Be sure to send in your stories and artwork.

For once, it’s the kids’ turn to create

One of the most important roles of a community newspaper is to give its readers the opportunity to figure out who they are, what they think and what they stand for.

Typically, we concern ourselves with topics that appeal to adults – and the occasional youngster who reads Philadelphia zoning ordinances for fun – but once a year we put our community’s children in the spotlight with our Kids Edition.

On Oct. 8, we will print this year’s edition, and we want to encourage our talented youth – 16 and younger – to submit their best drawings, paintings, poems and short stories for submission. (Poems and stories should run no longer than one-page single spaced.)

Everyone who submits something will have at least one of their pieces published in the Local – and we see that as a big opportunity for our up-and-coming artists.

Naturally, we’ll take all of the credit when they make it big.

What’s most exciting about the Kids Edition, though, is that it isn’t a contest. It’s a chance for our young artists to explore the topics and themes tbat interest them and learn more about their world in the process.

It’s also a chance to be creative for creativity’s sake.

All submissions must be received at our office, 8434 Germantown Ave., by Oct. 1. E-mailed submissions can be sent to pete@chestnuthilllocal.com. Be sure to put “kids edition” in the subject head of all e-mails.

Stick figures are welcome.

Joel Hoffmann

Sullivan responds to critiques of August 27 board meeting
by WALT SULLIVAN

Letters published last week from Mr. Recko and Mr. Feldman on two totally separate subjects relating to the Aug. 27 CHCA board meeting are grotesquely mistaken and require a response to make the facts clear. Joel Hoffman’s articles concerning that meeting were informative and essentially accurate. What Feldman and Recko wrote, while it may have represented their opinion as is proper in Letters to the Editor, was unfortunately neither.

Mr. Recko grounds his mistaken conclusion upon the premise that the claims of defamation by Mr. Remus were insubstantial. I only wish that that were so. Materials published in January 1 and 8 in the Local presented an unacceptably high risk of liability for defamation.

That was the opinion presented in January to us in writing of our most distinguished and respected defamation counsel Bob Clothier, of Fox Rothschild. It was the opinion of the Executive Committee, which on Aug. 13 unanimously approved the release of claims for the figure of only $3,500. It was the evident opinion, which the board on Aug. 27 accepted when it unanimously, with only three abstaining, approved that release.

Mr. Recko cites the leading Supreme Court case, holding that on occasion certain individuals, even though they are not public officials, may be regarded as public figures for certain purposes with respect to their claims for defamation. In essence, it provides that an individual not a public governmental official may nonetheless have so acted as to put himself in the limelight that he may not prevail on a defamation claim without showing that the author and/or publisher acted with malice.

What constitutes malice is not a simple matter. It may include the state of mind of the author. It may include the degree to which the author, even if believing what he published, acted in reckless disregard of the actual facts. We need not here go further into that matter of malice. Suffice it to say that at least the opinion piece by Mr. Lombardi published on January 1 arguably raises the issue of malice as defined by the law. I say nothing about the author’s state of mind because I do not presume to climb into his mind.

And understand that a paper is no less liable because what it published is an opinion piece or a letter to the editor, and that a sprinkling of adjectives like “alleged” and adverbs like “allegedly” does not shield it from liability for defamation.

When a party considers settlement, it considers many things including the likelihood of its prevailing on certain defenses.

In this case, the question is whether in the first instance the Local and CHCA would have on summary judgment prevailed, based upon the proposition that the plaintiff, Mr. Remus, was a public figure. Now even if that result at that stage were probable, settlement at $3,500 would still have made sense.

But that result at that stage or at any stage was far, far from probable. That was and is my opinion and is the opinion of our learned counsel, who is far more familiar with the law on the matter than Mr. Recko or me.

   We have a board of 40 people who are unpaid volunteers from the community: Thirty-two of them are elected by CHCA members for three-year terms and eight others are chosen by organizations and institutions. Are all of them – or even the 32 of them – because they “ran” for election automatically “public figures?” Perhaps, but unlikely, or at the very least, uncertain under the law, Mr. Recko’s opinion notwithstanding.

Yes, had we not settled these claims at a bargain-basement figure, paying him much less than the attorney fees, which he had incurred, and nothing else, he might have won on liability at trial. I say might have and might well have, not would have. Believe me, the outcome of virtually any trial and especially any jury trial is uncertain – often frankly a crapshoot. I have won cases I should never have won, and lost a few I should never have lost. Almost any lawyer who over the years has tried many jury trials will, if he be honest about it, tell you that.

