Music From The Morning Call

Readers of this blog know that I'm very critical of the Morning Call.  My criticism is both long standing and well informed.  Over the decades I've seen them contort numerous issues, both through taking politicians' statements at face value, and outright omission. My accusation is as recent as this past spring's article on Wehr's Dam.

On the other hand, I keep reminding readers that we're fortunate to still have a local paper. Most of the reporting is accurate, and without them we would be much more in the dark.  I take sincere pleasure in complimenting current columnist Paul Muschick. 

Muschick has been producing forthright articles, taking local institutions to task for their shortcomings. Recently, he has taken aim at the Parking Authority and our State House. 

Muschick is very good.  To get blogger mean, he'd have to work in a slaughter house and collect rent downtown.

A River Of Money Flows Through Allentown

Any official who was anybody, was under the Tilghman Street Bridge last week praising the new road to be built, wedged between Front Street and the river.  The Morning Call in their glowing article was wrong in its first line, The road stretches for about 3.5 miles on the east side of Allentown, and no more accurate thereafter. 

East Allentown of course is on the other side of the river, on the east side, and never gets anything.  If the money and project was going to the east side, then it would be indeed the big deal our bloated officials make this out to be. However, the bloaters and their erroneousness statements brought a smirk to my face, well worth the $22to$55 $million $dollars being $wasted. The Jaindl portion of the road being built is referred to as "private money."  I suppose in the world of bureaucratic grants, public money from another source, such as the NIZ diverted state taxes, almost seems like private to them.

Over the decades I watched the bureaucrats involved mature from interns to fully salaried public pontificators. State Rep Schlossberg warned that roads can be racist, but no worry, Hasshan Batts is on traffic duty.

Half a block to the west, Front Street will still run the same path from Hamilton Street north to Whitehall. Many thousands of people, over a hundred and fifty years, took dozens of small roads into their workplaces along the river during our prosperous past.  Taxes and public good came from those enterprises. Now our taxes will flow the other way, to benefit the connected bloaters.

Molovinsky vs. Parking Authority

Although the Morning Call went out of their way to under-report it, there was a third candidate in the 2005 mayoral election,  independent Michael Molovinsky.  During the campaign I held three press conferences... One about subsidized housing, and the other two about the Parking Authority. The paper only reported on one,  and for that one they invited the Authority's director at the time, Linda Kauffman, to refute my allegations.  Of course the paper never revealed their connections to the Authority. 

The Authority had bailed Park & Shop out of the dwindling downtown parking business by buying their lots.  The malls on McArther Road were going full tilt, and Hamilton Street was dying a quick death.  Morning Call owner Miller owned most of Park & Shop, along with Jack Leh and Harvey Farr. 

Both the Morning Call and the Parking Authority would continue to serve the establishment and each other for the next three decades. This would include the Parking Authority purchasing Morning Call shed property, such as their parking deck. The Morning Call never reported that the Authority fabricated merchant surveys to justify meter increases to Allentown City Council, as documented by this blogger. More recently, not clarifying the nexus between the Authority, the Morning Call and the NIZ.  The Morning Call was included in the NIZ map, although it was across Linden Street from the district. Authority surface lots sold to selected developers at taxpayer inconvenience, was also not clarified.  

Wednesday's Morning Call article about ticketing parents waiting to pick up their children from school, was the first article critical of the Authority in memory. Of course the Morning Call no longer has assets to protect,  they're no longer even a tenant in their own previous building. While the recent article was a welcome development, don't expect too many revelations from them...Their editor and culture is still very much establishment oriented.

I'm shown above in 2005 at a press conference on housing that the Morning Call attended, but didn't report on. I documented that the property was already remodeled and sold three times at taxpayer expense, and that the most recent subsidized "owner" had also defaulted.

