School District on Front Burner

Although six days have passed, comments are still being sent to Zimmerman Speaks Out. I have decided to put our troubled school system back on the front burner. Today Steve Esack, at The Morning Call, reported on the bloated district administration. This past Wednesday, I received some comments doubting whether newspaper reporters harvest idea's from blogs and the value of board members speaking out here. Actually, a comment placed previously on this blog revealed that administrative titles were being changed to affect funding. Both the reporter and editor confirmed that this blog was the genesis for their earlier Joyce Marin article. The school administration has warned teachers about publicly criticizing the district; This blog provides an opportunity to speak out.

As a teacher at WAHS, I welcome Mr Zimmerman's attempt to understand the safety issues at the high school.There are many assaults on teachers which bring about minimum consequences to students. Very few suspensions, needed approval by the district office, and failure to follow most points of the code of conduct have led to chaos in the high school.Until there is discipline and control in the high school, test scores will not go up. (comment on Zimmerman Speaks Out, received April 30.)

Along with looming teacher layoffs, we have an administration which seems to cater to administrators. We have an attempt to suppress the right of teachers to speak out, and we have discipline issues being swept under the rug.
UPDATE: Click on letter to enlarge

You have selected a very important profession at a time when great teachers in America are needed now more than ever. In the Allentown School District, opportunities continue for all who are reaching higher to improve our system and who share with us the practices, values and beliefs that make a real difference........Gerald Zahorchak

Dr. Zahorchak, If I was a teacher facing layoff, I would find this letter very ironic. I see a pattern of disconnect between your constant stream of Z Letters and the realities facing teachers, students and parents.

Prince William's Great Grandmother

Long before Prince William walked down the aisle yesterday in Westminister Abbey, his great grandmother, Princess Alice (Princess Andrew of Greece), walked there during the wedding of her son Phillip, to Princess Elizabeth. Princess(Alice) Andrew, later at the Coronation of Elizabeth, wore the habit of a nun. An extraordinary woman, she had founded a nurses order composed of nuns in Greece. She modeled the order after one started by her aunt and mentor in Russia, whom she had visited many years earlier. Born Princess Alice of Battenberg, she married Prince Andrew of Greece in 1903, assuming her new title.
During the Second World War, she hid a Jewish widow and her children in Athens, saving their lives. In accordance to her wish, she is buried in Jerusalem, next to her cherished aunt Duchess Fyodorovna, in the Russian Orthodox Church of Maria Magdalene.

The $25,000 House

A local blogger recently did a series of posts on the improving rental market in the Valley, and what the cities should do to prosper most from the trend. He combined a number of utopian concepts, which seem somewhat incompatible in the real world of eastern Pennsylvania. He wants affordable housing and upperly mobile housing, if not side by side, close by. The starry eyed call this mixed income neighborhoods. I think what they fail to understand is that this is Allentown, not Manhattan. We are a horizontal community, not constricted in area. Although he cites rising rents, he doesn't understand the specifics. Rents are rising in the suburbs, away from the mixed income neighborhood. Higher rents in center city are only the formula for higher vacancy and turnover rates, part of the learning curve for newer landlords. The tale of the tape is the real estate listings, and more indicative, the deed transfers. In Allentown there are currently 62 houses for sale under $50,000. This past fall and winter, the deed transfers have been dominated by dozens of homes, purchased for rental, by investors for $25,000. This low cost of entry has saturated the rental market with $700 a month homes. The house pictured above is near 12th and Linden Streets, and can be purchased for $16,000.

UPDATE: There has been a juxtaposition of failed real estate strategies which created our current situation. The city orange tagged many apartment buildings in the last couple of years. Government policy wanted to make everyone and their pet a homeowner, putting hundreds of marginally financed people in houses. The crash has now reverted them back to tenants, but angry, resentful tenants. Overall, as William Bendex would say at the end of the Life of Riley, "What a revolting development this turned out to be." A fellow blogger cut and pasted several articles on our wonderful new rental environment. I thought I'd give an actual report from the front lines. If you want optimism or false solutions, go to his blog or City Hall.

