A-Treat Rules In A-Town

Early last night, outside of Allentown City Hall, I watched activist Robert Trotner plea for Bill 39, the legislation against Pay To Play. Now, if he had been praising one of the reintroduced A-Treat flavors, the public would be interested, but political ethics, not so much. The local media did give coverage to Mr. Trotner and his band of eternal optimists, but compared to A-Treat, it's nothing that the public cares to digest. Here in Allentown, there are priorities and values, and things worth waiting for, like the soda flavors of their youth. Now, eventually the ethics ordinance will pass, and the current administration will be replaced by a cast of new characters. But, what the public really cares about are the important things, like watching the monster trucks in the new arena, while drinking a giant-sized A-Treat.

Allentown Burns While Pawlowski Fiddles

Is it just me, or is Allentown in a reactive haze? I keep hearing about the cloud over Allentown, since the FBI scrutinized Pawlowski and city hall. The police chief wants to be anywhere, except here. Pawlowski and his company, Allentown city council, say that they can't blame Chief Fritzgerald from striving for upward mobility, but after only two years? We quietly just gave the fire department a new five year contract that has them dancing in their underwear. While they settle for 2% increase in year two, it's 3% yearly thereafter. Since the scant arena schedule has been criticized, the promoter has announced a new monster truck show, and that he will hire additional part-time peanut vendors.

Things are also rough in the blogging business. Yesterday morning, I met Bernie O'Hare and Lou Hershman for what wasn't Breakfast at Tiffany's. After O'Hare called the waitress a bitch, she refused to serve us. After recently noting that Bernie was on the up cycle of his weight swings, a reader accused me of using 20 year old pictures of myself. I'm pictured above two weeks ago in the deep south, with a 1975 Mack fire pumper, which was made in Allentown.

Allentown City Council

Wednesday night, before a council committee meeting, there is a protest planned against council's slowness to adopt an ordinance against Pay To Play. The protesters shouldn't be too rough on the council, they did take some action, they postponed the committee meeting. It was the Parks and Recreation committee. As a parks activist, I say no loss, they never made a good decision anyway. But, this post is about something else, a police chief who can't wait to get out of Dodge. I thought that Chief Fritzgerald outlived his usefulness when he implied that his son's arrest may have been racial profiling. Ironically, the same high octane Philadelphia lawyer who defended junior Fritzgerald, has now been retained by our mayor. When news broke that senior Fritzgerald was a finalist for a chief job in Kansas, council president Ray O'Connell said that it would be our loss. Ray must be searching for a father figure, because that's a loss we should encourage. We can be sure that the Wichita job isn't the only application that Fritzgerald has submitted. He already has one foot and his brain out the door. The police department's first reaction to the Slam At Shula's was that the singer was being hostile. Understand, that for a quality response like that, we had hired national consultants and spent a year looking before we hired senior. Please spare us such shams in the future, I'd rather that when papa leaves, they just hire junior for chief.

ADDENDUM: The cancelled Parks and Recreation meeting was scheduled for this evening, not Wednesday. Wednesday's Finance Committee meeting has not been cancelled.

The Morning Call Express

While The Morning Call has thrown Pawlowski under the bus, it continues to puff for the NIZ. A recent article on how the zone is benefiting the surrounding neighborhood was just more smoke coming out of that puff engine. Needless to say, they quote Alan Jennings, their go to person for most articles. Alan's organization has the franchise on community benefit, and of course, therefore, thinks that some good has rained on the local peons. The bureaucracy even produced a webpage, Upside Allentown, complete with pictures of smiling intercity children. In truth, the quality of their life has diminished. They now pay double to park, because of the Arena Excuse. Their former shopping center on Hamilton Street was demolished for that monstrosity, and if real success ever come to the district, they will be gentrified away. Meanwhile, former Mayor For Life is getting run over every time he tries to stand up. How flat can they get Pawlowski? While I no longer contribute letters to the paper,  I do see my ideas from this blog metamorpihize into long articles in the paper. For instance, they now acknowledge that the arena sits there empty, night after night. However, they will never admit that it was just a public pretense for the Reilly City Center Real Estate Empire.

One Subject, Two Bloggers

Apparently, both Bernie O'Hare and I are posting on the same subject tomorrow.  Bernie's version will historically be viewable by midnight this evening,  while I put up my posts, while pre-heating the ovens in the family bakery,  around 4:00 AM.   Expect Bernie's piece to be longer, and mine,  of course, more insightful.

