November 13, 2008 Issue                                       

©2007 The Chestnut Hill Local

Pinching Pennies

Budget cuts unkind to kids

It shouldn’t have been much of a surprise that the city was heading into financial crisis. With all of the national economic indicators and the local signs, the fact that the city is facing a budget deficit of upwards of $1 billion over the next five years should have been expected. I’m sure for many it was. And the steep cuts in services that residents are being asked to endure, we have seen before.

In Chestnut Hill, the library is staying open. Patrons won’t even have to endure diminished hours of operation. While the staff anticipates picking up some of those who would otherwise visit the Wadsworth branch, there will be virtually no change for Hillers. The same goes for the firehouse at Highland Ave. Engine 37 will continue to run.

In Mt. Airy the story is the same. Lovett and Coleman libraries remain unscathed by the budget cuts and Engine 9 (at Carpenter Lane) will stay open.

But the Hill will no doubt feel the pinch when it comes to snow removal and leaf collection. Just this week the first mechanical leaf collection was scheduled and then canceled, as the city’s debt grew even larger than originally expected.

Some in the Northwest are scrambling to figure out solutions. Laura Siena of West Mt. Airy Neighbors said WMAN has started looking into alternative leaf collection programs, which range from hiring a private contractor to partnering with Chestnut Hill to create a joint program. Sienna said the city would still have to cooperate and provide a dumping site for the leaves. Another option for residents is to bag leaves and put them out with the trash.

For many of us in the Northwest, there are adjustments that can be made to circumvent these obstacles. But for many more in our area and beyond, in the areas that are going to lose their libraries, their fire stations, their street plowing. In areas where people walk and rely heavily on public transportation, where icy streets can mean a late start and less pay or risking a fall, these cutbacks will mean more.

In his announcement of the budget cuts, Nutter remarked on the city’s charter, noting that more than half of the city’s $4 billion budget is locked in — untouchable. These costs, some of which are pensions and benefits, have risen at far greater rates than any revenue source.

No one can question that it is a time of great sacrifice, and that sacrifice should be shared equally among the residents of this city and nation. It is the taxpayers who will pay for these budget cuts and make up some of the difference in higher rates for other services. The city’s exempt employees must take five furlough days this year and next to help fill the gap. These are people with families, mortgages, student loans, etc. that also rely on the city’s services. It is a time of great distress, and so we must ask if it is time to restructure some of those untouchable parts of the city’s budget. No one would choose to reduce anyone’s retirement or benefits in a perfect world. But in a perfect world, children — regardless of where they live or whether their parents work until 6 every night — would not find themselves without a library, a place to go after school that is safe, where they can learn and explore the world beyond their neighborhood and situation. We do not live in a perfect world. It is our imperative to make the best of the one we do live in and to give our elected officials the means to create a budget that is fair and reasonable in the face of extraordinary circumstances.           

Jennifer Katz

Bizz Buzz: Looks like Christmas
by Fran O’Donnell, Main Street Manager Chestnut Hill Business Association

As the song goes, “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.” But you ain’t seen nothing yet in Chestnut Hill. 

This past weekend, our street light poles were dressed in traditional, fresh greens and red, fabric bows. It’s a sign the season is quickly approaching and that we’re again about to share comforting holiday traditions. Where did the year go?

This year, our holiday light display on the Hill will be the largest ever, thanks to the Chestnut Hill Business Association, the Chestnut Hill Business Improvement District and you. So mark your calendars now, so on Friday, Nov. 21 (one week earlier because it’s so cool), you can share in our neighborhood holiday tradition of lighting up the Avenue to welcome the season we in Chestnut Hill are so noted for.

With more than 130 trees boasting a total of over 100,000 energy efficient LED lights, our Avenue will glow with the spirit of the season. We are calling it Green Friday this year as part of the CHBA efforts in going green.

The fun begins at 5:30 p.m. at the corner of Germantown and Highland avenues on the west side. Music will be made by the King’s Court Mummers on Highland Avenue between Citibank and Killian’s.  You will be greeted by the Twinkle Bell Pixies, who will hand out holiday treats and goodies. Holiday brass and caroling will carry through the evening where the avenue will be alive with the spirit of the season.  If it is crisp and cold, hot cocoa will be available to warm the body if not the soul.

