August 12, 2004 Issue                                       

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©2006 The Chestnut Hill Local

Opinion

Thanks, Ed

For the past 14 years, a college student has worked in the Chestnut Hill Local’s editorial department for eight weeks thanks to an internship in memory of Anna Fisher Clark, a Chestnut Hill resident who strongly believed in supporting young people in gaining experience in their chosen field. Each year, the intern has covered meetings, interviewed people for features and attended community events.

This year’s intern has been no exception. Ed Mahon, (above) a Springfield, Delaware County resident who will be a senior at La Salle University in the fall, has covered everything from the Chestnut Hill Community Association board of directors meeting to the Run For the Hill of It, taken photographs and helped with filing. He brought the Local a sense of humor, interest in doing an excellent job, and the ability to write articles of all genres.

On behalf of the Local staff, I thank Ed for all his help and wish him the best of luck in the future.

Katie Worrall

Cautious beginnings

Like the presidential candidates, who last week kept talking about the country “turning a corner,” Chestnut Hill is also at a new beginning. Not only are Bowman Properties’ plans for the northeast corner of Germantown Avenue and Gravers Lane now being reviewed by the Chestnut Hill Community Association, bringing a long vacant space closer to rejuvenation, but CHCA volunteers and members of the Chestnut Hill Business Association and Business Improvement District are looking to find ways to cooperate on decisions regarding the shopping district.

It was good news to hear at the Aesthetics Committee that the committee is planning a meeting with business leaders and that a retreat is being planned for September for all members of CHCA physical division committees that include Land Use Planning & Zoning, Development Review and Street Trees & Landscape as well as Aesthetics Committee. Not only do the Business Association and the Community Association need to find a working — not to mention friendly — relationship, but the CHCA must study ways to streamline its process of reviewing projects requiring use permits or variances by the City of Philadelphia.

An idea that should be studied carefully before a decision is made is a proposal by L. George Parry, chairman of the publishers committee, to dissolve the Lentz Policy, which states that the mission of the Local is to anticipate community problems, to present possible solutions and to present responsible points of view. (The Lentz Policy is the policy statement printed on this page each week.)

The reason given me by Maxine Dornemann, CHCA president, is that the Community Association has no control over the Local, that the policy ties the hands of the CHCA and is not a good defense if the Local and the Community Association face a lawsuit.

The CHCA must look at the policy carefully and think about what Chestnut Hill wants in a community newspaper in the long term. CHCA leaders should remember that they have the power to hire and fire the editor and ask themselves if dissolving the policy would protect the association from lawsuits. Katie Worrall