July 24, 2008 Issue                                       

©2007 The Chestnut Hill Local

Opinion

Ouch! Free speech hurts.

The witchy thickets of the forum

For the last two months, we’ve been living the history of the Local. Every week, we’ve reprinted four ad-free pages of past articles of interest — articles that capture the Local’s evolution, its part in historically significant times and its take on long-standing local issues. For 50 years now the Local has chronicled this neighborhood.

Of all the themes that the Local touches on, however, none is as pervasive as the freedom of the press. Throughout its 50 years, the rights of Local editors to voice their opinions and to print the opinions of others have frequently come under fire.

Our readers are likely all too familiar with the Local’s remarkably egalitarian policy of printing all letters. That policy, called the Lentz Policy, which also requires all opinions to be signed, preventing any misunderstandings that any opinions voiced here are institutional. And our readers are likely familiar with the fact that the policy has been a regular point of contention at the Local.

Critics past and present have complained about a lack of balance, the appearance of bias, the repetition of hearsay and the airing of outright lies. Recently, some have said they have a hard time differentiating between opinion pieces  — even though they are labeled as such — and regular articles. Some believe that the editors agree with every opinion we print.

Of all the challenges the editors of the Local face on a weekly basis, the toughest is assembling the forum, which includes the letters to the editor and published opinions. Our primary duty is to ensure that community members have ample opportunity to express their opinions, in keeping with the spirit of the forum as set forth by the paper’s founders.

The tough part is balancing that duty with a journalist’s responsibility to ensure that facts stated as such are accurate. Prior practice has been to rule out letters for libel. A past practice of editors was to preclude letters that criticized a specific business.

The Local wants to do a better job at policing opinions expressed here, but we don’t want to do so at the expense of the rights of the community to express them. To that end we will scrutinize letters and opinions sent to the Local, but we also expect that readers or affected parties that feel they have not been well represented in opinion pieces in the Local will respond. If we find that a statement was made in error, we will correct the record as soon as possible.

Finally, to be sure that there is no confusion, beginning in August, we will institute new guidelines for opinion submissions. In order to be considered, any opinion piece must be submitted on the Friday before the next publication date. As a general guideline we will print only one submission by any individual author once a month. We will, however, reserve the right to run more than one op-ed by an individual if the situation calls for it — one example would be that we would extend space to anyone who wants to comment on an article about which he or she was a subject. We will also make sure that all opinions are visibly marked as such. These guidelines will be reprinted frequently in the forum section of the Local.

The forum of this paper is an important part of civic life in Chestnut Hill. Its existence has been ratified by numerous community votes. We will do what we can to make sure that right is not only guaranteed but that the content is as reliable and accurate as possible.            
Pete Mazzaccaro

Opinion: Mt. Airy BID’s first year
by Ken Weinstrein

One year ago, I challenged board members of the newly created Mt. Airy Business Improvement District (BID) to roll up their sleeves and get to work.  Our goal was and still is to make the Germantown Avenue business corridor from Washington Lane to Cresheim Valley Road a better place to live, work and enjoy.  The Board and BID members wasted no time making this happen.

I appreciate all of the time and energy that members of the BID Board and other property owners and stakeholders have put into making the Mt. Airy BID a group of which we can be proud.  Many people have taken seriously the responsibility we have to those property owners who pay their BID assessments every year.   If we cannot raise the property values along Germantown Avenue by at least the amount paid to the BID, we are not doing our jobs and should not exist.

We set out to use the passion of hundreds of property owners along Germantown Avenue to create a better environment to do business.  We set out to focus our attention on a number of projects that would result in a cleaner, safer and more attractive business corridor.  And we vowed to make this all happen using a transparent, open process that included as many of the stakeholders along the Avenue as possible.

Today, the Mt. Airy business district is clearly cleaner and safer than it was one year ago but we have a long way to go.  We strived for an open process and strong communication and brought together property owners and tenants who had never met nor spoken with each other.  And we started the process of leveraging the dollars that we contributed and brought in $58,000 through the generous support of State Representative Cherelle Parker.

More storefronts on Germantown Avenue have been renovated during this first year of the BID and more storefronts than ever have been occupied with vibrant businesses.  And all this progress has come about despite a struggling economy and the challenge of dealing with PennDOT construction on Germantown Avenue.  Our loyal customers and residents understand that we need their support to survive and compete with the malls and chain stores and restaurants.  They clearly recognize that we have made great strides in upgrading our business district.

One year ago, the sidewalks of Mt. Airy were littered with trash.  Although many property owners and tenants would clean the front of their store, business or institution, trash would blow down from storefront owners and operators that were not as diligent.  Today, the Mt. Airy BID contracts with three street cleaners to clean in front of each and every Germantown Avenue property five days per week.  What a difference one year makes!

One year ago, the fronts, sides and rears of Germantown Avenue properties were dark and desolate, attracting crime and graffiti.  Today, more than forty grants have been distributed to property owners to repair and replace their security lighting.  Today, the Mt. Airy business district is better lit and more inviting to customers, potential business owners and their employees.

Not all is perfect, however.  We spent way too much time during the past year getting ourselves up and running and collecting BID assessments from the hundreds of property owners along the Avenue.  But we now have a grounded infrastructure in place to get more done in the future.  We need to attract more funding for future projects so that the limited dollars that we receive from property owners every year are leveraged to support additional projects.  In the near future, we plan to install attractive banners along Germantown Avenue and light our street trees year round.

Members of the BID Board have already rolled up their sleeves as I asked them to do a year ago.  Now it is time to also roll up their pant legs to continue the impressive progress on Germantown Avenue that began one year ago.

Ken Weinstein, owner of Trolley Car Diner & Deli, serves as Chair of the Mt. Airy Business Improvement District.