Photo
Transit activists are hoping for a restoration of the Route 23 trolley line, which used to run from Chestnut Hill to South Philadelphia. Understanding the trolley issue in the context of the Northwest’s transportation needs as a whole will help guarantee a sustainable future for mass transit.
On down the line
After 13 years, $85 million dollars and
a yearlong political standoff that only Philadelphia
could have cooked up and only the press could have cured,
a fully above-ground street trolley line is once again
running in Philadelphia.
One might have expected the return of
the classic green PTC trolley on Girard Avenue, a recognizable
symbol of the city’s glory days of industrial
might and vitality, to be greeted with much fanfare,
but the reaction to the line’s restoration last
week was decidedly muted. Mayor Street was absent from
the proceedings, and the comments of SEPTA chairman
Pasquale Deon were lukewarm. SEPTA hasn’t really
done much to publicize the trolley; what promotional
material there has been (a glossy information card made
available to passengers will surely one day be a collector’s
item among rail buffs) has not reached a wide audience.
Some of Deon’s comments last week represent the
sort of bureaucratic myopia endemic to public authorities
(buses are “considerably cheaper” than trolleys,
he told the Local, ignoring both the recent spike in
diesel fuel prices and the higher street maintenance
costs associated with buses, probably because SEPTA
doesn’t foot that bill) and an example of thinking
in terms of incessant cost-cutting rather than ways
to grow ridership (experience has shown that light rail
attracts considerably more riders than bus lines).
The connection between light rail and
economic development is not lost on Girard Avenue boosters,
nor on other comparable cities. Baltimore, for instance,
citing Portland’s recent success with light rail,
is considering implementing a “tourist-friendly”
trolley system connecting the city’s northern
section with the Inner Harbor via Johns Hopkins University.
The Girard trolley could do the same thing, given its
connections to tourist attractions, other mass transit,
retail zones and Girard College, if the city chose to
aggressively promote the line.
All of this has bearing on how, and whether,
the Route 23 trolley can be restored. As was pointed
out in a July article in the Local by CHCA traffic and
transportation committee chair Bob Previdi, any discussion
of the trolley should take place in the context of what
may best promote the health of public transportation
in the Northwest as a whole. Is restoration of the entire
length of the 23 line viable, and what effect would
it have on Chestnut Hill’s two regional rail lines?
How best can we use public transportation to spur people
to visit our section of the city, as well as to encourage
locals to use rail more often?
One of the best things the Girard trolley
has going for it is that it runs so often — every
10 minutes during peak weekday hours. That’s the
sort of convenience that could attract people who work
in or visit Center City back to the rails. Previdi suggested
a trolley line that could replace the R8, running from
Chestnut Hill through West Fairmount Park along some
of the R8’s right of way and thereby linking attractions
in the two sections of the city. Whether or not this
is a good idea is less important than the fact that
it represents the sort of non-traditional thinking the
region needs to restore and maintain the vitality of
its excellent rail infrastructure. Bringing riders back
means tailoring systems to the economic realities of
what drives this city today, rather than 100 years ago,
when Henry Houston had a second rail line built up to
the Hill to service executives of the Pennsylvania Railroad.
If the “new-old” Route 15
can itself be successful while contributing to the health
of Girard Avenue (and perhaps even the R8, if a transportation
center is built at the Philadelphia Zoo), we should
take notice — and learn from this improbable experiment
in light rail restoration as we lobby for the future
of our own rail connections.
James Sturdivant
Opinion: Fair Reporting Missing
from Local
by CHRISTOPHER W. LANE
I began to read Michael Mishak’s
article “Agreement brings two new eateries to Hill”
(Local, Sept. 1) with great pleasure, learning that Mohsen Lavasani
finally would be able to open his restaurant. However, as I
continued to read, my pleasure turned to consternation as I
found the second half of the article focused on prior difficulties
Lavasani had experienced attempting to open his restaurant in
a Bowman Properties location. What disturbed me was that only
one side of the story was reported and that old negative news
was so much of a focus for the story when the real news was
the positive fact that the new restaurant would soon be open.
Failed business negotiations always
have two sides and Mishak had knowledge only of Lavasani’s
view point. Mishak did call Bowman Properties for comment, but
just the day before press deadline, with the only possible contact
at that late date being the answering machine of a person who
was on vacation. Since the problems Lavasani had experienced
were already in the past, the fair and professional approach
would have been to wait until information from both parties
was available before revisiting this “old news.”
But even more, why did these past difficulties between Lavasani
and Bowman have to be featured so prominently? Unfortunately,
I feel that this is but part of a disturbing trend that I have
seen for several years: unbalanced reporting of issues and events
connected with Bowman Properties in the pages of the Chestnut
Hill Local.
