March 15, 2007 Issue
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Classified Chestnut Hill Local Online Editor Don't Miss an Issue, Tell us what you see or Winner of One |
From our readersIs this Groundhog Day? Is Chestnut Hill living through its own version of the movie Groundhog Day? I thought that any controversy regarding the absolute editorial independence of the Local was resolved during the last CHCA election when the slate running on a free press platform was elected. Apparently some CHCA board members have forgotten the overriding election issue that drove record voter turn out by this community — an independent Local. The Bylaws Committee recently proposed an amendment strengthening and clarifying the role of the Local’s editor. It reads: “The Editor has absolute independence. Any form of prior censorship expressed or implied is prohibited. Any person may suggest to the Editor subjects to be covered but the Editor has sole authority to decide what is ultimately published.” As reported in the Local on March 1, “the bylaw was defeated 12 to 18.” Defeated! By a board elected to safeguard our paper! This amendment does not jeopardize the Lentz policy. It does not allow the editor to publish libelous materials. It simply underscores the role of the editor at any newspaper of quality and integrity in America. Fortunately this issue is scheduled to be discussed and voted upon again. I urge everyone who values and understands a free press to attend the special board meeting on Thursday, March 15 at 7:30 p.m. [at Christ Ascension Lutheran Church, 8300 Germantown Ave.] and to voice strongly your support of the amended bylaw as originally proposed. Your attendance at this meeting and community vote is critical if you believe, as I do, that Chestnut Hill deserves an independent Local. Absolutely. Period. Eileen Regan Reynolds Why, Wawa? Why? What has happened to Chestnut Hill? Bit by bit we are losing the stores that made Chestnut Hill what it is. And now Wawa is leaving, the first Wawa in the City of Philadelphia. It is a busy and necessary store in Chestnut Hill, the kind that holds a community together. Now two new banks are moving in, plus the graffiti; Koey Rivinus would not have liked that. I could go on at some length. We have lost too much. What can we do to redeem ourselves? Anne Rivinus Shouldn’t the Chestnut Hill Business Association be held a bit accountable for the way banks have overtaken, how one of the most useful stores (Wawa) is leaving, how there are fewer reasons to shop on the Hill? Mary R Madeira [This letter was sent to a corporate Wawa employee]. There are very few things that surprise us anymore here in Chestnut Hill … empty stores due to one landlord’s indifference have been the norm for several years. But it was a great shock to me to learn that your store here will close this summer. You must be making a profit at this store. It’s rarely not crowded with residents on their way to and from work, with construction and service people who work on the Hill and with students. This closing will mean a real inconvenience to just about everyone I know… and it leaves all of us with a bad feeling about the corporate policies of a company that abandons a successful store just because it may not fit some future plan. I understand that it may be too late to reverse your decision, but I hope that you search for another location in Chestnut Hill. Mt. Airy has no parking and I don’t care if you tear down surrounding houses, there never will be enough if the volume increases due to a closing in Chestnut Hill. The same is true at the Flourtown location. I think many of us in Chestnut Hill will just have to learn to live without Wawa and may be reluctant to shop at your other locations. How many times these days do customers beg for a store to remain open? Marilyn Phister Remember: The Hill Movie Theater, The Lady Bug Shop, Joseph Condello’s Men’s Shop, Jacob Reed’s, The Nana Shop, Mes Enfants, The Depot, Dorothy Bullet Women’s Shop, The Frigate Book Store, The Deb Shop, Encore Books, Under the Blue Moon Restaurant, Banana Republic, This Ends Up, Yankee Candle, The Gap and Gap Kids, Artscape, Pendelton Women’s, Lippincott Men’s Store, Labrador Coffee Shop, Stylos, Stella Note, Chautauqua Restaurant, Italian Oven, Caldwell’s, The English Tea Shop, Boston Market, The French Lemon, Galantes Market, the Venetian Delicatessen, Quintessence, Cubbyhole, The Two Susans, Battin and Lunger’s Pharmacy, Laura Ashley, Allen’s Variety Store, Mud and Muslin, Steigerwalt’s, The Baggage Room, Settabella, The Lillian Shop, The Yard Company, 21 West, Chestnut Hair, Wombat’s, Diesinger & Dolan Jewelers, The Lingerie Shop, The Stencil Shop, Aurritts, The Hahn Gallery, Women’s Exchange, Serendipity, Orvis, The Golf Shop, Elaine Cooper, Barbara Russell Needlepoint, Chestnut Hill Hobby, the Ski Shop, (This list was compiled with the help of many Chestnut Hillers … perhaps, your readers have their own additions). Now … what will our children remember about growing up “on the Hill?” Commerce Bank, Citizen’s Bank, Mellon Bank, Sovereign Bank, Wachovia Bank, Bank of America, Citibank, Valley Green Bank, PNC Bank, and Chestnut Hill National Bank.