Allentown Moves Visitor Center

Allentown has moved it's Visitor Center from Hamilton Street to the America on Wheels Museum on Front Street; Hope that doesn't confuse too many visitors! According to The Morning Call, the center helped about twenty visitors a day at the old location. Assuming that Lee Butz will not be stopping in eighteen times a day anymore, they should now receive about two people a day, both asking for directions to Bethlehem.

The Consigliere

Blogger, and former attorney Bernie O'Hare has long had influence with Northampton political kingpins Ron Angle and John Stoffa. That influence, until recently, had been limited to a stream of good press on his blog and perhaps some ghost writing. The Gracedale episode seems to have elevated Bernie from press agent to legal advisor. His joint lawsuit with an elected official against the petition was quite unusual. Stoffa's comments that O'Hare saved the County money seem to compound the blurriness; The Morning Call has done a story on that topic. The second flank of the attack against Gracedale, centered on Stoffa's claim that a ballot question not only challenged the Home Rule Charter, but the actual Constitution of the United States. Once again we learned that O'Hare studied the Charter, and reprimanded The Morning Call for not accurately reporting Stoffa's somberness during the press conference. Could O'Hare now also be a stage director, in addition to writer and legal advisor? Could we have an Orson Welles in our midst? Citizen O'Hare.

Joseph's Tomb

Moses took the bones of Joseph with him because Joseph had made the sons of Israel swear an oath. He had said, "God will surely come to your aid, and then you must carry my bones up with you from this place." (Exo 13:19)

For a thousand years, Jews had prayed at and cared for the Tomb of the Patriarch Joseph. The Samaritans had worshipped at the Tomb for 1,700 years.

On October 7, 2000, Ehud Barak ordered Israeli Border Police to withdraw from guarding the Tomb in the West Bank city of Nablus (Shechem). Within hours it was destroyed. Since then there has been a pattern of the IDF escorting religious Jews to clean up the destruction, and then more desecration after they leave.

The bones of Joseph which the Children of Israel brought up from Egypt were buried in Shechem in the portion of the field that had been purchased by Jacob. (Joshua 24:32)

UPDATE: Early Sunday morning, as 15 ultra-orthodox Jews left the Tomb after Passover prayers, a Palestinian policeman opened fire on their 3 vehicles. Several men were wounded, and the 25 year old nephew of an Israeli Government Minister was killed.

UPDATE:In retaliation for the murder of a Jewish worshiper and the wounding of 5 others, last night at Joseph's Tomb, by official Palestinian Authority "policeman", dozens of Palestinians are rioting and burning down Joseph's Tomb in the middle of PA occupied Shechem/Nablus. (Israeli Radio, Channel B)
YNET interviewed one of the worshipers:
One of the Breslovers who was in the second car in the convoy and was lightly wounded told Ynet: "We arrived at the tomb like on many occasions in the past. Near the tomb we saw a spikes chain. One of the guys jumped out of the car and moved it aside.
"At this point a uniformed Palestinian police officer with a Kalashnikov in a jeep woke his colleagues up and they started firing into the air…I was in the front seat. We started driving fast in the direction of the tomb; we got out of the vehicles and kissed the tomb.
"When we got back to the vehicles the police shot at the vehicles, they were screaming 'Allahu Akbar'. ["Allah, The god of Islam, is great" -- the Islamic battle cry traditionally screamed before massacring infidels] It was crazy, they were shooting to kill. I screamed at the driver to drive out of there quickly. When we got to Har Bracha we attended to the wounded." (Ynet)
Haaretz was quick to write:
"The main problem is that they [the Israelis] entered the city without coordination," said Jibril al-Bakri, the Palestinian governor of Nablus.
I thought the main problem was the PA police yelling "Allahu Akbar" and then opening fire at unarmed Jewish worshipers.
Silly me. Jameel, Israeli Blogger,  The Big  Peace
Palestinians are once again burning Joseph's Tomb