Bowman Properties received the CHCA
Benefactors Award in 1995 in recognition of a great number of
significant and very beneficial contributions to the Chestnut
Hill community. However, from the preponderance of negative
articles in the Local, a reader would be hard pressed to understand
how and why Bowman Properties earned and deserved that award.
Without debating the rights and wrongs of any particular issue,
I am disturbed by the apparent bias of the Local in its coverage
of a local business. A large property owner in a small community
makes an inviting target, but it is the duty of a responsible
press to not succumb to the temptation to let any bias it might
have influence the way it reports the news.
The Local’s failure to give Bowman a chance to comment
is the most recent journalistic lapse; another example is an
article headlined “Bowman properties avoid sheriff’s
sale,” from Jan. 15, 2004. This article discussed the
fact that 16 Bowman properties were listed for the sheriff’s
sale on Jan. 6, and then, while stating that the reasons for
this listing “are not clear,” goes on at length
about all the negative things one could possibly conclude from
this, throwing in a gratuitous mention of an unrelated federal
investigation.
The dispute that led to the listing
of these properties had been settled months before the article
appeared and the continued inclusion of the properties on the
sheriff’s list was due to an error by the City of Philadelphia.
Balanced reporting calls for fact finding. The Local could have
uncovered this information but instead wrote, “Since Snowden
has repeatedly vowed never to talk to the Local because of his
problems with past coverage, he was unavailable for comment,”
glossing over the fact that the reporter did not even try to
get in touch with Bowman. This was an inexcusable example of
professional ethics not being allowed to get in the way of a
“good story” about Bowman Properties.
My concern is not to debate the issues for specific instances,
but rather to call attention to the slanted approach the Local
has taken toward a local business. Another example involves
the recent front-page article on vacancies on Germantown Avenue,
many of which, it was pointed out, belonged to Bowman Properties.
Where was the follow-up article when a good number of the vacancies,
including Bowman spaces, were filled? The negative news relating
to Bowman gets prominent display, while the positive is relatively
ignored. This negative slant against Bowman has appeared too
often in the Local and the most recent article shows that it
continues. I do not believe that an objective look at the reporting
of the Local can leave one with anything but a conclusion that
Bowman Properties has not been treated in an even-handed manner.
Whether one likes a particular person or business or agrees
with all they do, surely the Local should treat everyone fairly.
The Local’s treatment of Bowman
raises a more general issue of what sort of paper the Local
should be. In the same issue that the innuendo-filled article
on the sheriff’s sale was printed, the Local printed an
obituary for Virginia C. Wilmsen [Richard Snowden’s grandmother],
one of the most important benefactors of Chestnut Hill over
the last three decades, as was nicely told in the obituary.
The problem is that Wilmsen was also one of the partners of
Bowman Properties. So in the same issue that the Local was eulogizing
Wilmsen, it was besmirching her business and family members.
It has been argued that the sheriff’s sale was news and
the Local had an obligation to print that story, even though
it appeared in the same issue as Wilmsen’s obituary. I
think it is appalling that a community paper would be so focused
on “the news,” that it would do something so uncivil,
unkind and unnecessary.
Do we really want a community paper
that is content to cause hurt to the family of someone who had
done so much for that community in order that it could run a
“news” story. Couldn’t that story have waited
a week? For that matter, do we want a community paper that is
more concerned with showing the negative side of a local business
than with treating that business even-handedly? The letters
section of the Local is filled week in and week out with vitriolic
attacks on this person or that business or the other political
viewpoint, so do we need the articles to join in this mean spiritedness?
One need not want the Local to become
a “puff” paper, nor a docile mouthpiece for the
CHCA, in order to feel that it could be a kinder and fairer
publication. Without ignoring negative news, why cannot the
Local highlight the positive when appropriate? For instance,
in the latest Mishak article, why did he need to do more than
mention that Lavasani had been trying, unsuccessfully, for a
long time to get his restaurant going, and then focus on the
good things that are the news now?
The overall tone of the Local has
become confrontational and sensational. Is it any wonder that
people do not want to become involved in the CHCA when week
after week they read negative articles and vituperative letters?
A change in the attitude of the Local to a more civil and supportive
role could go a long way toward making our community come together
in a more positive way. The CHCA owns the Local and if this
change is going to happen, it has to come from their direction.
I hope that things will change, that the Local will treat Bowman
Properties — and every other business and person —
fairly, and that it will become a positive not divisive force
in our community.
Christopher W. Lane is the owner
of the Philadelphia Print Shop.