Festivities will continue in Chestnut Hill’s shops, where, as fate would have it, it’s another “Open Friday Night” in which shops like Cobblestones will offer holiday snacks and beverages. Stroll down to the Chestnut Hill Tea Bar for some holiday folk songs and story-telling. Don’t miss the opportunity to share the tradition, shop at local merchants and meet your neighbors. It’s all right here in Chestnut Hill.

This event has been a year-long effort of the CHBA and the Chestnut Hill BID.

The effort has been partly funded by the BID, private individuals, businesses, organizations and groups of neighbors who got together to support the Avenue. I thank all of you. Trees have been sponsored (some are still available: just call the CHBA at 215-247-6696) at $500 each and include energy efficient LED lights, an engraved plaque honoring the donor or loved one, and the knowledge that you made a difference on the Avenue this holiday season. The very thought of this effort coming to light (no pun intended) brings a feeling of strength and unity on the Avenue. As a community we should be proud of our efforts.

So here it is again, Friday, Nov. 21, 5:30 p.m., Citibank at the corner of Germantown and Highland avenues. Be there or be square. Seriously folks, bring the family and bring the friends to the Avenue on Green Friday and celebrate the traditions of the holidays in Chestnut Hill.

“Share the burden”
by JIM FOSTER

I was incredulous as I watched Mayor Nutter deliver his budget slashing remarks on Thursday, using those exact words. Curious isn’t it how he waited until just after the election to dump on Philadelphians an almost reverse approach to the financial dilemma at the national level.

President-elect Obama borrowed Huey Long’s “Share the Wealth” concept whereby those at the lower end of the financial spectrum would benefit from government transfer of largess from business and individuals at the upper echelon. Our Mayor, however, reverses the process and has those in the lower economic tier actually have their salaries and services cut by government in order to bail out massive fiscal failure of city finances.

No small slash and burn tactics they are as city workers lose salary, job vacancies remain open indefinitely, libraries and recreation centers are shuttered and fire stations are closed and lose equipment.  Right behind that, tax reductions that would help most small businesses and encourage new ones are postponed indefinitely.

Curious isn’t it that this most heavily taxed city in the nation sticks it to all but the biggest and most politically connected of all industries — those in economic opportunity zones or with special deals that give them tax abatements into infinity and essentially eminent domain over city real estate.

Yes citizens, Comcast, the casinos and the like own this city and state government, but you will be paying their tax bill while a cabal of politicians and players tries to sell you a bill of goods while picking your pocket. Remember it is the same 55-year old political machine that took one of the most diverse economic opportunity zones in this country and sent 600,000 residents and their jobs packing.

Instead of some serious attempt at reviving diversified employment opportunity, we are told that only casinos that very few residents actually want, with all their negative baggage, will save us. But now a penny-pinching city government reacts as if it had no idea this was coming — give me a break!

All of a sudden, Mayor Nutter is cost conscious, first and foremost, but it was not that long ago when he let a $100 million dollar expenditure on a city transit project in his council district sit idle as a political favor and thought nothing of it. It took a journalistic exposéé and the governor to get that project back on track (pun definitely intended).  It looks like those political favors to the big boys and girls continue while workers and families will pay the price indefinitely.

Well, no one should really be surprised. Despite the Pennsylvania Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority (PICA) board and a few real watchdogs, this day of fiscal reckoning is long overdue, as we have been kicking debt structure and contractual mandates down the road for years. Yes, the chickens have come home to roost, and there is no way of putting lipstick on this pig. When you have only one political party in a city, who is going to tell you?

Jim Foster is a Mt. Airy businessman and a former board member of the Chestnut Hill Community Association.

Sunny Day Blues
by HUGH GILMORE

RIP — Studs Terkel last week, a wonderful man who believed up to the end in the power of words to bring understanding, and from understanding: dignity — to the rich, the poor, and everyone in between. We’ve lost one of America’s best listeners.

