The Tuerk Administration has announced a series of meetings where the public can say what they would like to see and do in the parks. As an advocate for the traditional park system, I am not impressed. Needless to say what they should be doing is taking better care of the parks, rather than using them as an inclusion ploy.
While the WPA structures for the most part crumble, and the creek banks remain feral, we're spending another half $mil on enlarging the skateboard park. Tuerk is claiming that these meetings will help form a new masterplan for the park system. He and his park director remain misguided thinking that the direction of the iconic Allentown Park System should be subject to public whims.
Talking of election ploys and popularity contests, I'm also tired of our Harrisburg incumbents for life using the parks as a photo opt for just bringing our tax money back to where it belongs.
picture postcard of Robin Hood, Lehigh Parkway, 1956
I would suggest this latest exercise in parks planning begin by making the documents, records and reports produced in the last several extensive planning sessions
ReplyDeletethe City of Allentown has conducted in the recent past be widely available for distribution and review as a starting place for the latest round of planning.
Have clearly articulated goals and outcomes been effectively implemented or should all the work done by knowledgeable citizens, professionals, philanthropists, educators and city staff simply be overlooked and ignored?
Your comment is right on. Asking for public comment is a proper complement to that. MM sounds petulant this morning.
DeleteObviously Trexler Trust is a major player when it comes to Allentown’s park system.
ReplyDeleteOne would expect the Trust to play a significant role in this latest round of planning. Every person who uses any Allentown parks is paying the price for a diminished experience since the Trustees allowed Mayor Pawlowski to disregard their valuable input and treat them with such contempt.
I’m hoping to see the Trust front and center in the coming weeks, months and years.
Don't hold your breath as the Trexler Trust seems to be disinterested in the parks.
DeleteI smell a sham exercise in participation stacked with all the usual “community” players. Get out the white boards and the magic markers and the hired facilitators to do the group version of a push-poll.
ReplyDeleteThis is more about political theater than policy planning.
Who buys this nonsense?
It should be marketed as Improv Theater and the spectators charged a good will donation with the proceeds going to Promise Neighborhoods who’s people are bound to be out in force.
DeletePromise Neighborhoods will no doubt play an integral role in keeping our parks and playgrounds safe and secure.
The issues of PARKS, and the issues of RECREATION, while they have some overlap, are two completely different areas of concern, calling for two very different skill sets, experience, and training.
ReplyDeleteUntil there is a clear delineation between Parks and “recreation” neither of these critically important areas will be adequately addressed.
Hello Trexler Trust, I am taking to you!
How about some leadership?
And let’s not forget that the ASD owns and maintains some very important baseball fields and other facilities that play an integral role in Allentown youth sports programs.
The idea of engaging some public input is nice but no amount of amateur hours are a substitute for professional planning and the implementation of best practices.
Instead of the mayor's office determining what should be done with the park system, why not maintain the parks and let the public determine what they do in them?
ReplyDeleteI suppose that after almost 90 years of using them, the public has a better idea what to do in the park than this out-of-town woke mayor does.
I'm just glad they were there as Harry Trexler intended them to be when I was a young man, and was able to enjoy them. I believe anyone using general Trexler's funds for anything other than what he intended is guilty of theft.
ReplyDeleteThen the Trexler Trust is dripping with larceny as they seem to show little or no attention to the parks
DeleteThe Trust is involved with the Parknership. However, that group, although announced with great fanfare in May, has made only one appointment to a board since.
DeleteI believe that the 6:16 comment about Promise Neighborhoods was made tongue in cheek, however the park system is already too concerned with DEI mentality. Our park system was a unique gift from a civic minded giant of his era. The initial tenets of his Trust served us well for almost a century, hopefully they won't be diluted away.
I think it’s rude to ask people to come out and participate in these sessions and then do absolutely nothing but go around in circles until the plans die on the shelf. Then you again ask the public to come out and help plan for the next endeavor which no one will ever likely act on.
ReplyDeleteThis is nothing more than the usual dog and pony show Matt puts on. Pretends he is interested in empowering the public then does what he planned to do from the start.
DeleteMy guess is that the Hipster Mayor already knows exactly what new and exciting plans he wants to see for the park system and these meetings will spontaneously support those innovations while basic infrastructure and necessary maintenance goes unaddressed by a poorly trained, unmotivated and ill supervised city workforce.
ReplyDeleteThis “community meeting” ploy is the oldest trick in the book.
How about basic maintenance, and basic policing and enforcement?
Hey, who remembers that classic line, “Cedar Beach Park is being loved to death.”
Hey, remember when Allentown had operational, safe, swimming pools and play grounds and parks that were staffed during the summer months?
Hey, who remembers the person killed when hit by a bicycle in the park?
Any and all plans that don’t address basic maintenance and public safety first and foremost will be a gross violation of the public trust.
How about revisiting the concept of a dedicated APD park patrol to include a patrol car augmented with a bicycle patrol and an appropriately equipped four-wheeler?
ReplyDeleteHow about the enforcement of basic rules and regulations? How about skilled, competent, stone masons restoring the irreplaceable WPA masterpieces?
It will be the continuation of a slow motion tragedy if the Trexler Trust doesn’t step up and reinstate itself as a leader in the overall supervision of Allentown’s extraordinary park system. It’s time to stop using the park system as a political grandstand for out of town, out of touch, mayors and their revolving door appointments.
ReplyDeleteTick tock for Allentown’s most extraordinary resource.
Anon 6:07 is spot on. There is a big difference between 'parks' and 'recreation.' In the case of the woke government of Allentown the word "recreation" really means 'playgrounds.'
ReplyDeleteAn honest question; why can’t the City keep a department head in the Park Department? Is it the lack of compensation?
ReplyDeleteCity Council shares some blame in the overall decline of the park system. The Councilperson in charge of the Parks Committee has often been a clueless empty suit.
ReplyDeleteThe council members on the park committee change every year or so. I'm still smarting from the Robin Hood Dam demolition approved by city council. The previous small dam, shown on my facebook cover photo, was demolished by the Wildlands Conservancy, and worst, the debris was spread around the bridge piers, despoiling their appearance. Although Tuerk won't appoint me for political reasons, both city council and the Trexler Trust should insist on my inclusion on the Parknership board. They should take advantage of my institutional knowledge of the park system, which will otherwise be in short supply.
DeleteI’m going to guess that no one in the current administration has even read the extensive Park Plan that was completed when Greg Weitzel was the Parks Department director.
ReplyDeleteWere outcomes, goals and objectives from the most recent Master Plan ever tracked, reviewed or evaluated? Will they be presented to any future committees or partnerships as a baseline?
ReplyDeleteThe kind of management on display in City Hall would never be acceptable in a well run business.
The previous master plan was commissioned by the Trexler Trust and done professionally through a consulting firm. They concluded among other things that Cedar Park was being overused. Tuerk dismisses that premise, and now wants a new Master Plan done by new residents who know nothing.
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