Boondoggle at St. Martin’s Station
We have lived facing the St. Martin’s Station lawn for more than 30 years, peacefully co-existing with SEPTA. Along with our neighbors, we have taken an interest in keeping the station attractive (volunteers have planted flowers and pruned shrubs, painted out occasional graffiti, and shooed away teenagers partying in the station lot on Saturday evenings.) Here children sled in winter and people come to walk their dogs and play ball in good weather — it is a lovely green space.

In early December a project of astonishing proportions began.  At first it was puzzling to me and others who take the train, when construction trailers, trucks, and other large equipment suddenly appeared in the parking lot.  It soon became evident that SEPTA intended to repair an old wooden stairway that descends from the train bridge on Willow Grove Avenue down to the outbound station sidewalk.

A quick look at SEPTA’s Web site reveals that the hundreds of thousands of dollars for this “stairway to nowhere” are coming from our federal, state and local taxes.  SEPTA’s $367.7 million capital improvement budget for FY 2009 is partially funded by federal dollars targeted for transit improvements, which were increased to $10 billion in 2008 by Bush.  The state of Pennsylvania has allocated $202 million for such improvements, and our city and local governments are chipping in $9.4 million in 2009.

While I am glad these SEPTA workers have jobs, this stairway project raises real concerns about other funding priorities, such as schools, libraries, and public services for the poor and homeless.  I hear Allen and Queen Lane stations are next on the billion-dollar boondoggle list.

Patricia Van Allen Voigt
Chestnut Hill

Looking for judges
To follow up on the publication of the 2009 Election Rules and Procedures last week, the Ad Hoc Election Committee is making an appeal to members of the CHCA to participate in the upcoming election as both Judges and ballot counters.  It is our hope that up to five CHCA members will agree to serve as Judges, and that 15 members will agree to serve as ballot counters to assist the judges.

The ballot counting process is of fundamental importance to the election process and serving in this capacity is a great way for community members to build on the work of the election committee for this year.  Participation will require up to two days of work, which will commence within 48 hours of the election on April 22. 

Ballot counting will take place in a central location and lunch will be served. Participation will require an orientation on the rules and procedures during which Judges and counters will receive clearly outlined instructions on their responsibilities and the process.

If you are a CHCA member who is willing to roll up your sleeves and help with this important process, your participation would be very welcome. Please contact Noreen Spota, the CHCA  Administrative Coordinator, at 215-248-8810 if you would like to participate. 

Thanks,
Pat Moran
Ad Hoc Election Committee

Who does the CHCA serve?
Is it (a) The community? (b) The programs they financially support? or (c) Themselves?

The old leather-bound founding documents that I unearthed from the basement of 8431 Germantown Ave. state they exist to serve the community. As for the programs… that’s really the Fund, created by similar, old, leather-bound documents to offer tax deductions to donors. The recent letter from Vice President Hitchcock, however, strongly suggests that the CHCA serves itself. If you don’t give blood, if you don’t go to the annual meeting, attend membership meetings or clean up after the Police and Fireman’s Picnic then your “opinions [can’t] be respected,” because you don’t have an “understanding of the issues that the board faces on a monthly basis.”

So despite the repeated use of “community” such as in the Northwest Philadelphia’s Leading Community Newspaper Online (www.chestnuthilllocal.com), those who do not bleed, go to endless meetings or schlep trash from Pastorius Park in the name of the CHCA, are not part of this community and get no respect. Here seems to be the obvious disconnect. The people who care about the Local don’t matter. The people who live in Chestnut Hill don’t matter. Only those dues paying residents of Wyndmoor and Wayne count.

The CHCA cannot afford itself. That’s not new. Of course in the past, it simply borrowed to match its appetite. Now, the fund is unwilling or able to support the CHCA’s ambitions (yet that’s what it was created to do…tax free). So you look to milk the Local a bit more. If you disagree, let’s see a balanced budget for the CHCA, without pro-rata cost shares and “rent” from the Local. Let’s see you meet payroll for the CHCA staff without the Local’s advertising subsidies or the fund’s wink and nod.

It looks like the issues you face are of your own creation. It is you who has attacked the staff, editor and now readers of the Local. What else have you done this year?

Ed Budnick
Former Community Manager,
Chestnut Hill Community Association Chestnut Hill

Turn out March 12
The CHCA bylaws regarding notice of executive sessions are as follows:

“…If the presiding officer has anticipated the need for executive session when the Notice of the Meeting was issued and published, then that Notice shall include that on the agenda with as much specificity as possible without compromising the sensitivity of the matter.”

The meeting to be held on March 12, 2009, at the Chestnut Hill Hospital was made public in the March 5 edition of The Local.  The proposed meeting agenda makes no mention of an executive session.   If the CHCA Board of Directors dare try to resolve into executive session they are in violation of their own rules and will have, again, earned the rage of their community.  Considering the outpouring of community anger at the meeting held on February 26, I would hope that the board has enough collective common sense to make public any anticipated executive session.

