Over the years this blog and myself have established credibility and expertise on Allentown's traditional park system and the WPA. I must report what I consider to be a major shenanigan by the mayor. $1.3 million dollars was taken to purchase two heavy industrial areas, to supposedly add to the park system. This $million plus dollars was taken from the water/sewage lease, which is being used as the mayor's discretionary fund, instead of the dedicated pension relief, promised at the time. $950,000.00 was used to buy the parcel at Union and Basin Streets, near the city sewage plant. This is one of the oldest industrial areas in the city, and certainly not needed for more park land. Allentown has not been able to maintain the existing park land, or the features within it. The Fountain Park Pool has been abandoned, and the WPA structures are crumbling. The other just purchased parcel is the old fertilizer plant location, along Martin Luther King Dr., west of the crumbling Schreibers Bridge. We have an administration with no memory or knowledge of Allentown's past. Anybody who knew what went on at the fertilizer/rendering plant, would not want their grandchildren playing there. The city's rationale for these purchases is to expand the biking paths and connect the parks. That's the folly, and now the misappropriations. Allentown has supposedly allocated money to engineer the repair of the leaning WPA wall in Lehigh Parkway. I know why the wall leans. Years ago, the stone shoulder between the park entrance and wall was blacktoped. As cars and city trucks drive around the curve, pressure is exerted against the wall. That strip of asphalt needs to be removed, and the stone buffer restored. The problem with the engineering study is that it's the third time it has been appropriated. In the last two budgets money was actually budgeted to repair the wall, now the process begins again. What happen to the previous appropriations? Must molovinsky on allentown now also establish expertise in forensic accounting?
reprinted from June 26, 2014
UPDATE JULY2015. The wall collapsed in Lehigh Parkway, closing the traditional entrance to the park.. Over the past several years I had met with two park directors and the city engineer, to no avail, trying to save the wall. Recently, I have reported a problem to the current park director about the Union Terrace WPA structure, that needs immediate attention. The new parcels, rather than connecting the parks, are connecting the neglect.
UPDATE MARCH 8, 2018: Local news sources are reporting that Mayor Pawlowski is expected to resign today. If this welcome news will have a positive effect on the park system remains to be seen. A potential mayoral contender told me that if he were in charge, I'd be working for the park department, planning WPA renovations. I never asked for a job, nor do I want one. However, when I did ask City Council to appoint me as a volunteer liaison on WPA matters, I was met with silence. A park employee told me that there is significant money in the new budget for WPA repairs. Again, that is nothing new. How it will be appropriated remains to be seen. There is one thing for sure; Whoever the new mayor might be, whatever the park budget might be, my advocacy for the WPA structures will continue.
This is why I advocate sanitizing where needed. The Parks Department and Police Department are in need of new leadership. Both are Pawlowski choices and have failed at their jobs. The parks director believes in turning the parks into playgrounds and the police administration believes basketballs and toy footballs will solve crime in our delapidated neighborhoods. I can't really blame the individuals in charge as much, however, they are byproducts of the Pawlowski failed thinking and they were in lock-step with the disgraced one!
ReplyDeleteAny acting mayor must see the failure of these two departments and must make needed changes to affect change that is needed. With three former police officers on council, they obviously must see the needed changes, unless they think Pawlowski's public safety stance was right.
MM, you are in error as to why the wall was bulging and ultimately collapsed. When the wall was built, there was a large swale between the road surface and the wall. This swale directed water run-off from the road to flow down hill without getting to the wall. As a child growing up in the Parkway neighborhood, you should remember it. I do. When former Mayor Heydt started the Lights in the Parkway this swale was unnecessarily paved over. The reason I say unnecessarily is because two way traffic easily existed with the swale present. It was convenience of the motorists waiting to enter the Lights in the Parkway. The result was now the water run-off instead of flowing to the end of the wall at the bottom of the hill into the Little Lehigh it could also seep behind the wall. The winter the water behind the wall would freeze and expand pushing the wall out and eventually eroding the mortar joints cementing the rock together.
ReplyDeleteThe new poured concrete section as well as the remaining original wall is still susceptible to this happening. The reason it happened where it did is because the road turns thus directing the water flow against the wall.
What needs to be done is the swale should be re-installed to preserve this iconic WPA structure that one of my relatives helped built.
pathfinder@4:26, you are correct about the swale, and I almost clarified the post this morning. you may recall that the V shaped swale was constructed of cobble stones, nothing a boy would want to get his bike tires between. While I agree that the added blacktop directed the water into the wall, I believe that it also exerted pressure against the wall.
ReplyDelete