Christmas City

In 1937, Bethlehem was still struggling from the Great Depression. In December of that year, the Star was built on top of the mountain, elaborate street decorations were installed, and the city began calling itself                                                Christmas City.

reprinted from December 25, 2012

Pawlowski's Willing Patsies

Allentown City Council was recently asked to approve a feasibility study for a trail path through the former fertilizer plant property, west of Schreiber's Bridge, along Martin Luther King Drive. Students of bad Allentown government recognize this parcel as one of the two, that Mayor Pawlowski purchased at significant profit for the owner.  I believe that this trail topic is being raised now in an attempt to justify the purchase. However, there was absolutely no need or previous plan to purchase the land for a trail, because the right of way for the former Barber Quarry Rail track runs right through the parcel, already providing the rail to trail option.  At no cost, I opposed the trail, because the park department has neither the manpower or budget to maintain existing features. Purchasing the land was a poor decision at best, corrupt at worst, and should be put up for sale immediately.

This year, when I offered my historical perspective to City Council as a volunteer consultant on park system matters, their response was total silence. Apparently, they prefer to be willing patsies, rather than informed decision makers.

photo of Barber Quarry rail line, just west of Schreiber's Bridge, taken in 1976 by Dave Latshaw. From the collection of Mark Rabenold

Teaching The Sweat Hog Parents

Recent news from the Allentown School System is that 10 more students have been arrested because of the recent fights, and that the system is starting Parent University Workshops.

The Allentown school district is correct in realizing that much fault for the discipline issues at the schools comes from their home life. However, thinking that their parents will attend workshops to improve their parenting skills is something only an administrator could think will work. In real life, dedicated parents don't need the help, and problem parents won't attend.

This is the kind of program a school district engages in desperation.That said, even minimal results make the program worth pursuing if the cycle of poverty can be broken in at least a few families.   Scott Armstrong

A Raise For J.B. Reilly

There's one constant in every rejected state budget plan coming out of Harrisburg, that's a raise in the cigarette tax. In that land of the moral and mental midgets, cigarette smokers are the low hanging fruit. They're not exactly an organized group, with a lobby defending their interests. Back here, in the land of private bonanza, any increase goes straight into J.B.'s pocket. Only Allentown, in Pennsylvania, could be having a $Billion Dollar building boom, which doesn't benefit anybody, but one man.

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.