My theme this week is simple: It is very difficult to call oneself a “writer.” By that I mean: If I were introduced to someone and asked what it is I “do” I would feel phoney if I called myself a writer.

Simple enough. But let me tell you that today, after I awoke in the morning and came downstairs to the living room and opened the blinds, I sighed. That sigh was nothing new. I sigh like that every morning on my way to the kitchen to make the coffee and toast I shall bring down to my office/dungeon.

This morning the sky was clear, a bright inviting blue. The yard is half-covered with leaves. My tomato plant stakes still stand, the wilted skeletal stalks that produced such hope, then happy bounty, leaning unsteadily beside them. The patio chairs still wait in attendance around the table where so many good meals and laughing conversations took place all through the days of summer. I’m not a glutton for yard work, but it would be a wonderful excuse to simply go Out There on a fine November day — rather than come Down Here. I sigh.

Down Here I came, toast and coffee in hand. I have vowed to write a novel this year. I know the path required; I must write every day. First thing. I must give up those morning walks. I can’t go out and play in the leaves. I can’t read the paper first thing, not even the sports section.

Now that I’m Down Here, I can’t open E-mail. I can’t go to my favorite websites. When I open my web browser, I set it to Google, ready like a messenger to run out and get me whatever information I’m going to need as I Get Down To Work On The Darned Book.

I open the file with yesterday’s work and re-read it, trying not to gag, making corrections if they’re obvious and easy, trying to get the feel for what I was doing yesterday when I stopped.

And okay, I see I think I’ve got the rhythm of this carouse I stand by, try to time my leap, and then … jump aboard again and start riding away. Sometimes I write at a rapid, sustained clip, more often than not, sitting leaned back, slumped, straining my lumbar already, one foot propped up on the library step-stool beside me.

A photo of me at this moment would show a rather skeptical-looking man with one finger of each hand casually tapping letters of the keyboard at a slow-but-steady rate. Followed by pauses of mystifying length as though he has left his body attached to that chair — perhaps like a cicada, forever — while his spirit is either searching for a word or is out in the yard, rolling among the yellow leaves, trying to get the smell of the outdoors rubbed into his back.

He’s been here now for two hours and has progressed no further than you’re reading at this moment. Word count says: 543. On the Iditarod he’s barely left the block where he started.

Saturdays are especially rough because writing my column for the Local precedes the hours I’ll spend on my novel. A lovely day in November. I’ll be here in the dungeon nearly till the time we leave to go to a friend’s for dinner at 5 p.m. Tomorrow, if all goes well, I’ll knock off around 1 p.m. and go out walking.

My question is this: At what point in my journey would I be justified in calling myself “a writer”? My dream, all my life, has been to someday be “a writer.”

If I painted watercolors in my basement all day long every day, would you call me a painter? If I made furniture during my daylight hours, would you call me a furniture maker, or cabinet maker or carpenter? Or songwriter? Or singer?

I don’t know, but I’ve come to think that the dividing point between a dabbler and an artist is the point at which money exchanges hands. I know that sounds harsh, but I think that the common gauge for assessing when one has moved from being a verb: “I write all day,” to being a noun, “I am a writer,” is when the world values your performance enough to give you money in exchange for it.

This sounds crass, but I believe that in some situations Money is the Sincerest Form of Flattery. After all, what is money? It represents hours of people’s lives given up in exchange for goods or services. If people value your song, they’ll pay to hear it sung.

Not that you could pay me enough to get me to give up this lovely, inviting, sunshiny day to come down here. I don’t write for money. But in order to reach the hands of a wide audience, a number of middle men and women need to be paid to handle my written words — editors, an agent, a publisher, printer, distributor, advertiser, marketer, sales people, a bookstore (ideally) and so on.

None of that discouarges me particularly. I’m just stating some of the things that go along with anyone’s dream of becoming an author.

The fantasy? Someday, what I do in the dungeon will result in a book, a traditional, old-fashioned, hardback book with a dust jacket. The book will be for sale at Borders bookstore up the street. I’ll stand at the end of the aisle and watch people browse that aisle till someone comes to That Case and picks up My Book. I’ll follow that person to the checkout counter and watch to be sure the sale is made. If I could arrange it, I’d follow that person home and watch as she or he reads it right through to the end. And smiles.

