Rumble At Allen

There's a fight at the Allentown School District, but it isn't students, rather it's the school board members.  As reported in The Morning Call, Charlie Thiel has challenged fellow board member Bob Smith's petition signatures.   Smith posted his reaction on his Facebook page.

I received a call from fellow board member Charlie Thiel, former friend and a gutless coward  Charlie stated he is challenging my petitions .Charlie wants to get rid of the last Republican on the board, and is very scared I will get more votes then him. Charlie does not understand I love doing this job, but do not need it as a stepping stone for mayor, like Charlie does. As a Catholic I know how Jesus felt when betrayed by Judas, Charlie is a Judas. I know how Charlie has lost the respect of myself, my wife, children, and grandchildren and any real friend I have.I have lost elections, and i have won them, but never attacked or challenged the will of the people.That is what Charlie does not understand,.... I am not going away and plan to work and expose the many mismanagements of his tenure as President, and his not do anything but stay down middle that he never makes a decision. I fight for our students staff, and taxpayers, not fighting for my next political job like Charlie...

To continue posting from Facebook, here is Scott Armstrong's take on the challenge. Scott served on the board for four years.

Charlie Thiel Challenges the filing petitions of a real hero! Bob Smith has been selflessly serving on the Allentown School Board for many years, he has at times been elected by fellow board members to be board president. All have praised dedication to duty. What many people may not know is that several years ago Bob risked his life to save someone and in the process he nearly lost his own. The woman he saved was relatively uninjured, but Bob was hospitalized for an extended period and needed many surgeries to recover. Bob's comeback is a testament to his fortitude.It is also worth mentioning that while hospitalized Bob made every effort to stay current on school board duties.This said, the truth is no one completely recovers form a thirty foot fall onto concrete, and Bob's mobility is limited. Therefore one can rightly be disgusted and shocked that able bodied Charlie Thiel would challenge Bob Smith's petitions. Has this self proclaimed man of God any scruples? Apparently not. What he does have is an ugly and competitive partisanship that has no place on the school board.

Although Bob and Scott both use unflattering religious imagery against Charlie,  Thiel is entitled to challenge the petition.  Although such challenges are unusual in a school race, they are common place in other elections.  Regardless of the legal outcome, nobody can ever question Bob Smith's dedication to Allentown Schools.

Allentown's Teeming Success

These two photos, together showing Allentown center square, were taken on Monday afternoon (March18,2019) at 4:30PM, by John Mortensen. Readers of The Morning Call would never know what a failure the NIZ is. While diverting $70 million dollars a year of taxpayer money to private debt service, nobody has benefited, except one man, who owns most of the new buildings. 

Meanwhile, back in Deceptionville, the paper promotes the NIZ district as if it was a humming, teeming success. Meanwhile, back in Deceptionville, they report the ANIZDA meetings as if they are real deliberations.

Mortensen's pictures were posted to a local facebook group.  In addition to the paper providing no balance to the NIZ story,  neither do the facebook groups, for the most part.  This particular group found the pictures misleading and negative.  I was actually called a "bitter old man" by the moderator, and muted.

John Mortensen is a write-in candidate for city council.

Depot At Overlook Park

Old timers have noticed that the contractor's building on Hanover Avenue transformed into a community center for Overlook Park. But only the oldest, or train buffs, realized that the building was the freight depot and office for the Lehigh & New England Railroad. Lehigh & New England was formed in 1895, primarily as a coal carrier. The line ran from Allentown to Maybrook, New York.

In 1904 it was acquired by the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company. The line ceased operation in 1961. Among it's infrastructure were impressive bridges across both the Lehigh and Delaware Rivers, both of which were dismantled. Ironic that a remnant of our industrial era is being utilized by the successor of a public housing project.

reprinted from February of 2014

Another Morning Call Infomercial

As an advocate for the park system, seeing the above photograph from the Morning Call article on the Lehigh River parks, was a harsh joke.  The article is subtitled, Insider's Guide To The Lehigh Valley. It actually is an outsider's guide. The reporter states that he has never been to these parks previously, and his tour gulde is Pawlowski.  I'll go further, and doubt that any of recent park directors have ever been to Canal Park, which is in a condition somewhere between neglect and hazard.  Before I go further, let's be clear that the Morning Call asked Pawlowski, whose negligence allowed the iconic Lehigh Parkway entrance wall to collapse, to be it's tour guide in the parks.  Nothing has been done in Canal Park since Pawlowski was elected as mayor in 2005, or before that, when he served as Community Development Director, under Mayor Afflerbach.  Pawlowski even refers to the train line through Canal Park as a problem.  Someone should inform him that it is the main west line of Norfolk Southern, and more relevant to Allentown than he is, certainly at this time. As if that wasn't enough irony, Pawlowski is considering a new park to neglect,  for boat launching. All this attention about the river is part of the paper's hype for the new NIZ construction, soon to begin by the Tilghman Street Bridge. In a recent exchange with a Morning Call writer/editor, he defended the informercials
concerning the NIZ. Although I have been sending notes to the paper about the deplorable conditions in the existing parks, they choose instead to engage in a puff promotion for the NIZ, featuring a future indictee. Pass the Tums.

