Allentown Citizen Patrol

Allentown City Council is debating whether to give Ernie Atiyeh $8,000 to start up a COP program, Citizens on Patrol. Atiyeh estimates the program would cost about $150,000 to start, and then about $90,000 a year, thereafter. Supposedly, the remaining funds would come from corporate donations and other sources. In today's Morning Call, reporter Chris Baxter outlines the different issues involving liability and precedent. The patrollers would be volunteers, while Atiyeh would pay himself $10,000 a year. If indeed Allentown's contribution would be a one time event, or limited to $8,000 a year, why open the can of worms for 5% of the program cost? Although the 5% may pay Atiyeh, the program can't really roll without the other $142,000. It would better serve Allentown taxpayers if we weren't the first donation in the kettle.

Goons and Gangs

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Two Ton Galento

In an era of tough men, Tony "Two Ton" Galento was a standout. Although he would never win a Mr. America contest, his left hook could knock down any man, including the legendary Joe Louis. Tony owned a bar in Orange, New Jersey, didn't train, drank beer and ate large meals before he fought. Between 1928 and 1944 he fought 110 times, knocking out 56 of his opponents.

He met the Baer brothers in back to back fights later in his career, losing both bouts, but not before knocking 6'7'' Buddy Baer down. The famous fight with Louis occurred at Yankee Stadium in June of 1939, before Galente beat Lou Nova in the infamous dirty fight. Tony was king of the world in the third round as Louis lay on the canvas, but he got up at the eight count, and knocked Galante out in the next round. Louis would later say that Tony Galante was one of the toughest men he ever fought.
post reprinted from May 30, 2010, bottom photo, after Lou Nova fight, added

Stoffa's Watergate

John Stoffa has been claiming that it was necessary for him to appeal the Gracedale Referendum question, in order to protect the Home Rule Charter's integrity. Many proponents of Gracedale, and brokers for honest government, didn't buy his excuse. Turns out that the co-author of the Home Rule Charter has come forward, and said that the question is exactly the type intended for referendum. In a compelling article by Jenna Portnoy, the co-author of the Charter, Bill Hansell, goes further;

"They're hiding behind the financial language because they simply don't want the question referred [to voters], and that's not playing by the rules."

Did I mention that even the tapes which cover the appropriate use of referendum are missing?
I'm sure that the tapes have been missing for many years, no wrong doing is implied

The Water Whore

It was a toss up if I wanted to call Don Cunningham a thief or a whore over a proposed new bottling company, he's both. I chose whore only because of alliteration. One may wonder why most of the new industry on the western edge of the 78 corridor are bottling companies; the answer is easy, not too many local governments would be willing to sacrifice both their water supply and stream quality for a few jobs. Ocean Spray Juice, just outside of Trenton, is a "...major water user, major sewer user." This blog has documented how the new wells* necessary to supply the bottling companies will lower the level of the Little Lehigh. This blog has also documented how raw sewage spills* into the same creek during periods of heavy rain. Ocean Spray needs pretreatment at its New Jersey plant because the strength of the raw discharge exceeds levels permitted by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.

"At times their pretreatment facility has had to be shut down," Lynch said, "and every time we take that waste on, it just wreaks havoc on our plant to the point where we're almost in violation of the DEP."               Ocean Spray by Jenna Portnoy, The Morning Call, March 24, 2011

For two hundred jobs, which may well be filled by their workers moving here from New Jersey, we will have our waterway with less water and more sewage?

*Water Thieves In Our Community Part 1
Conclusion of Water Thieves
Muddy Waters
Playgrounds and Feces

My Shoes and Spencer

After reading Spencer Soper's article today on Butzy's Building, I realize that my shoes know more about Allentown than him, but they're probably older. Soper reports that the Butz Building is 90% full. He doesn't report, but may not know, the taxpayer contribution to that occupancy rate. First, the Lehigh Valley Tourist Bureau moved in: They wanted to be close to the PPL Plaza free admission WaterPark. Tony glad-hand Iannelli moved the Chamber of No Commerce in. We gave Butz $450,000 to entice Sangria with no start up cost. Spencer does have one line of news, the last sentence. Apparently, Butz is behind the push to locate the Hockey Arena downtown. "The hockey arena will get a lot of people to do things they wouldn't do otherwise." Like come to downtown Allentown?

Dead Jews and the New Media

Molovinsky on Allentown often wanders out of town, to the Middle East. To get there I regularly read The Jerusalem Post and Al Jazeera, among other outlets. As I mentioned before, Al Jazeera uses some Jewish journalists to give credibility to their Arab news bias. Here in America, it's worse; The Huffington Post uses Jewish journalists to ignore or distort Israel. For Jews, and others who care about Israel, this is an incredibly important problem, as the internet becomes the predominant source of news. The massacre of the Fogel family last week never made Huffington's front page. A new blog, Huff-Watch, has started to document Arianna Huffington's attitude about the Jewish State.