victims know better.  

UPDATE JULY 6: Blogger Bernie O'Hare reacts to Miorelli's explanation.

A Fixture of Hamilton Street's Past

The store cabinet shown above began its commercial life at Edwin H.Young's,  one of Allentown's first drug stores, located at 639 Hamilton Street. At some point in the mid 1930's Lloyd Buchman acquired the shelf and drawers for his book store at 920 Hamilton Street.  Aral Hollenbach acquired the business from Buchman's widow, Florence, and moved it to 1021 Hamilton.  After Hollenbach died, his widow Naomi continued operating the store, still called Buchman's, and stayed in business until the mid 1990's.

The drawer and shelf unit, with such a long Allentown history, is for sale by Alderfer Auction this coming Thursday.

Link to sale. 

Ce-Ce's Morning Call Merry-Go-Round

Just when I thought I was done writing about Ce-Ce Gerlach and The Morning Call, another doozy graces the paper... Paul Muschick, the columnist with whom I usually agree,  defends the embattled council woman. He thinks that she shouldn't resign, even citing that Pawlowski stayed on as mayor until forced out by his court conviction.  He argues that Ce-Ce hasn't been convicted yet, and is henceforth entitled to retain her council seat. I wish that columnist Paul was writing satire, but unfortunately he's serious.

Paul Muschick sets the Allentown governance bar pretty low when Pawlowski is the gold standard. Paul cites that you're innocent until proven guilty, but in Ce-Ce's case she has admitted dropping the boy off at the tent city and not reporting it, which is illegal for a social worker.

Ce-Ce championed for increased social worker response, financed by defunding the police, but ironically personified the weakness with that ill-conceived theory. 

The Morning Call has taken to printing exclusive reports, only visible to paying subscribers.  That  strategy eludes me as a business incentive.  In the case of this particular column by Muschick, perhaps paying customers shouldn't have to see it.

The Morning Call Massaging

The Morning Call has been massaging the local news over the decades... Yesterday's Ce-Ce Gerlach story is just one of the latest examples. When the paper gets caught in these awkward positions, they do damage control. Yesterday they put Gerlach's disclaimer in their headline... I have not committed any crimes.  The paper knows that it has already been established that she dropped the boy off at the tent city, and that as a mandated reporter she failed in her duty, and that is legally a crime.  Nevertheless, they printed her disclaimer in the headline as damage control, not for Gerlach, but for themselves.  Ce-Ce was one of their go to people, whom they have quoted dozens of times about affordable housing.

But exactly who is the Morning Call? The Morning Call for the last number of years is mostly Mike Miorelli. As the long time editor, and now as publisher, these omissions and decisions reflect his opinions.  The amount of verification necessary for a story depends on his attitude about the person or topic.  While I disagree with him, and him with me, on numerous topics,  I must admit he still puts out a good paper with ever decreasing facilities and staff.

AMENDMENT JULY1, 2021: A lot happened overnight at virtual 6th & Linden....The corner is still there, but the paper isn't. Emperor Miorelli has now given Gerlach the thumb down, and the new city beat reporters (Shortell and Hall) have started to dig her political grave.  I seldom now link to Morning Call stories because too many of my readers hit a paywall, and recently the paper has started exclusive articles, only visible to their subscribers.

Morning Call's Go To People

I have often complained about the Morning Call's go to people.  They ask the same people over and over for their opinion about certain topics....Tony Iannelli about business, Alan Jennings about the poor, Chris Borick about politics and Ce-Ce Gerlach about the NIZ and affordable housing.

While Ce-Ce came in fourth in the May 18th mayoral primary,  many had considered her the person to beat. While the separate candidate election treatment was fair enough,  Ce-Ce's name had long become a regular in the paper.

When the news broke today about Ce-Ce being charged by District Attorney Jim Martin for her less than responsible action with a runaway youth,  frankly, I suspected that the paper had purposefully sat on the story until after the election.  However, I've been assured by the reporter that although the allegations were widely known on facebook and O'Hare's Ramblings,  they could not be confirmed independently by the paper.

I do believe the reporter that he couldn't go with a story that couldn't be confirmed.  Unrelated to the Ce-Ce story, there will now be a new reporter for the city (Allentown) beat, because the current one is coincidentally taking a management offered buyout.*  He hadn't been on the job long enough to have what I would consider institutional knowledge of the city or players. The same was true for his predecessors...it has been at least a decade since anyone had the beat long enough to know the back stories.  That problem with the paper only gets worse.

* The city beat reporter's departure actually occurred this past Friday, but he is credited as a contributor to today's MC story.

UPDATE 5:25 PM:  The Morning Call story has been amended with quotes from both Gerlach and her attorney, but with no indication of such amendment.  Ironically, Gerlach's attorney calls the charges politically motivated.  From my viewpoint,  the editor not insisting on the story before the election, despite it breaking on social media in early May, was politically motivated. 

Blogger LVCI also reports on the Gerlach case

UPDATE JUNE 30 1:58AM: In addition to the Morning Call updating the story, they also changed the headline to include Gerlach's denial of any criminal act. After using Gerlach as one of their go to people for so long, the charges must be awkward for the paper. Blogger Bernie O'Hare also notes the paper's shortcomings in regard to Gerlach in his post today.