Zimmerman Speaks Out

In retrospect and not as a rationalization, during that meeting my attention was more focused on the prospect of furloughing 249 teachers than what I thought to be "routine" personnel issues.It was the administration's fault this was not addressed. I trusted them and they simply violated that trust.They can apologize all they want but it does not change the fact they still achieved their purpose, sneaking their appointment into the position.
There are certain issues that I feel, if not addressed, will make the whole attempt at a redesign of the curriculum an exercise in futility.They need to be identified and discussed in the open to adequately resolve them. I will commit to that and will use this blog as a sounding board if OK,d by MM.As a point of information, I understand the Safety Task Force will now be a closed meeting with a select group of people. Apparently the last meeting was cancelled due to the overt vociferousness of a concerned parent. That person, I was told, was my wife. I fully support her efforts to discern the truth about the violence occurring in WAHS. To me a change in the structure of this meeting appears to be a direct violation of the sunshine law.
The administrators in charge of student services, from the top down, either have to get honest with the people of Allentown and learn to deal with them or find other positions.I will refer this to the solicitor for the school district and if not satisfied, the Secretary of Education and or the State Attorney General.
Sincerely,
David Fehr Zimmerman
Board Member ASD
At Mr. Zimmerman's convenience, this blog will glad to host his views on issues which may impede the success of any curriculum redesign.
UPDATE: I have closed comments here, please place comments at School District Front Burner

Gethsemane 1934

Maria Magdalene (Mary Magdalene) is the Russian Orthodox Church located on the Mount of Olives, in the Garden of Gethsemane in Jerusalem, Israel.
The church is dedicated to Miryam of Migdal, a follower of Jesus. Maria Magdalene was the first to see Christ after he was resurrected, and was a crucial and important disciple of Jesus, and seemingly his primary female associate, along with Mary of Bethany, whom some believe to have been the same woman.
The church was built in 1886 by Tzar Alexander III as a commemoration for his mother, Empress Maria Alexandrovna of Russia, in the traditional tented roof Russian style, including seven onion shaped golden domes. Photograph dates from 1934

Pennsylvania as Pig

A report yesterday in The Morning Call said thousands of gallons of drilling fluid used in hydraulic fracturing were spilling into the Towanda Creek. A disaster team was brought to the site from Texas. At the time of publication on wednesday, in The Times-Tribune (Scranton), the well blowout was continuing for over twelve hours. How many actual gallons of the carcinogenic witch brew actually contaminated the land and waterway will probably never be known. The well is operated by Chesapeake Energy Corp., which is one of the biggest and best equipped operators in fracking. The report said nobody was injured. That referred to immediate injury from the blowout. How many will suffer ill effects from contaminated water will be determined by future doctors, now still in elementary school. Gotta love Pennsylvania. We are the state with one of the biggest state houses. Our legislators have the largest staffs. Our governors, term after term, Democrat or Republican, appoint their minions to turnpike, bridge and other no-show commissions. I remember when in the late 70's, the lottery was the solution to keeping Pennsylvania's pig trough financed. Now we have added casino's and sacrificed our environment with hydraulic fracking. Reform is a barge, which floats by on Pennsylvania's contaminated river called Denial, every four years.

An Allentown Tradition

This photo, circa 1948, shows a Lehigh Valley Transit sweeper trolley passing Zandy's first steak shop, on the corner of Hall and St. John's Street. Also visible in the photo is their current location (upper left hand corner, please click to enlarge photo), in the former Park Movie Theater. After the Park, and before Zandy's, it was a textile dye factory. These two blocks served as a business district at the southern end of the Eighth Street Bridge. Zandy's started in 1940, and today the third generation carries on the business.

Mike Miorelli Fails to Credit Molovinsky

When I saw Joyce Marin's picture on the front page of The Morning Call yesterday, I was proud that molovinsky on allentown was able to bring the story to the attention of the public and media. The photo caption mentioned subsequent criticism of the hiring. That criticism occurred on my blog for the five days before Steve Esack printed his report. In those five days my blog story and comments grew to include an explanation by board member Zimmerman and a note from Superintendent Zahorchak. I didn't know if Esack's report would credit me as Michael Molovinsky, or molovinsky on allentown. I was shocked to instead find a local internet blogger. When I called Esack yesterday, he was genuinely embarrassed. He had written molovinsky on allentown in his story. It is journalism 101 to acknowledge who broke a story, when you write a subsequent piece based on it. This was not the first time a reporter has apologized to me for my name being deleted from his article. It was time to confront Miorelli. Although reporters have come and gone, Mike Miorelli has been metro editor of The Morning Call since 2001. Miorelli claimed that the reporter verified everything himself, including his own subsequent conversation with Dave Zimmerman, and didn't lift anything directly from my blog. That's true Mike, the only things that the newspaper got from this blog is the knowledge that Marin was hired, school directors were snookered, and that the public was upset.