Please read the minutes of the Aug. 13 Executive Committee meeting with the actual release of claims attached, and those on pages 7-8 of the Aug. 27 board meeting. Just e-mail me at walterjsullivan@aol.com and I’ll e-mail them to you. Read them before you criticize this decision which was frankly a no-brainer.

Mr. Feldman’s critique is, if anything, even less substantial. He infers that your board acted heedlessly of its conflict of interest policy, which not incidentally each board member is required to sign.

The issue arose over the board’s consideration of the motion to approve the application for three variances for 8401-03 Germantown Ave., including 3-9 East Gravers Lane, by Bowman Properties, the principal of which is Richard Snowden, a perennial whipping boy of Mr. Feldman’s.

Again, just read page 4 of the minutes.

I called upon all board members to disclose any arguable interest in Bowman Properties. Seven did. I know of none others. Six of the seven recused themselves. They included three who are associated with two nonprofit organizations serving our community that lease from Bowman, at leases substantially lower than fair rental value afforded to them, and thus to our community, by Bowman.

A board member whose business also leases from Bowman properly disclosed that interest but declined to recuse herself, presumably because that commercial rental was not below the fair rental value. I asked if the board wished further to inquire into that matter to determine whether they should require that that member recuse herself. None so moved. It appeared that all were satisfied that disclosure had been sufficient. All of that was in accordance with our bylaws and conflict of interest policy.

I acknowledge that I neglected to require the six recusing themselves to withdraw from the meeting room after the presentation, which I should have done. In future, I shall. I denote this as harmless error. No neighbors and no one else opposed this motion approving a construction needed and beautifully conceived. With those six recusing themselves, the motion was unanimously adopted.

Now the larger issue raised by Mr. Feldman is far-fetched and spurious. He suggests that all 16 or so elected in April in the annual election to the board, who sooner or later had come to appear on the Positively Chestnut Hill slate of candidates, should have recused themselves solely because Mr. Snowden allegedly supported them and allegedly paid directly to the Local in excess of $1,500 for ads published in the Local supporting them.

I know that such ads were published. I don’t know who paid for them or how much they cost. Assume, however, that everything alleged was completely true. It does not matter. Nothing about this raises a conflict of interest under our policy.

Now if the amounts contributed, even though not contributed to the candidates had been large enough, this might have suggested the need to enact campaign spending and reform legislation right here in River City.

Campaigning is good and to be encouraged as part of a lively democracy. Direct mailings, perhaps more than one to the members, and ads in the Local are a part of it. That candidates may (or may not) join together openly on slates is inevitable and good and a part of it.

Contribution and spending limits may, however, be warranted to attempt to curb excessive spending, which for a membership of some 2000 households would be at more than $5,000 or more. That figure, by the way, appears to have been exceeded in 2006 by at least one of the two then competing slates. I’m not sure that that was wrong and I’m not sure that I’m against it. But perhaps we need to consider the question of limits.

I acknowledge that I myself in 2009 received nothing from anyone, but that my wife and I spent about $160 and hand-delivered and mailed several hundred letters.

Remember that the April 2009 board elections were essentially uncontested with only 20 candidates standing for 18 board seats.

As insubstantial as Mr. Feldman’s argument is in principle, in practice – in light of that fact – it is rather ludicrous. No, nobody bought an election and nobody, but nobody, controls the vote of anyone else.

Walt Sullivan can be contacted at walterjsullivan@aol.com.

Cheney and Bin Laden: It takes one to know one
by JOEL HOFFMANN

When I look back to Sept. 11, 2001, in my mind’s eye, the first thing I see is a graying political science professor gathering his thoughts in an eerily silent classroom.

In previous classes, Dr. Sam Martineau had provoked a debate about how much power the United States could wield in a post-Cold War world, and we had most recently discussed the “clash of civilizations” hypothesis put forward by the late Samuel P. Huntington, then a professor at Harvard.

With the Soviet Union busy lurching toward capitalism and democracy, the United States was without a worthy adversary. (Plus, democracies tend to resolve their disputes diplomatically – or so the theory goes.)

To varying degrees, the death of Communism had been attributed to the proletariat’s naughty trysts with Western culture. Amateur political scientists had decreed that blue jeans and MTV had brought down the Berlin Wall – pure hyperbole, but surely there was some truth in their version of history.

