Noted in the Northwest A brief look at news in Chestnut Hill and surrounding neighborhoods CHCA directors elect officers, executive committee members The 40-member Chestnut Hill Community Association Board of Directors elected the officers and at-large members of its executive committee Thursday evening (June 23). The election results are as follows: Plans for Cresheim Valley outlined at celebration The spirit of cooperation was a major theme at the Chestnut Hill Rotary Club’s celebration of the reopening of Cresheim Valley Drive and the restoration of its signature pergola structure on Saturday. “This project really reflects the partnership of Chestnut Hill and Mt. Airy,” club member Carl Shaifer, who has directed the restoration effort, told a crowd assembled on the pergola’s platform, once a popular spot for relaxing on benches and watering horses. The Rotary Club, Mt. Airy USA and others hope to return the intersection to its former status as a park-like neighborhood gateway. Hearkening back to that era, the Friends of the Wissahickon presented a citation to the family of Samuel Baxter, former chief arborist and landscape gardener for the Fairmount Park Commission. A plaque honoring Baxter was installed on the pergola in the 1940s, and long-vanished trees planted in his honor were recently replaced with Sweet Bay Magnolias donated by Collabraro Nurseries. Baxter’s grandson, Justin Baxter, also thanked Shades of Green Nurseries for donating labor and the Rotary for “making this a reality.” Howard Coale, who won a sculpture design competition for the railroad trestle adjacent to the pergola, spoke briefly on the proposed project, which would feature sandblasted glass panels with plant designs installed on either side of the bridge. Mt. Airy USA’s Avenue Project is currently negotiating with PECO over the utility’s turning over ownership of the bridge, which would be part of the Cresheim Trail linking Fairmount Park with the Montgomery County trails system. Coale said that a sticking point has been PECO’s concern over “retroactive litigation” once the bridge is opened to the public, but that trail advocates are optimistic. Bob Thomas, who serves as a technical advisor on the trail project, spoke about the need for additional access to green space. “The only way to deal with the overuse of the Wissahickon is to make more trails,” he said. “We need to give people options.” Thomas said that $20,000 had been raised to match a state grant for a trail feasibility study, and that both Whitemarsh and Cheltenham townships have been very cooperative in working with trail planners. “The trail is already on Montgomery County’s master trail plan that they are rapidly implementing,” he said. Streets Commissioner Clarena Tolson congratulated local groups on their efforts to speed the reopening of Cresheim Valley Drive after last year’s flooding caused a portion of the road to collapse into Cresheim Creek. The drive reopened in May after nine months. “You were all spectacular with a capital ‘S’ in the wake of the storms ... The fact that you were so patient with us was amazing,” she said. —James Sturdivant Imam convicted in probe A federal jury found Imam Shamsud-din Ali, the politically-connected Muslim cleric at the center of a scam to defraud the city, guilty of racketeering, conspiracy and 20 related fraud charges last week. Among a number of what prosecutors described as “money-for-nothing” schemes was the yearlong effort involving a delinquent real-estate tax settlement with the Chestnut Hill-based development firm Bowman Properties. In that scam, Keystone Information and Financial Services, a Mt. Airy debt collection agency owned by Ali, ultimately won a $60,595 commission from the city for a deal in which the company did no work. The government alleged Keystone was a defunct business at the time with “no ability, training or experience” to provide debt collection services. Despite the fact that the city had already targeted Bowman for enforcement, Ali’s firm first won a “discovery contract” from the city for identifying what it said was an unknown tax delinquent, then won a fee after asserting it had brought Bowman to the table and caused it to pay. Steven Vaughn, former chief of staff to Councilwoman Donna Reed Miller, pleaded guilty to mail fraud and conspiracy charges in April for his role in the scheme. He admitted to withholding checks from Bowman Properties, which had sought to settle its back taxes from 1999 and 2000, while mayoral aide John Christmas allegedly worked to get a city collection contract for Keystone. Last week, the U.S. District Court jury found Christmas not guilty of aiding Ali. In testimony, Christmas, the former special assistant to Mayor Street’s chief of staff and the only defendant in the case to take the stand, said his role in helping Ali obtain a City Hall contract was just part of his job to help minority firms compete for government work. He was also acquitted of perjury. Bowman managing partner Richard Snowden was a key government witness in the trial, which opened in April. In testimony, he said he had sought Vaughn’s help in 2001 to settle his company’s delinquent tax bill as he had done two years earlier. Snowden told the jury Bowman had issued a series of checks between April and October of that year and given them to Vaughn, who he believed was negotiating a settlement. He testified that he had not met with or discussed the matter with Ali, but that Vaughn and Christmas wanted to run his tax problem through “an entity,” which he later recalled was Keystone. —Michael J. Mishak |
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