Jul 31, 2007

More Weeding, Less Talking


Allentown has a few icons, such as the PPL Tower, the 8th Street and Tilghman Street Bridges. In Europe many bridges date from the middle ages, there are even Roman bridges still in use. It seems here in Allentown we cannot even keep an 80 year old bridge together. Earlier this year County Executive Cunningham and Mayor Pawlowski had a press conference under the Tilghman Street Bridge, while on the top weeds and saplings were growing out of the road bed. The bushes and weeds are still there, on both bridges, eroding away magnificent unreplaceable structures. Lets hope these great silver tongued planners stop waiting for penn-dot, and get around to buying a bottle of weed begone.
UPDATE: When I was a kid I grew up in Lehigh Parkway South, this was a development of twin homes built for the returning GI's, the streets were named for planes built during the war; Liberator, Catalina, and Coronado.(Queen City Airport was a WW2 plane factory). Getting into the rest of Allentown was a bit inconvenient. To go downtown(Hamilton St. was the Shopping Mecca of Lehigh Valley) you would have to go over the 8th Street Bridge. To get to the east side you would go down the Lehigh Street hill, up to Union and then over the river. Getting to points west required going over the stone arch bridge near Regency Towers. Construction of the 15th Street bridge finally connected the south side with the rest of Allentown. The metal deck, which was annoying from day one, was supposed to be temporary. So here we are, fifty some years later, being told the bridge is ready to be replaced. Is there anyone in authority who remembers how difficult it was to navigate Allentown before the bridge? So now the decaying 8th Street Bridge will absorb the traffic during construction of the new 15th Street Bridge? Allentown meanwhile defers simple maintenance, like rail painting, because of promises from Harrisburg? We truly are slow learners.

UPDATE: Lipstick on a pig; Allentown now has hung banners on the 15th St. bridge lightposts, distracting drivers attention somewhat away from the rusting rails.

Jul 27, 2007

BrewPub Glass half Empty


In less than a month, the taxpayer sponsored brew-waste, must change its format to loud and late; so much for the fine dining district. As it joins Croc Rock and other clubs competing for the rockers, the taxpayers can forget being paid back. Inquiring minds will discover in the future that the loans have been forgiven, and applied against future funds for Allentown. Although everybody in the food and bar industry knows $7.1 million is an impossible overhead in the Lehigh Valley, our bureaucrats continue to suggest revival is around the corner.

Jul 16, 2007

Broken Dreams


The lead story in the Morning Call sunday dealt with a growing number of foreclosures, especially in the sub-prime category. The article and those quoted in it concurred the problem rested primarily with unregulated brokers, who paired people with mortgages they would not be able to afford down the road. The reporters briefly mentioned two other factors, whose significance they vastly underplayed. One is the notion by the government and many low-income advocates that becoming a homeowner will make people more responsible members of their community. Here in Allentown the community block grants are given to several agencies which specialize in making the low-income homeowners. These agencies minimize their default rate by having an on-going bail-out fund, although they refer to this as after-market counseling. The second real culprit was the government insurers , Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, relaxing their standards. Several years ago the activists blamed predator lenders for rash of default, actually jailing a number of people. Now the same activists are blaming greedy mortgage brokers. The government and the low-income advocates must stop promoting home-ownership as a constitutional right. Houses are expensive, things break, murphy's law is truly in effect. Twenty-five years ago nobody considered buying a home with less than 10% down. Nobody considered spending more than 25% of their income on a fixed mortgage. Now we encourage people to buy a lottery ticket and hope their adjustable rate mortgage doesn't go up.

Jul 13, 2007

Councilman Tony Phillips

I have no idea what Tony Phillips was doing in the park two weeks ago, and I don't care. What I care about is keeping the voice of our best citizen and taxpayer advocate strong. Regardless of outcome, which is probably just the smearing of his reputation, Mr. Phillips would be entitled to be subdued in spirit. But Tony is a fighter, there's not a ounce of rubber-stamp in him, often the vote on council is 6-1. In a city experiencing a murder spree, what better qualification could a council member have than being a former police officer? It would be nice if some day Allentown becomes so tranquil that we can be concerned with innuendo's, but for now we need the kind of moxie Mr. Phillips brings to the City Council Chamber.

UPDATE: When I was a teenager there was a song called Town without Pity. the lyrics said "it isn't pretty what a town without pity can do." Of course in those days, before the internet, when you criticized someone you had to use your own name. Yesterday, there were 163 comments on the morning call website about mr. phillips, only mine used a real name. Under this posting i received an anonymous baseless personal insult off topic. I replied and stated i would leave the dialogue up for 12 hours or so. After I deleted it, an anonymous associate of the first insulter, accuses me of censorship. I will now monitor the comments. I welcome opinions and opposing dialogue, even anonymously, but not baseless insults.