The Soviets had left a vacuum in the East, and Huntington believed that the region’s Islamic powers would seize the opportunity to repudiate Western culture and all of its depravity.

At the time, I didn’t know much about the history of U.S. involvement in the Middle East, but it seemed likely that something terrible would come of our misadventures in Saudi Arabia and other oil-rich holy lands.

It came far more quickly than I had expected.

I can’t recall with any accuracy the words that tumbled out of Dr. Martineau’s mouth, but my gut tells me his speech was some combination of “told you so” and “wish I hadn’t.”

* * *

When I look back at Sept. 11, the second thing I see is George W. Bush sitting dumbfounded in a Sarasota County classroom for seven minutes as schoolchildren read aloud from “My Pet Goat.”

Like many angry “liberals” of my generation, I have for years blamed George W. Bush for the decline and fall of our civilization, but my ire has since turned to pity.

Sure, we can blame Bush for being intellectually uncurious. But it’s not fair to lay Sept. 11 or Abu Ghraib or any of his administration’s massive failures squarely on his plate.

The look on Bush’s face when Andy Card told him that the World Trade Center had been struck by a plane could easily be confused for stupor. But I don’t think he was daydreaming. He hesitated, I suspect, because he figured Dick Cheney had everything under control.

And how.

It’s become increasingly clear over the last year that Cheney and David Addington, his legal counsel and longtime friend, exploited Bush’s trust and loyalty to disastrous ends.

Cheney, a former congressman and White House chief of staff to Gerald Ford, had been a Washington insider since the ‘70s. He was also a family friend and confidante to Bush’s father, who appointed Cheney Secretary of Defense. Addington, a former CIA and Pentagon lawyer, had credibility by association, but he was also an imposing force in his own right.

As New Yorker reporter Jane Mayer shows us in her book “The Dark Side,” these men, along with former Justice Department counsel John Yoo, now a Philadelphia Inquirer columnist, controlled the flow of information to Bush, orchestrated two wars, developed legal justifications for torture and skewed the system of checks and balances in favor of the executive branch – ostensibly for the sake of our safety.

In the rush to avenge the fallen, the vast majority of Americans rallied behind the president in the weeks after Sept. 11, 2001. We looked to him for strength at a time of great vulnerability. But while our guard was down, Cheney and his inner circle were busy marginalizing anyone who could have undermined their agenda.

I don’t doubt that Bush believed al Qaeda attacked us because “they hate our freedoms.” But it troubles me that Bush never would have thought to use that phrase to explain Cheney and Addington’s motivations in revising the Constitution.

It would be ridiculous to compare Cheney to Osama bin Laden, but few people have done more to harm our way of life over the past eight years than those two.

What’s even more troubling is that both of them seem to believe that their agendas are morally imperative.

There is some common ground, you see, in the clash of civilizations.

* * *

Ten years from now, I want to look back at Sept. 11, 2011, as the day the United States rebalanced the scales of justice.

If Cheney and company want to play culture war with al Qaeda we should let them, in a controlled environment, during an internationally televised event.

For the next two years, I propose spending our entire military budget on rounding up the Sept. 11 masterminds and converting Guantanamo Bay into a gigantic gladiator arena. Since the president is the supreme Constitutional authority, according to Cheney, then he should have no problem with Obama suspending the writ of habeas corpus and detaining him indefinitely.

Let’s throw in Addington, Yoo, Donald Rumsfeld, Alberto Gonzalez and Karl Rove to even the sides – maybe Mahmoud Ahmadinejad could be a wild card.

The rules are simple: The contestants will fight to the finish in a no-holds-barred, last-man-standing competition. Everyone gets a machete, three grenades and a slingshot. (Cheney gets his quail-shooting rifle, too, since he’ll probably have a heart attack in the first round.)  And the winner gets a lifetime supply of waterboarding and solitary confinement.

All of this will be televised on Fox as a public service.

Sure, it’s a little morbid, but it’s no less repulsive than footage of people swan-diving out of the burning World Trade Center. Of prisoners held naked in stress positions at Abu Ghraib. Of innocent children being zipped up in body bags.

Besides, watching the zealots have their culture war will provide some much-needed perspective. And maybe, just maybe, we’ll purge the lunacy from our politics and get back to the trying but worthwhile task of governing ourselves.