 Or sighs … as I do every morning when I open the blinds and see what I’m about to miss again today.

Hugh the wannabe can be reached at Gilmorebooks@yahoo.com.

Switching gears from red to green
by ADAM SERFASS

So, I’m still flying my Phillies flag proudly out of my car.  And I  finally washed my hat now that the Phillies have won the World Series (see column, Sports Nut, from Oct. 30).

I had a great time that week. On Wednesday night, I had Paul and David over for what was going to be the last game, no, the last 3.5 innings, of the series.  David and I have gone to a ton of games together over the years.  Paul was caught up in the Phever.  So, it was natural that they were with me.  When we won, I grabbed my cowbell, ran outside and started hitting it to mock the Rays. Meanwhile Paul and David ran to their cars and started honking their horns. We stopped for a second, and no one else in my lame neighborhood was celebrating. All I can say is they better have been at the game.  I felt like I was alone in the neighborhood. I looked at my phone. I had somehow sent out 106 texts to my friends and family. I had received 203.  It was insane!

So, Paul and I stuck to our plan. We were going to celebrate down at the Bank. On the way there, I met up with the bike cops, Mick and Steve, who congratulated me. After all, I’ve been watching the season with such intensity…

 Then, I also met up with Dennis, Theresa and Charlie McCooe and Dave Cope. Paul and I met up and drove down. We Celebrated at Citizen’s Bank Park with others and met up with Paul’s son, Luke. We walked up Broad Street for a while. Then went home.

Friday we went to the parade. Paul, my wife, Nicole, and me.  We parked far away and walked to 15th and Market streets. Then, we went back to the car and went down to the park again. Nicole and I had tickets, and Paul found one. We celebrated and had a great time. It was the hardest and roughest best time I’ve ever had. It was amazing. I didn’t see any fights, and everybody was happy, high fiving and just taking it all in like I was. Some were drinking, but only a handful were drunk. To me, that was amazing.

NASCAR in winter

In NASCAR there is only one week left. Jimmie Johnson, number 48, is in the lead after Sunday’s race and has only to finish better than 36th place in Miami-Homestead race this week to take the third championship in his short racing career. It was hard to focus on the race with J.J. is so far ahead.

I don’t get too far because the Eagles have started and I’m 20 minutes behind already and decide to switch over and catch up to the game, live!

What can I say. It’s hard to be all into them this year after I put so much into the Phillies.  I hardly even watched the first 10 weeks. I taped most of them and then just  skimmed over the games.  It only seems fitting that I’m ready to totally focus on the Birds when we come up against the Giants!  I hate the Giants.  Oh, the Redskins, too. Hold on … yup, the last place Cowgirls, too.

The idea that the Eagles are still in contention over a somewhat dismal year, so far, is amazing.  It seems weird, too. On Sunday afternoon, I was getting gas at the Wawa up in Montgomeryville and went in to get change back (a nice thing these days). Suddenly, I saw a dozen or so people in Eagles gear. I knew I had to move on and get back into football.  I didn’t really want to but I couldn’t live with myself if the season passed without me.

So, right away the Eagles intercepted the Giants and I was immediately sucked into the NFC East battle that hundreds of thousands have been watching intently for nine weeks already.  I’m a bit late but I’m sure most would understand. After all, I still have my Harry Kalas message on my phone.  I did it myself and am happy with the results. So, now I have to change my message to me doing Meryl Reese.  Wish me luck …

The game was, as you know, back and forth.  I decided to ease my pain and write this article, so  I don’t have to focus too hard on the game. I wasn’t well and couldn’t put too much into this game.  

I was fixated on the announcers, though.  Is John Madden still alive?  He sure doesn’t look it.  Al Michaels was, to me, always a great commentator. Madden’s funny. He still scribbles on the TV screen. I wonder what that looks like on HD? Hmmm. Don’t worry Eagles fans … Andy will take full responsibility and will work on his game!  Who thinks he should fire himself or only allow himself a cheesesteak if he wins?