Linda Carol Cherken Wawa is the central locale of everything good for young adults. I’ve never walked into Wawa without seeing someone I knew. I frequently see my classmates, my teachers and my friends there. Wawa is the maker of the most reliable hoagies on the east coast. I have never been disappointed — never let down by the quality and refreshing taste of a Wawa hoagie. I can place my order in under eight seconds: Cold Hoagie, shorti, honey mustard, lil bit o’ mayo, Carolina honey smoked turkey, American cheese, lettuce, tomato, sweet peppers, pickles, oregano, no extra meat, no extra cheese, no bacon for an extra 55¢, no side order, print receipt. Whenever I’ve had a bad day, Wawa is there to provide me with little snacks. Whenever I’m returning from college, my first stop before I get home is Wawa. Wawa is an international conversation piece. It’s the subject of roughly 70 Facebook groups. The Web site’s group, “Save the Chestnut Hill Wawa,” has just short of 600 members and expands daily. If that’s not love, I don’t know what is. Chestnut Hill without Wawa would be like The Beatles without John Lennon. It would be like a night sky without stars. It would be like Paris without the Eiffel Tower. It means pre-season sans hoagies. It means no more conveniently available Wawa Peach Iced Tea. It would be like getting rid of other staples of the avenue such as Kilian’s, or Zipf’s, or TLA. Where will the teenagers go without a meeting place? Where will we get our fresh hoagies while strolling the avenue on a hot summers day? Where can we get free ATM service? Where can I get apples and caramel in a to-go package? It’s time to rethink our priorities, folks: Banks or hoagies? Claire M. Wagner Run for CHCA board At this time last year, there was great excitement on the Avenue! Members of the Chestnut Hill Community Association were signing up right and left to run for 24 open at-large seats on the CHCA board. By the end of the nomination period, 54 candidates had submitted their names for consideration. The headline on the April 6 issue of the Local read: “Candidates outnumber seats, 2-1.” What a great example of democracy in action! This year, there are 12 seats open in the CHCA election. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the March 29 issue of the Local could run the same headline again? This would require having at least 24 candidates for the 12 positions. I urge anyone interested in the future of Chestnut Hill to consider running for a seat on the board. If you are not a member of the CHCA, you can call the CHCA office at 215-248-8810 to find out how to sign up. The CHCA board needs a constant influx of new people with new ideas to keep the association alive. The association is the lifeblood of Chestnut Hill, a valuable resource to deal with the challenges and controversies that continually arise in any vital community. There is a saying, “Communities in which controversy does not thrive are dead on their feet.” Chestnut Hill is thriving and it needs your participation. You can make a difference! On page 9 of last week’s Local is a nomination form for at-large directors. There should be one in this week’s issue also [see page 12]. Time is short. All nominations have to be in no later than 5 p.m. on March 22. Nancy H. Hutter Petitioning crossed the line As the recently endorsed Green Party candidate for City Council, 8th District, I have received reports that Bob Previdi, executive director of the Chestnut Hill Business Association/Chestnut Hill Business Improvement District (Chestnut Hill “BID”) has been circulating nominating petitions for incumbent Councilwoman Donna Reed Miller who is trying to hold onto her seat against four or five challengers in the Democratic Primary. I agree with several community leaders that circulating petitions constitutes an implicit and unacceptable endorsement of Councilwoman Miller by the business association but understand why Bob needs to keep a close working relationship with the current officeholder. Bob and I have been Jenks School parents and have worked closely on securing pedestrian crossing signs on Germantown Avenue. I am in the process of trying to determine what restrictions BID and business association employees have on political campaigning. City employees, such as my wife, a librarian for the Free Library, may not engage in it. I look forward to continue working with Bob for the betterment of the Northwest community and, if clarification from the BID and Business Association is forthcoming, I believe we can both do that without crossing any impermissible lines. Brian Rudnick Bob Previdi confirmed to the Local that he was indeed collecting signatures for Donna Reed Miller, but that he did so as a private citizen. He said the collection of petitions was not an endorsement of Miller. The petition was part of the process necessary for getting on the ballot in Philadelphia —Ed. Righting the record on ad hoc report In last week’s Forum [March 8], James Casale complains that the Ad-Hoc Committee’s report was rather soporific, for which failing, I as the primary author, must offer a general apology to those few who read the report and a particular apology to Mr. Casale who indeed appears to have been reduced to a state of semi-consciousness while attempting to read the document. How else are we to explain his comment that the committee “suggests the Local should adhere to a standard of practice contrary to the Code of Ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists?” Did he doze through the very first point in the section titled “Recommendations Summary,” which suggests that the Local “codify [an] ethics policy based on industry standards (i.e., existing policies of Society of Professional Journalists and newspapers of record)”? Was he drifting in and out of consciousness while reading similar passages on pages 4, 5, and 8? In another peculiar fit of narcolepsy he writes, “The Committee also determines that the mere fact that 16 Germantown Avenue properties . . . were simultaneously scheduled for Sheriff’s sale has no inherent news value.” In fact, the story with little news value was the announcement that 16 properties were not scheduled for Sheriff’s sale. This came as something less than a surprise to the neighborhood, since the Local had never reported that anything was being auctioned, which certainly would have been a news story, but which, by the time the properties had been removed from the auction list, was no longer new and would not have been accurate. All that remained was a question: what precipitated the removal? In this case, the reporter preferred his collection of musing and innuendo to the torment of picking up the phone and calling the one person who could conceivably have supplied some facts. Of all the assertions in the committee report, I would have thought that asking reporters do their jobs before publishing would be among the least controversial. Then again, perhaps I’ve misunderstood the audience. Consider, for instance, that Mr. Casale’s “16 Germantown Avenue properties” is itself incorrect. In fact, many of them were elsewhere in Chestnut Hill. Not a huge error, for sure, but it is also trivially easy to look up: so why get it wrong? Well, to have 16 properties on the Avenue for auction does serve to sharpen Mr. Casale’s already misleading point. It is as if to say, how foolish can these committee people be?! Answer: not foolish enough to write letters replete with factual errors. Jim Albrecht |
