Sharon, An out of town visitor to the arena, wrote in a letter to the editor yesterday,
Please keep the police presence around the arena. It was so reassuring to see them and know their job was to keep the fans safe. Actually Sharon, their real job is to protect Allentonians, all over the city. However, they are being diverted to Reilly's taxpayer funded, part time adult disneyland. A well known restauranteur confirmed that indeed he was given such a lucrative inducement to open up, that it made no sense to say no. Although center city Allentown will certainly hum with a vitality that it hasn't seen in many decades on event nights, there are hidden costs involved with this theater of public money. If it's the other sections of the city being under served by the police on event nights, or the waiters making no tips on non-event nights, the new entertainment will cost everybody something.
Mr.Molovinsky, We all knew a massive police deployment was required for folks to venture to center city to attend arena events.The question is paying the police and are they being withdrawn from the rest of the city for these events ?
ReplyDelete@8:52, another question is sorting the truth from the spin. a recent article in the MC estimated the annual overtime for arena protection at half a $mil. intuition tells me that the east and south sides will be shortchanged in protection on event nights. remember this city postponed building the new east side fire station for several years, feeling that they could cover it adequately with alternative strategies.
ReplyDeleteYes, *adequacy* is synonymous with this now-sad city. There is *adequate* shopping,,if you dont mind driving out of town. There are *adequate* choices of parks to take your children to play,,if you dont mind overgrown weeds that hide refuse or hypodermic needles. There is an *adequate* police presence,,as long as YOUR 911 call isnt too far from the current squad car. Yep.
ReplyDeleteMike,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the city's line when asked about the extra expenses that "they have the costs covered". Oh, OK, I guess that solves that problem. This is typical of the in-depth investigative reporting we are now accustomed to in Allentown.
Scott Armstrong
For years this community had been asking for greater police presence and were not given it. When it was the old Hamilton Street merchants and shoppers, why wasn't our safety valued by those in City Hall?
ReplyDelete-Steven Ramos
Things are going great in the Potemkin Village. Phantoms had their fifth sellout of the season on Saturday night. What's with all the complaining?
ReplyDeleteSincerely,
Col. Viktor Tikhnonov
Soviet Red Army (ret)
Reilly is already appealing the assessment on his flagship property.
ReplyDeleteSo he contributed money to Building 21 for the ASD. Now he wants to pay less property taxes and yet send money to ASD through another conduit.
Which one has the greatest tax benefit a tax credit or deduction?
Generally dislike cliches but in this case one hand does was the other.
The problem with police manpower throughout Allentown is due to Mr. Pawlowski's shell game of actual police force complement. Since he has been mayor, the polish prince has constantly failed to bring the actual budgeted manpower up to full strength; thus making the police department operate shorthanded. This way, he saves money to cover overtime expenses and he short-changes the taxpayer's police services.
ReplyDelete