Last night Mayor Pawlowski looked forward to a good nights sleep after a long day of campaigning. He took his traveling illusion show, entitled Community Policing, to two locations. Stage hands included Police Brass and a "consultant". Although he knows the shine is off his apple, and hard questions have replaced previous blind enthusiasm, he still has a supportive editorial board at the newspaper, and more democrats registered than ever. We are installing surveillance camera's, blah, blah, blah. We are installing shot spotter sound systems, blah, blah, blah. We are involving the local Church Congregations, blah, blah, blah. The mostly somewhat skeptical audiences respond in a polite nod. Here and there an apologist leads a cheer:
"The mayor has a real mess to deal with and personally I feel that he is doing a decent job. It is a shame that many of the people ..... think that they can do it better. " Adam, a Morning Call forum cheerleader.
The mayor didn't get his good night's sleep. The shooting victim lying on his sidewalk required attention from the police and ambulance. Adam, cheerleader from the Morning Call forum also says;
" Seriously if you are that smart run for mayor and figure out how to fix the major problems that previous administrations have caused."
Well, I ran for mayor, and here's my suggestions.
1. Stop attracting more and more problematic people by funding social agencies which stake anybody to move to Allentown.
2. Stop hiring more and more bureaucrats and consultants and hire more police. Although the police shortfall was caused by the retirement incentive, we knew it was coming since 2005.
Michael, This might be one of your best posts yet. While I completely disagree with Solution #1, I completely agree with #2. I've been told I like #2 a lot.
ReplyDeleteI think we need to reach out to the "problematic people" and NOT with welfare and foodstamps. We need to see what is REALLY going on in the community by actually getting the neighborhoods involved. People are angry,desperate, and feel excluded by the City; and although it's easy to say they need to "pull themselves up by their bootstraps", what if they don't have any boots ?
ReplyDeleteAlfonso
alfonso, you are correct that my prescription is avoidance, not upgrading. i have no solutions for the problems and issues which your willing to address., however, larger cities have spend countless millions and decades without accomplishments in those regards. perhaps a combination of both our approaches would be the most productive.
ReplyDeleteMichael -
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if your solutions will succeed. Perhaps you could hire a consultant and hold some community meetings to see if they would work.
The larger question for the voters is what neighborhood has seen improvement in the 7 years that Ed Pawlowski has been in charge (4 as CED Director and 3 as Mayor).
I would be hard pressed to find even one neighborhood in the city where things have actually gotten better.
Maybe I'm missing something.
Would you ever run for mayor again?
ReplyDeleteThen he would be MMM. Mayor Michael Molovinsky. The first thing he would do is kill all the bloggers.
ReplyDeleteMM, I work closely with a local non-profit, Housing Association @ Development Corp. Core pieces of HADC's mission are neighborhood stabilization through home ownership and training downtown residents in its apprentice - construction program. It has rehabbed over 200 homes in Allentown, is currently constructing 9 new town homes on North Street, and has more than 15 residents as employees, training them to lead productive lives.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that any entity that encourages people to relocate themselves and their problems to Allentown should not be funded. The city cannot afford the time, cash or impact of continuing to be New York's dumping ground. But how can we stop this?
Agreed totally on the police issue. Do you know the stats on new police hires vs. retirements since Pawlowski took office? I remember seeing some stats in the MC, but I don't believe much of what they print.
Thanks.
anon 4;34, if you scroll down this page on my post entitled clean up day, you will see the city even contributed 150k to the north st. project through the cdbg. in aggregate we are giving millions which should be redirected to capital and infrastructure projects, our per capital income is so low we are permitted by hud to use the funds on infrastructure. as you know the north st. houses are being retailed at less than half their actual cost. i know the people and intentions at north st. are good, but new bargain homes are one of many wrong messages going out from allentown. again, no offense, it is not my intention to single out north st.
ReplyDeletepolice were 242 before afflerbach, down to 180 or so after the run for retirement door, now i think their about 209.
Someone needs to break the Police Union and its lazy and corruptesque behavior before we start rewarding these meatheads with jobs for their cousins and former Northanpton wrestling buddys.
ReplyDeleteAs odd as it may sound, simply adding police in Allentown may not be a very bright idea considering the guys we got never want to investigate or follow up.
On the North Street issue, it's not possible to do that kind of work and sell for cost - no one would pay $250k to live on North St. I also believe there is significant value to the "apprentice training" aspect.
ReplyDeleteBut you're right, we have to allocate resources effectively. There is so much to do.....
On the police, 1/2 way back - but what a hit the force took w/ that contract. I saw Roy Afflerbach at an Ironpigs game, 1st time I'd seen him in 2+ years, and I still get angry when I think of his term. I truly believe he had good intentions, but his term was disastrous for the city.
RE:"Michael, This might be one of your best posts yet."
ReplyDeleteYeah, I agree, he finally learned how to use proper spacing. Much easier to read. Keep up the good work!