ADDENDUM: In regard to an earlier post, regarding emergency repairs needed at Union Terrace, shared by somebody on facebook,  Joe McDermott commented, "Fine, who is willing to pay more taxes to make those repairs, Mike Molvinsky, maybe?"  This is disturbing, because McDermott is a former Morning Call reporter who now pens for Pawlowski.  So, although this administration paid Abe Atiyeh $1.4 million dollars for land it's not using or needs for the park system, it employs a hack to link park maintenance with higher taxes.

photo by April Bartholomew/The Morning Call

above reprinted from October of 2015

UPDATE MARCH 18, 2019: Pawlowski is gone. The park department has a new director, and while I'm more optimistic about the parks than I have been since 2005, Canal Park's neglect and isolation is still a problem. My advocacy and outspokenness for the parks continues...

Best By Test

Growing up in Little Lehigh Parkway, now called Little Lehigh Manor by the Realtors, the milkman was an early morning fixture.  Almost every house had the insulated aluminum milkbox.  The milk trucks were distinctive, and the drivers wore a uniform, indicative of their responsibility.  Freeman's milk was the best by test, or so the slogan said.  Their trucks were red and immaculate.  The dairy building  still stands, a quarter block north of 13th and Tilghman Streets.  They competed with a giant, Lehigh Valley Co-Operative Farmers.  That dairy, on the Allentown/Whitehall border, just north of the Sumner Avenue Bridge on 7th Street, even sported an ice cream parlor.  Milk, up to the mid 50's, came in a bottle.  The milkman would take the empties away when delivering your fresh order.  In addition to white and chocolate,  they produced strawberry milk  in the summer.  About once a week the milkman would knock on the door to settle up;  times have changed.






Occasionally the bottle, and later the cartons, would feature themes and advertisements.  A picture of Hopalong Cassidy would entertain young boys as they poured milk into their Corn Flakes.  Earlier, during the War, (Second World) bottles would encourage customers to do their part;  buy a bond or scrap some metal for the war effort.

reprinted from 2015

Smelling The Roses In Allentown

Paul Pozzi started working for the Allentown Parks Department in 1979. In 1985, he joined the small crew at the Rose and Old Fashioned Gardens. For the last decade, the gardens have been solely under his magnificent care. We who take solace in that magic place owe him a debt of gratitude. 

Unfortunately, the rose garden has been infected by a disease, and some drastic measures are necessary. The Morning Call reports that a large portion of the roses must be removed, the planting beds sanitized, before new rose bushes can be planted. We are fortunate that Paul is on hand for this project.

photo by Molovinsky, flowers by Paul Pozzi

No Mercy For Little Lehigh Creek

Over the years I have documented the sewage leaks in Lehigh Parkway, both into the creek and onto the adjoining banks. The EPA was on Allentown's case for over a decade. Allentown ran down the clock with different proposals, until they leased the water systems to Lehigh County Authority. The different municipalities, then on the hook, came up with bandaid solutions. For instance, South Whitehall, rather than improve their pipes, decided to bang the homeowners. Each house would be inspected, and any condensation from central air conditioning would have to pumped out of the house, rather than dripping into a basement drain. The floor drains, which were installed to protect the house from leaks, would have to be closed off.

According to a Morning Call article, this past summer saw more sewage than ever flow into the Little Lehigh. Despite this worsening reality, the EPA has withdrawn their mandates, and will settle for a drop in the bucket...the banging the homeowner plan.

While the rate payers of LCA might, I say might, enjoy a reprieve, clean water advocates should be outraged.

photocredit:molovinsky

The Mad Men Of Allentown

Back in the day, the titans of Allentown would fill the five barberchairs of the Colonial Barbershop, 538 Hamilton Street. That was when the town had three department stores. That was when Wetherhold and Metzger had two shoe stores on Hamilton Street. That was when Harvey Farr would meet Donald Miller and John Leh at the Livingston Club for lunch, and discuss acquiring more lots for Park & Shop. By 1995 all that was gone, but Frank Gallucci, 82, would still give some old timers a trim. The Colonial Barbershop property, closed for many years, has been purchased by J.B. Reilly. It is my pleasure to present this previously unseen portrait of Gallucci, toward the end of his career.

photocredit:molovinsky

reprinted from September of 2017