UPDATE: Bill White, Morning Call columnist and journalism instructor at Lehigh, defends Mike Miorelli's position in the comment section of his blog. White invites bloggers to be guest instructors at his class, and his students to start a blog. I suppose he trains the student bloggers to be anonymous local internet bloggers to feed story ideas for the real writers at the Call.

Hailstorm at City Hall

Sara Hailstone, Allentown's Director of Community Development, was expecting to meet with several business owners concerned about being relocated by the hockey arena. Instead, she was confronted by a conference room full of merchants and several of their representatives. She started the meeting by questioning the presence of the Morning Call reporter, Matt Assad. Several merchants said they requested his presence. Hailstone got an earful from merchant after merchant, complaining of everything from poor communication by the city, to alleged outright intimidation by the strawbuyer, Summit Reality. She conceded that the City is the undisclosed buyer, and agreed to proceed with more respect for the merchants. I'll leave more details of the meeting to Assad's coverage, presumedly tomorrow. I'd like to mention an irony that only an old timer, like myself, can appreciate. Over the years we have invested untold $millions on Hamilton Street. We put up the canopies, we took them down. We have reconfigured the parking spaces endless times. We have created a Parking Authority that charges meter rates as if we were a destination. We burdened the merchants with endless regulations concerning their signs and their security gates. At the end of all this, what we essentially have, are those that were in the room today. Save for them, we would have no downtown. We have rewarded their lifetime of work, loyalty and investment with deceit and threats.

UPDATE: Matt Assad's article in today's paper pretty much tells the story of the meeting, but softens the tone present. Assad must maintain some working relationship with Hailstone, I do not. The merchants were very annoyed by tactics utilized by the city agent. A Korean daughter spoke of the pressure inserted on her father, and the effect on his blood pressure and health. A hispanic woman told of her 11 year old sister being harassed on the phone by the strawbuyer. She even wondered aloud if their minority status encouraged the disrespectful attitude. As the merchants revealed their resentment, Hailstone's body language and replies stiffened. Sam Hong, of New York Fashion, would like the Mayor to visit his store. Although two stores wide, and a major merchandizer on Hamilton Street, Pawlowski has never visited. Considering that he has been Mayor for 5.5 years, and Community Development Director for 3 years before that, perhaps he's not coming.

Late, and Maybe Wrong

Today, The Morning Call caught up with molovinsky on allentown about the hockey arena offers. In addition to being late, they may be wrong. They quote Ed Pawlowski as saying "We're not hiding anything." He says that the AEDC is openly trying to buy the properties. I interviewed two of the property owners mentioned in the article this past weekend. Both indicated that the buyer was not revealed, and that Summit Reality was acting as an agent for an undisclosed buyer. I did not review the offers to purchase myself. Also today, The Morning Call caught up with my Joyce Marin scoop. Although molovinsky on allentown is not credited in either story, the Marin story refers to a local internet blog.

Involuntary Conversion

In real estate, an involuntary conversion is when your property is taken by no plan of your own. The merchants of Hamilton Street are facing an involuntary conversion.

molovinsky on allentown has learned that the city is buying up the square block between 7th and 8th, Hamilton and Linden Streets, for the hockey arena. The subsidized Farr building, a Pawlowski pet project, will be spared. Although offers they can't refuse are based on the fair market value of the real estate, their livelihood and right of free choice are being violated. These businesses are not only their income, but security for their family's future. Many years ago, the city zoning made me close a photo studio in the area of Raub School. I was told that if I wanted to be insured the right to operate, I should have located in the business district. There once was a covenant between Allentown and merchants. If the merchants invested their time and money, the city would provide a district which secured their investment. Several years ago the merchants were upset that the bus transfer stops were removed; Little did they realize that they would be next. If the Pawlowski Arena for Sports and Culture doesn't work out, we will have lost the business district for naught.
UPDATE: Apparently, some of these offers were made as an option to buy, with an undisclosed buyer. A local prominent realtor, is acting as a straw buyer , for either a speculator or the city. Threats of eventual eminent domain. with a lower price, have supposedly been made to encourage signatures.

