The article headline yesterday was that so far, Hanover township spent $28,000 on legal fees fighting the arena project.
The article did mention that the legal firm is representing nine separate townships and one school district. I suppose a headline of $2,800 each would have been far less dramatic. The paper actually filed a Right To Know request to ascertain that figure. This is the same paper that didn't bat an eye about the AEDC and ACIDA spending $65million dollars to dig a hole, and for Reilly to buy the properties around it. Meanwhile, back at the park system, Allentown spent $80,000 on Weitzel's Water World plan. We also spent big amounts on the Destination Dog World and Peddle Your Fanny Park To Park. Add in the Destination Playground and Paths To Paths At Cedar Park, and you're looking at close to a $half million in blueprints. Where's the article on those expenditures? Where's the Right To Know request?
UPDATE: The Morning Call's
Best of the Blogs Sunday feature showcases Bill White's blog. He reprimanded Hanover and Bethlehem Township from benefiting from the Casino grants, while opposing the Allentown Arena. He equated the casino, built with private money, which shares huge profits with the townships, with the arena. The arena is to be built with public money, and would borrow/use suburban Earned Income Taxes for 30 years. Perhaps The Morning Call should look beyond it's own blogs for the
Best.
Thread is particulary appropriate given the article that also appeared in the MC re the closing of The Veterans Center. I guess the VC wasn't an appropriate enough cause to instill the requisite level of self aggrandizement to garner support.
ReplyDeleteTo me, the movers and shakers involved in this project are pathetic in theIr obsessive need to exress their hubris given the issues underlying the current state of Allentown, that truly affect the majority of the peole of Allentown.
@8:31, i must clarify that the article about the legal fees was in yesterday's paper, while the Veterans Center closing was published today.
ReplyDeleteI have a wonderful, if not informative, blog piece coming to remind people that The City With No Limits is not the old Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
ReplyDeleteOur professional ice hockey teams here in the United States of America are NOT owned by State-run institutions such as the army (CSKA) or the state security apparatus (Dynamo) or even an industrial entity such as a truck manufacturer (Torpedo Gorky).
And our ice hockey arenas are NOT Palaces of Sport funded exclusively by the State!
Interesting to note that the city of Gorky --- once off limits to foreigners --- has reverted to its pre-Soviet name of Nizhny Novgorod but the elite club in the Russian professional Kontinental Hockey League still plays it home games at the "TRADE UNION PALACE OF SPORT".
(I imagine SEIU would be rather jealous but, then again, I think it is rather inappropriate for the Chairman's Anonymous NIZ Cheerleaders to print the hometowns and occupations of my immediate family members at Bernie O'Hare's blog; my Mom is upset her PhD and time teaching at Yale University were not mentioned, for the record)
Wait for it!
http://www.goironpigs.com
:-D
ROLF OELER
mr. oeler, your personal family information was not printed by a NIZ cheerleader, but rather the same cyberstalker responsible for harassing many lehigh valley blogs. as a consequence, some have adopted moderation, like myself, and others have stopped blogging completely. he could care less about the NIZ or anything else, but his own vendettas.
ReplyDeleteWhy do I doubt that neither the
ReplyDeleteChairman nor the NIZ Cheerleaders were booing that after THAT particular play ...
... especially considering I see the very same Elitist, Holier-Than-Thou, Totalitarian, Call-It-What-You-Like attitudes on display day in and day out all over the LV Blogosphere by 'well-known' NIZ Cheerleaders who know full well who they are and do not need to be identified here?
I found the whole episode to be exceptionally symbolic of this whole Public Relations Fiasco, myself --- even if Mr. O'Hare already DID tell me exactly WHO was responsible.
Much in the same way I found Jeff Barber's televised comments to be incredibly revealing about prevalent attitudes and opinions.
And, now, I found some more Symbolism with respect to the Chairman's magnificent $ 220.0 million dollar Palace of Sport and I will be sharing such.
If my piece has absolutely nothing to do with one certain Cyberstalker, then, that might be somebody else's problem down at City Hall, over at The Morning Call or in some high-rise office building stuffed with powerful, well-connected Crony Capitalists somewhere --- but certainly not mine.
RO
Who in their right mind would build a dog park along a stream? You gotta be kidding me? Tell me your kidding me.
ReplyDeleteMichael,
ReplyDeleteYou may recall that at the Business Matters taping, I told Fleck that comparing the casino to the NIZ was like "comparing apples to hand grenades."
White was about 20 feet away when I made that statement.
The MC virulently refuses to disclose its own potential windfall by being inside the NIZ. Therefore, anything written by anyone at The Call about the NIZ must be taken with a huge grain of salt. They know who is buttering their bread.
steve thode, we disagree about the NIZ as the incentive for bias by the Morning Call, but the results are the same. whether they are motivated by financial benefit as you feel, or by their progressive agenda as I perceive, they're definitely promoting the NIZ in their choice of news coverage. their portrait of the township supervisors as obstructionists, their inane comparison of the casino and arena, the push poll at muhlenberg, etc. is an all out campaign. imagine the problem pawlowski would have if they were more objective....
ReplyDeleteMM. This is one of the best pieces of journalism I've read in the Lehigh Valley in a long time. Thanks for the pithy way you tell the truth about life in Allentown.
ReplyDeleteMM the morning call was built by burning down the buildings of the na sayers years ago when they didn't want to sell. I am sure in the morning gag at the time the headlines read kithen burns historic resturaunt to the ground as happend at the gag parking deck with the great allentown Cabose fire no ties to that one though. The AFD has reports for the one that will back up that story be in the feild there is always three sides to the same story, the plantiff, the defendant, and than of course the truth that is never reported by the reports that are always manipulated by the ones in charge of reporters?
ReplyDeleteMM Thanx for truth in your reporting, but in allentown you will have to go through archives in the public library and I have found that some of them are missing.
MM -
ReplyDeleteI'd like to know how much the CITY, NIZ Authority and others are paying to DEFEND a clearly unconstitutional law.
Instead of the City blowing that money, they should be asking Pat Browne to re-write the law in a way that is legal.
MM -
ReplyDelete10:09 here again.
I forgot to mention, part of the reason I ask that question is to find out exactly who is paying the legal costs to defend the NIZ.
If it is the NIZ Authority, and if they are using the local muni's EIT for legal fees, who is on the hook if the Authority or the City loses the case (and that money has to be refunded)?
State taxpayers? City taxpayers?
I'd hate to think the city or Authority is racking up a big legal bill figuring that they ultimately won't have to pay for it. Although if arena construction costs are any indication, they really don't concern themselves with such trivialities. Not a good scenario (for taxpayers) no matter how you slice it.
But I'd still think the Call might want to do a RTK request on the legal fees to cover both sides. That would at least give the APPEARANCE of being fair.
I guess the same question (who is on the hook) would apply to any of the muni money the Authority has collected thus far no matter what it is being spent on. I would think the prudent thing to do would be to escrow the municipal money until the case is resolved. Is that being done? Again, a great question for the MC to ask.