The editor responds
Fairness in reporting, on local landlords or any
other topic, is taken very seriously at the Chestnut Hill Local.
In the April vacancies article referred to above by Mr. Lane,
we went out of our way in trying to both solicit and present
Bowman Properties’ side of this issue, to the extent that
we quoted comments Bowman general partner Richard Snowden made
to a ‘Local’ reporter in 2001 defending his renting
practices — this despite the fact that Snowden would not
talk to us, either on or off the record, for the vacancies piece.
In both articles run this year on the Shundeez
matter, the efforts made to obtain comment from Bowman Properties
were well in line with standard journalistic practice. In the
most recent case, reporter Michael J. Mishak called the office
and spoke to a receptionist, making it very clear why he was
calling and asking to speak with Mr. Snowden himself. Mishak
was offered the sole option of being put through to the voice
mail of another staffer who was on vacation. Because restaurateur
Paul Roller had shuttered Rollers at the Top of the Hill plaza
the weekend prior to when the article ran, I made the decision
that we could not hold the story another week, given that many
in the community would be wondering what was going on with this
prominent restaurateur. Bowman Properties knew of our inquiries
for the better part of two business days before we went to press.
Mishak’s call was never returned; it still has not been
as of Sept. 13.
As to the many good things done by Bowman Properties
in the community, these were laid our quite thoroughly in Virginia
Wilmsen’s Jan. 2004 obituary, which the editor at the
time chose to run on the front page. The tax delinquencies piece
ran on an inside page.
Like Mr. Lane, I have no desire to debate specific
instances, but would rather focus on a larger principle. Those
persons who refuse to talk to a newspaper should not be surprised
if their side of the story is not represented equally. Such
a situation leaves an editor with only two options: run the
story as the paper has it, after a good-faith effort has been
made to seek comment from all sides, or run nothing at all.
The latter serves no one’s interests except presumably,
those of the uncooperative party.
A final note: of the properties listed as vacant
in April, the most prominent to be filled in the intervening
months is the Bowman-owned storefront at the corner of Germantown
Avenue and Graver’s Lane — a development announced
by a top-of-the-front page photo in the June 30 edition of the
‘Local.’
James Sturdivant
Commentary: Animal rescue dream
come true becomes a postal nightmare
by JESSIE MORGAN
The generous support of my animal rescue work
shown by Chestnut Hill Local readers since Len Lear’s
article ran (“Jessie Morgan is a lifesaver — literally,”
Local, 8/4/05) has been phenomenal. I can’t express the
extent of my gratitude. The Night Kitchen Bakery even put out
a collection bucket for me. I was thrilled.
Of course, there had to be some drama, courtesy
of the United States Postal Service, which relegated the checks
to postal limbo for over two weeks. But the funds are finally
in the possession of Animal Rescue and Referral Inc., which
will soon reimburse my vets at Fort Washington Animal Hospital
for the care of Simon and Madelyn, the two animals whose appeal
for help with operating costs appeared along with the Aug. 4
article.
The Postal Service debacle is worth relating as
a warning to other readers. Its happy ending is thanks only
to a single caring postal worker we shall call “Mr. X”
at the Bustleton Post Office. He gave me his name, but we don’t
want to get him fired for actually doing his job now, do we?
It began on Aug. 24 when I naively sent the checks
to Animal Rescue and Referral, Inc. by certified mail from the
Market Square Post Office. By Aug. 29, AR&R had not received
the checks, so I attempted to track them down. I made several
calls to the USPS at the only number it provides in the phone
book, 800-275-8777, which connects you to a national clearing
house for postal inquiries. Might it be in India? The first
clerk who answered that number informed me that the item had
been “scanned ‘undeliverable as addressed’”
on Aug. 25. The item would be held at the destination post office
for 10 days, he said, and the recipient could go pick it up
with two forms of photo ID. I explained to him that the recipient
is disabled and house-bound, and asked if the item could be
sent directly back to me. It could not, I was told. Our only
recourse, he said, was to wait 10 days. Subsequent calls to
that number resulted in different information from each clerk
as to what might be the fate of my item.
Frustrated, I asked to speak to a supervisor in
order to file a complaint. The supervisor took my information
and said someone would call me back. Two days later, I got a
message on my machine from a postal representative who did not
identify herself. She didn’t know the nature of my problem,
she said, but she apologized for whatever it was. She left no
number for me to return her call.
In my own defense, the AR&R representative
to whom I’d mailed the checks has been getting mail at
that address for several years and we confirmed that I had written
the address properly.
I then went online at USPS.com and again received
the information that it was “undeliverable as addressed.”