The Allentown Parking Authority Monster

Although the shopping district in Allentown has shrunk down to only Hamilton and 7th Streets, the meter district remains as it did during the heydays of the 1950's. The meters extend from Walnut to Chew, from 5th to 10th, well over 1000 meters in 20 sq. blocks. Parking meters extend out to 10th and Chew Sts, three full blocks beyond the closest store.* These meters are a defacto penalty for the residents, mostly tenants. In essence, it is a back door tax on Allentown's poorest citizens. The apologists claim the tenants can purchase a resident meter pass, however their friends and visitors cannot. To add insult to injury, in 2005, to help finance a new parking deck for the arts district, the Parking Authority doubled the meter rate and fines. Testimony to City Council permitting the rate increase indicated it was favored by the merchants. At that time I documented to the Council that in fact the merchants were not informed, much less in favor. The vote was 5 to 2, with Hershman and Hoover dissenting
* I used the above copy on my posting of October 3, 2007. In the past several weeks the Parking Authority finally removed the meters in the 900 block of Chew St, 50 years beyond their legitimate need.

UPDATE: The post above is reprinted from September 2009. I have published dozens of posts on the Parking Authority. In 2005, I conducted two press conferences on their abuses; One conference was at 10th and Chew Streets, and concerned the oversized meter zone. The second conference, directly in front of their office, concerned the fabricated merchant survey that they  presented to City Council. Old tricks die hard. Forward ahead to 2015, and the Parking Authority will once again penalize both existing merchants and residents.  The new plan is to double the meter parking rate from $1 an hour, to $2, and extend the metering time to 10:00pm.  They claim that the merchants are in favor of this plan. Although I will not conduct my own survey, as I did 2005,  their survey defies logic.  Why would any of the few surviving merchants want their customers submitted to a destination city parking rates in Allentown? Despite the hype,  Allentown is not Miami Beach or N.Y.C.. In reality, just as the taxpayers are subsidizing the arena zone,  now the merchants and residents will be subsidizing the arena plan through punitive parking rates.

UPDATE Memorial Day Weekend 2015: I did end up asking several merchants, and no, they were not surveyed. Eight years from the original date of this post, and the Authority is still up to the same shenanigans.   Reilly's City Center tenants, merchants and customers will get a free pass for the Authority's inconvenient parking lots. Other existing tenants in the NIZ, such as the south side of the 900 block of Walnut Street, will not be eligible for residential parking permits.  If you have a problem with any of this, remember, you must now put money in the meter at night, before  complaining to City Council.

UPDATE MARCH 20, 2020:  As of noon yesterday, the Parking Authority suspended tickets in the residential permit zones.  However, normal parking meter tickets will continue.  This would have of course punish merchants still open for business during this virus crisis. However, while there are virtually no merchants left on Hamilton Street since the NIZ revitalization, the punishment would have mostly affect the minority merchants on 7th Street....or in other words, life as usual in Allentown. Governor Wolf has declared that all non-essential businesses must close. Will the monster also now stand down?

UPDATE OCTOBER 20, 2020: Numerous voters trying to drop off their ballots at Government Center at 7th and Hamilton, report that the monster has awoken, and is giving out tickets. 

UPDATE AUGUST 10, 2021: I've been writing about the Parking Authority corruption for over fifteen years.  You will not read about this corruption in the Morning Call, because the paper has always benefitted from their association with it, going back to the days of Park & Shop.

UPDATE NOVEMBER 18, 2021: The Authority is now accused of munching on the poor waiting in line to pick up their children at the inner-city schools. Welcome to the Authority's menu, and welcome to Molovinsky On Allentown, which has been reporting on the monster's diet for the last fifteen years.

Shopping On Hamilton Street

When I was born, my parents lived on 17th Street SW near Queen City Airport. The streets in our neighborhood — Liberator, Coronado and Catalina — were named for some of the World War II planes and parts built there at the Consolidated Vultee factory. I vaguely remember taking the trolley over the 8th St. bridge for our Saturday excursions on Hamilton St... I clearly remember taking the bus. The transit station was on south 8th Street, 75 feet from Hamilton. I can't imagine what Max Hess and John Leh would have said had Lanta moved the terminal and customers to 6th and Linden Street, but then again who cares now about a few Asian merchants.

reprinted from October of 2007 

UPDATE NOVEMBER 17, 2021: I helped organize efforts against Lanta removing bus stops from Hamilton Street, and building their passenger/prison holding facility on 6th Street. My efforts were unsuccessful. I organized efforts against the Allentown Parking Authority doubling parking rates at the time...Those efforts were also unsuccessful.  