If this issue of the paper includes a version of the agenda that differs from the one published on March 5, and includes mention of an executive session, then Mr. Vardakis has again demonstrated that he holds his constituency in little regard and should be removed from office.

The community must turn out on March 12, and they must, once again, prevent the board from resolving into executive session. 

Denys Finch Hayes
Chestnut Hill

Let’s try it again
First, go to Northwest Notebook and watch the CHCA board stand, pledge not to vote in secret executive session, then go and hide behind glass doors and vote. It’s all on tape, and all on YouTube.com too. Hilarious!

Then come to the “special meeting” at the Lea Auditorium at Chestnut Hill Hospital Thursday, the March 12, at 7:30 p.m. to see what shenanigans they get into this time.

We will again try to read the motions that were passed by more folks at the community meeting than there are board members. The motions are for the resignations of VP Dina and President Tolis for, among other things, voting to fire editor Pete Mazzaccaro in secret last month. Dina neglected to mention this in her letter last week. She’s cute.

Instead, she told all of you who voted on these motions that, unless you give blood or clean up the park, you have no right to complain. She also wrote that if you only knew all that board members knew, you would think differently. But how can you know what the board knows when it insists on discussing and voting in secret meetings? Catch 19118.

And how can Dina know what you think, when she refused to listen to the community after the last board meeting was adjourned, while so many of her colleagues stayed to listen? And who called the cops who arrived after she left? Hmmmm?

At least Tolis stayed …

So let’s take it from the top, before they adjourned the meeting before it began, so they wouldn’t have to listen to the motions that were as near to the will of the people as anything I’ve heard in … in … I don’t know how long.

And remember, if anyone says, as Dina did in her letter, that the Local staff, or you, are being “stirred up” by troublemakers like me or Recko or Foster, what they’re saying is that you’re too stupid to reach these conclusions independently.

The inscription in the Jefferson memorial mentions “Eternal Vigilance.” We can at least give another Thursday night.

Ed (Democracy Rocks)Feldman
California

Biker reaction
I am writing this letter in response to Jim Harris’ article [“Should mountain bikers, like deer, be culled in Wissahickon Valley?” Feb. 26]

Not only does the article demonstrate his childlike outlook on the world, but it also demonstrates the irresponsibility of the Local to publish an article that actually insinuates that it would be an acceptable recourse to shoot all mountain bikers.

Here are a few points to counter Harris’ ignorance. First of all mountain bikers are not a small minority user group. In fact on some days we are the majority. Secondly, mountain bikers are not the main cause of trail damage. The real problem of trail erosion is caused by the many problems of the Wissahickon watershed and poorly built trails, which mountain bikers are putting a lot of time and effort to rebuild so they are sustainable for all user groups. In fact the hurricanes in the summer of 2004 caused far more damage in a few short hours than mountain bikers could cause in 100 years.

 I am not going to take the stance of local trail advocacy groups urging everybody to get along. I am not looking for the approval of a whacked out hippy to tell me where I can and can’t ride. Like it or not, mountain bikers are here to stay. Even if the city were to pass an ordinance banning mountain bikers, what agency has the manpower to enforce it? If you have a problem with a few idiots from Jersey, then take it up with them. Like so many other hypocrites, you have become the problem you complain about, a person who does not respect the rights of other user groups in the park.

Tim Woods
Chestnut Hill

Rent (out of) control
What is happening to Chestnut Hill? I drove slowly down Germantown Avenue from the top of the hill to one block below Willow Grove Avenue and counted 32 empty stores. I live here, my business is here and has been for more than 15 years. My landlord is an understanding person and because of that I am hanging in there with several loyal students and new members joining often.

I cannot understand why it is better to have an empty property rather than lower the rent to an affordable rate and encourage a new business to come in. Why not give the present business owners a decent discount on rent so they, the business owners, can manage to stay.

Too many banks, too many expensive restaurants, and too expensive everyday goods ($8 for a pot-holder) is just unrealistic. My business on Moreland Avenue is all about art. A great pastime for anyone and I plan to expand my hours because the studio workshop offers everyone a chance to get away from their troubles and all the greed that is smothering us.

Dolores B. Campbell
My Studio Gallery &
Workshop Chestnut Hill

Not so fast
I read “Speeding up the Permit Process” by Mark Ueland [March 5] and wanted to comment. As an access specialist and an individual with a disability I have experienced thousands of facilities that received a Certificate of Occupancy even though many architectural barriers existed. Architectural barriers do indeed stop individuals with disabilities from having full use of the many public buildings that exist in those communities, which is everywhere! An inch off or a 1 percent degree of excessive slope might as well be a mile for some individuals with disabilities. 