Caution, unconfirmed rumor

This blog has received a tip that our favorite school superintendent, has hired our favorite past community director, Joyce Marin. I have not been able to confirm this information, hopefully a whoops, my mistake will be needed.
UPDATE:
I have confirmed that indeed Marin was hired as a grant specialist. I've been told that the hiring was at Pawlowski's request. This will not be music to the ears of many laid off teachers and aides. I know of no accomplishments by Marin as community development director.

UPDATE: Marin is the Administrative Center Community Before/After School Activities Project Manager effective 4/4/11. The stated salary is $84,000 / Yr. This is a new position.
UPDATE: Email exchange
dr. zahorchak, it has come to my attention that you hired joyce marin as a grant writer. would you please explain why nobody in house could not perform this function and how an additional administrative position can be justified with so many teacher layoffs pending. sincerely michael molovinsky

Mr. Molovinsky, I read your question regarding Joyce Marian. There appears to be confusion probably due to the fact that the position is grant funded. The position is funded out of the Safe Schools Healthy Students grant. The position promotes and only focuses on before and after school activities as many of our therapeutic support services are covered outside of classroom hours – mentoring, arts enrichment, life skills support, and family activities. Her position will help dozens of agencies and friends of the district align their work and use our buildings as they support our children. Gerald Zahorchak

CastleRock

CastleRock took place in the cavernous Dorney Park dance-hall, Castle Garden. The "Garden" was built in the early 20's and hosted all the famous big bands of that era. By the late fifties it was called CastleRock. The Philadelphia recording stars, such as Frankie Avalon and Freddy Cannon would routinely perform. By my teenage era, in the early mid 60's, it was mostly disc jockeys. The Park was free, no admission. Pay to park, and maybe a buck or so for the dance-hall.







By then the nightclub tables shown in the photograph were gone, and sitting was around the sides. There were no shootings, and rowdiness was restricted to sneaking on a ride without buying a ticket. The dance-hall overlooked the lake, it was destroyed by a fire on Thanksgiving in 1985.

reprinted from January,26,2010

Flash From Past

Occasionally, some of the older boys in Lehigh Parkway would get saddled with taking me along to a Saturday matinee in downtown Allentown. We would get the trolley, in later years a bus, from in front of the basement church on Jefferson Street. It would take that congregation many years to afford completing the church building there today. The trolley or bus would go across the 8th Street Bridge, which was built to accommodate the trolleys operated by Lehigh Valley Transit Company. Downtown then sported no less than five movie theaters at any one time. Particularly matinee friendly was the Midway, in the 600 Block of Hamilton. Three cartoons and episode or two of Flash Gordon entertained our entourage, which ranged in age from five to eleven years old. We younger kids, although delighted by the likes of Bugs Bunny, were confused how the Clay People would emerge from the walls in the caves on Mars to capture Captain Gordon, but our chaperones couldn't wait till the next week to learn Flash's fate. Next on the itinerary was usually a banana split at Woolworth's. Hamilton Street had three 5 and 10's, with a million things for boys to marvel at. The price of the sundae was a game of chance, with the customer picking a balloon. Inside the balloon was your price, anywhere from a penny to the full price of fifty cents. The store had a full selection of Allentown souvenirs. Pictures of West Park on a plate, the Center Square Monument on a glass, pennants to hang on your wall, and picture postcards of all the attractions. Hamilton Street was mobbed, and even the side streets were crowded with busy stores. Taking younger kids along was a responsibility for the older brothers, the streets and stores were crowded, but predators were limited to the Clay People on the silver screen.

reprinted from March 24, 2010

Trail Network Approved

Denise Sanchez/The Morning Call/April 4, 2010

Shown above, Luciana Martucci, with her Barbie fishing pole, teaches her daddy how to fish in an Allentown park. Luciana is concerned that the Trail Network Plan will encourage many additional bicyclists, going much faster, which will make watching her daddy more difficult; He tends to wander when they walk on the paths. She doesn't understand why the paths are going to be dug up and paved to accommodate one particular set of users, at the expense of all others.