I have been successful at making some noise, and not letting the powers that be label all their schemes as good for Allentown, with no questions permitted.  

shown above employee badge from WW2 Consolidated Vultee

No Dutchmen Need Apply

Mildred and Milton are upset. They lived and worked their entire lives in Allentown. They both started working in sewing factories after high school and spend their working lives there. During the late 60's they owned their only car, and always lived in apartments. They never sought any help from the government, their culture taught them to make it do, use it up, wear it out and do without. When they heard about these new public housing apartments overlooking the Lehigh, they thought that would be a nice reward for a life of hard work. They were told it would take years,years they don't have, to get on the list. It's hard for them to understand how brand newcomers to the area go to the head of the line. They don't know about the poverty pimps, the social organizations, funded by grants; The professional advocates who know what buttons to push, who make a career out of political correctness. Maybe we need a Pennsylvania Dutch American Organization.

reprinted from 2007 and 2010 

ADDENDUM: Needless to say ,the previous times I published this piece some readers were offended by its bluntness. Here we are in 2017, and Mayor Pawlowski isn't even seeking Mildred and Milton's vote.

UPDATE NOVEMBER 2021: Fourteen years later, and my 2007 post is more politically incorrect than ever. Mildred and Milton were real people, who never got into Overlook Park. Things come and go...The strawberry pie at Hess's, Roadside America and the Mildreds' and Miltons' of Allentown.

Allentown Before Crime Became Everyday

Shown above is a citizen certificate from Allentown's better days, before crime and violence were everyday occurrences.  Some civic cheerleaders, mostly newcomers,  think that the best days are now,  and that those of us who think otherwise must dwell in a house of negativity. 

The local culture has changed so much that rather than citizens reporting suspicious activity,  they won't even cooperate with police against actual crime, even if they're a victim. We have city council members supporting efforts to defund the police. 

In some communities on the west coast, where defund efforts are more prominent,  young shooters are being paid a monthly stipend of up to a $1000 a month not to shoot anybody. However,  to quality for the allowance, you must have already shot someone. Allentown has already committed a $million dollars of our federal grant money to privately run violence reduction programs, and $250,000 to study inequity in the city. Other local activists have started their own organizations and are queuing up for their grants. This nonsense is given legitimacy by the Morning Call, which repeatedly refers to these opportunists as activists. Their newly graduated cub reporters have no knowledge of Allentown last year, much less any institutional knowledge of the city.

Hope I don't come to look back on our present as the good old days, but that may well be in the cards.

certificate shown courtesy of Daniel Ruth, circa 1980

The Morning Call Marches Toward Garbage Can

When the woman from India called last month to offer me the Sunday paper for free, I told her not only didn't I want it, but that I would cancel my digital subscription if they ever put it on my driveway. Not only could she read the English script, but she understood my reply. 

Although i'm aging and it becomes more difficult to pick things up, I'm still a very early riser.  I have no need for a heavy newspaper out near the street, hours after I already read the digital version. On the contrary, disposing of it is a nuisance.  The woman from India who called yesterday could barely read the script, and didn't understand my English replies at all. After I told her I didn't want the free paper and delivery, she keep reading the script anyway, like a robot with poor English.

In today's paper, reconstituted Bill White is rehashing his hatred of long gone Emma Tropiano. While the newspaper still hasn't reported who finally won the third county judgeship (Ritter prevailed by 74 votes) it spends its limited resources and space with White's nonsense. 

As a local blogger, I maintain digital subscriptions to various sources. With the Morning Call, the annoyances are starting to outweigh their news.