No other information was available there, such as where the
item was at that point or what the USPS intended to do with
it. There was, however, a feature that allows you to write them
directly for a personal reply to your problem. I did this, explained
that the item contained checks from a charity fundraiser, provided
the receipt number, and asked when we could expect it back.
There was no response.
On Aug. 29, I went to the Market Square post office
and informed a clerk there that my item had been deemed “undeliverable
as addressed.” That clerk then went into the back and
emerged with a computer printout again stating that the item
was “undeliverable as addressed.” I asked her when
I could expect to get it back and she said it should have been
sent back to me on Aug. 25 and should arrive within 2 or 3 postal
days. This was contradictory to the 10-day waiting period I’d
initially been told about.
On Sept. 2, a supervisor named Julia at the 800
number told me that a postal item is not considered “lost”
until it’s been missing for 14 postal days, which would
be Sept. 12. If somehow the envelope had fallen into the wrong
hands since Aug. 24, I reasoned, the checks could have been
cashed by then. I started contacting donors so they could cancel
their checks, but then “Mr. X” came to the rescue.
I won’t say how I got the number of the
Bustleton Post Office — it seems to be classified information
— because I don’t want to cause trouble for postal
employees who actually helped me. Suffice it to say that on
Sept. 8 I called the Bustleton office directly and was fortunate
that “Mr. X” answered the phone. He listened to
my problem, took the receipt number, put me on hold and returned
with my item in hand. Less than two hours later, he delivered
the item in person to the AR&R representative and our trials
were over. Of course, now that I’ve singled him out for
doing a great job, there will be a very involved in-house investigation,
he’ll be identified and probably be fired.
Oh, yes. On Sept. 9, USPS.com informed me by e-mail
that my item had been delivered.
For the preceding nightmare, I paid the USPS $4.42.
Jessie Morgan is a resident of Germantown.
Commentary: Disaster relief
… what you should know
by EDWARD JOHNSON
The level of loss and suffering as a result of
Hurricane Katrina will likely surpass any natural disaster that
America has thus far faced. The outpouring of donations and
offers to help is also unprecedented, as well it should be.
In one way or another, everyone will feel the impact of this
devastating act of nature.
Without question it is good and noble to contribute
to worthwhile and helpful charities. It is the right thing to
do. With this, the Better Business Bureau (BBB) adds a word
of caution: giving is good — just do so wisely. Along
with the legitimate charitable efforts that have launched campaigns
to help those who are in need, there are also fraudulent appeals
that seek to take advantage of your interest and concern over
the disaster. In fact, it is like clockwork. Within days of
any natural disaster, the BBB knows that some people will seek
to take advantage of Americans’ eagerness to assist victims.
It is disheartening to think that there are those who would
try to capitalize on catastrophic events and line their pockets
with charitable contributions meant for the victims and their
families. Nonetheless, it is a harsh reality. Scam operators
have no reverence for these values or the plight of honest people.
Appeals for charitable donations come in a variety
of ways: through direct mail, telephone solicitations, door-to-door,
print and broadcast media and through solicitors stationed at
busy thoroughfares. In addition, the Internet abounds with giving
opportunities. The appeals come from both well known, established
organizations and from newly formed groups. No matter how long
the charity has been around, appeals should clearly define the
intended beneficiaries. Further, the appeal should not be long
on emotion or excessive in pressure. You should never be made
to feel bad if you choose not to give to a solicitor.
It is also important to remember that the opportunity
to give will be ongoing. It is okay to take time in your donating
decision. If you are unable to contribute today, relief will
still be welcome — and necessary — in months to
come. Finally, you should know that most relief charities prefer
financial contributions. This enables them to purchase needed
items near the relief site(s) for ease and efficiency in distribution.
Therefore, if money is your planned avenue for assistance, here
are a few tips to remember:
• Charities should not be reluctant to answer
reasonable questions about their operations, finances or programs.
• Refrain from giving out your credit card number or other
personal information to an unknown solicitor.
• If you wish to make a financial donation, consider writing
a check. Make it payable to the charity, not an individual.
If making a donation online, ensure the site is secured and
be careful of the name game of faux charities that try to imitate
more well known ones.
• Some charities spend much of your contribution on administrative
and fundraising expenses and little actually goes to the stated
cause. Find out what the percentages are.
• If you feel uncomfortable or unsure as to the legitimacy
of an appeal, ask for written information.
• Verify if a charity is registered in the state you are
located and check to see if it has IRS approval as a 501(c)(3)
non-profit.
If you would like to see if a national charity
meets the BBB’s standards for charitable giving, go to
http://www.give.org.
Edward Johnson is president & CEO of the
Better Business Bureau serving the Eastern Pennsylvania region.