What the able-bodied person may perceive as “minor dimensional variances” does and will affect the inclusion of individuals with disabilities if these variances are allowed to remain as is. The State of Massachusetts is unique in the sense that it has a full Access Board of which enforces these “minor dimensional variances” ensuring that individuals with disabilities are included in the growth and the economic development of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Currently there is a push in Massachusetts by a few that will allow a blanket time variance from the Massachusetts Architectural Access Board rules and regulations so stimulus monies can be used in a timely fashion, allowing this, which the AAB does not support, would exclude thousands of individuals with disabilities from benefiting by the stimulus monies and in fact would be discriminating. 

I have seen many small towns and larger towns and city zoning boards and planning boards create architectural barriers when they make the decisions that they do. I encourage the City of Philadelphia to keep the process of requiring specific variances and to seriously look at what the Massachusetts AAB does for its residents with disabilities.

I thank you for your journalism and look forward to reading more of the Chestnut Hill Local in the future.

Scott Ricker
Volunteer Access Specialist
Southwick, Mass.

Organ donors needed
Re:  “Heart/lung transplant survivor, 63, now a fitness buff,” by Janet Gilmore, March 5

Maureen Sweeney was very lucky to get a Heart/Lung transplant.  Over half of the 100,000 Americans on the national waiting list will die before they get a transplant.  Most of these deaths are needless.  Americans bury or cremate 20,000 transplantable organs every year.

There is a simple way to put a big dent in the organ shortage — give donated organs first to people who have agreed to donate their own organs when they die.

Giving organs first to organ donors will convince more people to register as organ donors.  It will also make the organ allocation system fairer.  People who aren’t prepared to share the gift of life should go to the back of the transplant waiting list as long as there is a shortage of organs.

Anyone who wants to donate their organs to others who have agreed to donate theirs can join LifeSharers.  LifeSharers is a non-profit network of organ donors who agree to offer their organs first to other organ donors when they die.  Membership is free at www.lifesharers.org or by calling 1-888-ORGAN88.  There is no age limit, parents can enroll their minor children, and no one is excluded due to any pre-existing medical condition.  LifeSharers has over 12,000 members, including 370 members in Pennsylvania.

Dave Undis
Director, Lifeshares
Nashville, Tenn.

If I were Senator
I want to make this as simple as possible.  Arlen Specter was a guest on a local talk radio station and challenged anyone, who thinks they could do a better job, to run for the U.S. Senate.  Arlen, I know I can do a better job so, I accept your challenge!

America, most of us agree that we have elected a socialist for president.  The policies proposed are counter productive to the future prosperity of the United States.

As a U.S. Senator I would have three major goals:

Bring credibility back to Washington so to restore the confidence of citizens of the United States, (and the rest of the world.)

Enact policies that reward and energize the responsible.

Enact policies so to unleash the power and the full potential of the American Spirit.

What is so difficult about that?

Tom Bell, Sr
Erdenheim

Trashy proposal
I, for one, will be more than happy to pay for trash pickup (as Mayor Nutter has proposed). I’ve been living in this city about 50 years, and I never knew that I was having my trash picked up free of charge. I thought my taxes were paying for it. But if that were true, then it would mean that under the new plan, I’d be taxed twice for the same service. And, of course, that couldn’t be.

For that reason, I’d like to thank all of the people involved in the voluntary pickup of my trash. And I’m sorry I ever had bad thoughts about you guys.

Now I understand why the collection trucks routinely and unnecessarily block the streets by driving down the middle of a two-way street. And why so many cans are just flat out missed. And why the empty cans are thrown haphazardly after being emptied (though some of them do actually make it back to the curb).

When we are finally made to pay for trash collection, volunteers will no longer be used. We’ll have professional and caring workers collect our trash.

And I’m for that.

Vince Dowdle
Fox Chase

Puzzles for your mind
It is a well-known fact that as one grows older, there is the chance they may fall victim to dementia, i.e. forgetfulness! This happens because the brain begins to lag. Yet, there is one fairly easy method that can deter the above-mentioned problem: For myself, each day I solve a number of crossword puzzles. I also have lists of various areas such as: birds, animals, countries, and even famous actors and actresses. These lists are in alphabetical order. And again, each day I try to remember each one by memory. Thus, what I am doing is whetting/honing the brain.

Now at age 91, I seldom fail to remember an item or incident of the past. I have also offered this method to friends, particularly in their latter years and have been told they also experience the same results I have.

Of course, serious medical or mental problems can harm this method. I do suggest other readers also try my method.

For anyone wanting to know more about the above, I live at Hill House. I will be glad to speak to visitors. But please come after 3 p.m. because earlier I am “busy” feeding birds, talking to young people about the dangers of smoking, and giving a homeless person some food.

Gerald Samkofsky
Chestnut Hill