The parks are a nationally recognized heritage of all Allentonians, from one generation to the next. No one Administration, or set of Trustee's, is entitled to impose irreversible changes in its design or use.

This post is reprinted from one year ago. Despite assurances given by City Council at that time, to a packed chamber of citizens, that all future park plans would receive proper public notice and input, last evening funds were appropriated to begin construction of a bike trail connecting Cedar Park to Union Terrace and Lehigh Parkway.

Prime Time Television

Last evening Bernie O'Hare invited me to watch the Gracedale Business Matters show, and quite a show it was. Bernie pounded away at election fraud, despite both the Election Board and a County Judge approving the signatures. Since the taping, the Commonwealth Court has reaffirmed the legality of the petitions. Ron Angle offered to keep Gracedale, if the union would come back with significant concessions. A better prepared Tony Iannelli might have questioned Angle's authority, since he is not the County Executive, or even still Council President. Bernie insisted on calling Pastor Martinez a fake reverend. I'm not sure why Bernie wanted people to watch this show, but I may have seen his friend Bill Coker. Some gentleman in the audience asked under what authority do the citizens think they can circumvent council? It's called democracy.

Day of the Fight

In the late 1920's, Newark was home to a large Jewish population and hundreds of Jewish fighters. One night a week, Laurel Garden would host either boxing, wrestling or roller skating, in addition to performances by popular bands. One night in 1929, an eighteen year old volunteered from the audience to fill in for a missing boxer. The kid won by knockout, and so began the career of Tony Galante, who would fight 29 times at Laurel. Among the notables who fought there over the years were James Braddock and Max Schmeling. The photo above is a still from the documentary, Day of the Fight, made in 1951. It was the first film attempt by a young director named Stanley Kubrick. Laurel Garden was demolished in 1953.

Bad Lesson Plan

This blog has been critical of both the school superintendent and the school board. I have even mentioned the board leadership, but not by name. Although an elected office, I can think of no more of a thankless job than school board member. I'm sorry to report that someone has attacked a local business over the school district dilemma. Jeff Glazier is president of the school board, and fourth generation operator of Glazier Furniture. The store is still located on Hamilton, near 2nd Street. When it started in 1916, this was the busy hub of Allentown merchandizing. Throughout the years and generations, the family has stayed faithful to Allentown, and certainly doesn't deserve this abuse. Another member of the board works for the Lehigh Valley Health Network, would they boycott the hospital? It is my hope that whoever put up the signs, realizes that it wasn't his best lesson plan.

Allentown School District

Last night the School Board approved Zahorchak's Pathways to Success, laying off 247 teachers. Before I begin my tirade, let me acknowledge a reality. Apparently, there will be less revenue from the state and federal governments this year. (although we always seem to end up with more than the initial offer) Assuming that, never the less, there is a substantial reduction, and the taxpayers can only tolerate so much increase, some layoffs were inevitable. Also, apparently teachers cannot be laid off for reasons of economy, only curriculum changes. So, I concede a program change, and some layoffs were necessary. That said, this school board and this superintendent could not have done it in a poorer fashion. The board hired the wrong person last year as superintendent. It was apparent from the first Z Letter indicating that everything was wrong and that he had all the answers. It was apparent from the 3000 idea's he threw against the wall. It was apparent from transferring the most effective principals to administrative jobs. To have made the best of their bad hiring decision, the board would have to first recognize it. Apparently, this board, or at least it's leadership, has too much self esteem for such a conclusion.

Although 247 teachers will be laid off, not one administrator will lose his/her job. To make matters more irrational, many of these administrative jobs did not exist before last year. Although Zahorchak's goal of higher test scores and graduation rate are admirable, he is gutting the elective programs, which were the unique aspect of the Allentown School District. If he doesn't succeed in his goals, which is very likely, his plan was the Pathway to Failure. He has demoralized the teaching staff, even before the layoffs. Allentown School District has dug itself a deeper hole, which wasn't easy to do. Zahorchak claims we need a change; I agree, we need a new board and a new superintendent.