Drama At Civic Little Theatre

Architecturally, the 19th Street Theater has no rival. The tile elephant trunks coming down the edges of the facade have delighted viewers since 1928. Up to last year, there was one other Venetian type building in Allentown, in the 700 block of Hamilton, but it was  knocked down to accommodate the arena monstrosity. The 19th Street theater has survived because of it's current affiliation with the Civic Theatre, a non-profit cultural group. Shown above is the Franklin, in the 400 block of Tilghman Street, which survived until 2008. That theater,  built a century ago in 1913,  was also called the Jennette for about forty years.

reprinted from July 2013, then titled, Allentown's Last Movie Theaters

ADDENDUM: When I was a little boy, the Civic Theatre was already putting on productions for both adults and children. As an adult, Barry and Sharon Glassman have been synonymous with the theater's continued vitality. Unfortunately, I have recently received a report that the theater is currently suffering from Founder's Syndrome.

Founder's syndrome is a difficulty faced by many organizations where one or more founders maintain disproportionate power and influence following the effective initial establishment of the project, leading to a wide range of problems for both the organization and those involved in it.

According to this source, half of the staff, and a third of the board, have parted way in protest of the current leadership. I have not investigated this allegation. My gut feeling is that the Glassman's have been the energy and glue which has kept the theater continuously open for the last several decades. I will accept, by moderation, limited comments to this post which may shed light on the current situation.

UPDATE: After several complaints about the current leadership, and requests to provide space for this topic,  not one of the callers has submitted a comment.  Apparently, they wanted me to air their grievances, but they don't want to comment themselves, even anonymously. With that sort of timidity, I don't know how they think that they could run the theater any better.

Mazziotti Traveling Ethics Show

Last night, the Vic Mazziotti Traveling Ethics Show arrived "fashionably late" to the Allentown City Council, according to Bernie O'Hare. We learn that Pay To Play must be legislated away. I'm not impressed with such proposals, naive me thinks I should be able to take such basic concepts of honesty for granted. Last week, in the comment section of O'Hare's post on Mazziotti's showboat ordinance, I took Vic to task. I think that ethics should be on display in every public decision, and that Vic has been lacking in that department, when it comes to Cedarbrook, the county nursing home. Last year, Mazziotti and his fellow reform slate Republicans rejected the proposal to remodel a wing of Cedarbrook into a rehab center, which is the profitable avenue employed by the industry. Instead, after stalling for a year, they now want to re-employ a former consulting firm to repeat a previous study. Last week, when I suggested that the Reformers were stalling until it's time for the bulldozer, Vic sent a message that I should call him. Apparently, he wanted to send me to the Reeducation Indoctrination Camp, operated by the Reform Team. However, yesterday, even the Morning Call noted the stalling on Cedarbrook. "That quest for knowledge has dragged on for months, and commissioners still find themselves in a fact-finding mode."

Vic was late to council last night because the Commissioners were also conducting their own meeting, on Cedarbrook, to decide what kind of questions they should again ask their rehired consultant. Vic states that "We're making a 25-year decision here." It's unclear if he means that the decision will affect the county for 25 years, or if it will take him 25 years to make the decision. At any rate, it's clear that he doesn't want to make any decision before the election in November. I'm actually being kind. The refurbishment could have been completed already, and Cedarbrook on it's way to being viable. Play to Pay regulations don't impress me,  especially when an elected official still play games with a public trust like Cedarbrook.

The Livingston Club, Allentown's Benevolent Oligarchy

Back in the day, when the town had three department stores, the major decisions affecting Allentown's future were made at the Livingston Club. Harvey Farr would meet Donald Miller and John Leh at the Club for lunch, and discuss acquiring more lots for Park & Shop. The bank officers of First National and Merchants Bank would discuss loans with the highly successful merchants, many of whom had stores in all three major Lehigh Valley cities. As the heydays winded down, likewise the exit plans were made there. The City of Allentown acquired the Park & Shop lots, becoming the Allentown Parking Authority. Leh's became the Lehigh County Government Center.

The new oligarchy consists of much fewer men, they could all met at a small table in Shula's, and be entertained by watching street people  arrested. The former 1st National Bank location is now a new Reilly building. The former Livingston Club building is now a parking lot, and future site to another Reilly building. Shula's is also a Reilly building....