Avenue of Broken Dreams

by Ed (Broadway Baby) Feldman

Fall at its' most iridescent. Some things change, while some stay the same. The foliage falls (don't say it) into the first category, with an anti-Al Gore chill making trees run up their yellow surrender flags. The Hill Fall for the Arts Festival falls into the latter, with a sameness so comforting to the Culturally Frozen and so stifling for anyone with a functioning memory of so many identical events.

But amidst the relentless sameness of the usual suspects' third rate trinkets and Kettle-Corn-Funnel-Cake-Carbo-Quaaludes, how many noticed that rarity of rarities, a New Hill Commercial Tenant?

Yes, in the old Express property, the shop girl's synthetic uniform supply company, now dwells a much more flamboyant purveyor of reasonably priced apparel.

Halloween Adventure, where all the Hillers with secret Super Hero and Fantasy Fetishes can now shop and, later, don their alter ego outfits in private. After the economics lesson, I'll start to match the local celebs with their costumes for Halloween, or Whatever. And you kids can all join in too!

Halloween Adventure is a store whose annual existence begins a few weeks before its eponymous Holiday, and ends, at the latest, after New Years, the better to supply Santa and Sexy Elf costumes during that time of year when the number of drunken revels increases the amount of casual sex with provocatively dressed co-workers and acquaintances by a factor of nine.

The store then vacates its location until the following September, with rare exceptions, like neighborhoods with high numbers of budget-minded tranvestites, with tastes for shoddy Chinese Exports. (That Rarest of Demographics).

Most every H. A. functions as Commercial-Squatter, Rent-Paying Bottom Feeders, who scavenge temporarily in vacant properties that have no hope of a viable, long term tenant.

Keep your eyes open kids. Where have you seen H.A.'s? Half vacant Strip Malls, places where the Plant Shut Down, near where the guys stand and wait for someone to pick them up for yard work.

H.A.'s aren't signs that the Buzzards are circling, they ARE the buzzards.

Remember L'il Richie Snowden's Signs? The ones that advertised his vacant proprties as available for "Check Cashing, Discount Electronics, and Nail Salons? He meant those signs as a Racist Scare Tactic to punish the Hill for its' non-fealty to his Authority, its' questioning of his Grand Plans, and its' occasional criticism of his Middle Aged Tantrums and Tax Schemes.

But even I didn't think he meant to rent to tenants who would, in his words, "turn Chestnut Hill into a Ghetto." After all, why would His Whiteness live in the most pigmentally-challenged neighborhood in Philadelphia if he wanted to hear car radios blaring something with a bass line?

But even without any real attempt at rental eugenics by Strip Mine Dick, the first line has just been crossed.

All those years of his self-enforced vacancies, of renting to banks but not restaurants, of antique and gimcrack stores that depended on visitors for survival, while commodities for residents were bought elsewhere.

The Panic by the weak Hill Biz crowd that followed Dirty-Coal Boy to board autonomy should have told you something. If they weren't desparate, their real opinions of him would have kept them home, and busy behind their counters. Now you can see the daily, physical manifestation in all its Dracula-like Horror: Halloween Adventure = Depressed Area.

All the Kettle Korn in the World won't help.

'Til next time, send in your suggestions for Costume Selection for Your Favorite Hillers. I'll have mine.

And More Fall Festival Follies with Ed, Rob Remus, Sanjiv Jain, the Hillers who Shun. Like the Amish but with Cable.

Curiouser and Curiouser

As Flounder said, "Oh Boy, This is Great!"

I just got a call from Rob Remus. You may remember Rob. He managed real estate for Sanjiv Jain's Legacy realty. Sanjiv tried to use him as muscle at some meetings, but it turned out that Rob was all talk. Rob got on the board when all those memberships were bought for out of state relatives and friends of people who worked for Sanjiv. Mr Patel, another employee, resigned from the board. Rob got to stay. No one knows why.

He tried to tell journalists how to run a newspaper, and used used some colorful language about a persons' sexuality to cover what I pecieved as an obvious attraction to him. ("The Love impulse in the Male often manifests itself in terms of Conflict" - Dr Fritz Lehman).

Yesterday, I was told that Rob had been given $3200.00 by the CHCA for something to do with the Local. To find out more about it, I called Rob. No answer. I didn't leave a message. But, follow-ups being the core of any businessman's trade, he Star69ed me-on a Sunday-to see if anyone wanted to pay him anything for anything.

I asked him about the money. He replied,"Hey Ed, want to talk to my Kids?- Hey kids-say hello to uncle Ed." I heard childrens voices and then then Rob returned. "Are you kidding, Ed, I would never let you talk to my kids." (I had said nothing) He then said "You know you're as smart as my kids." I continued to try and ask him about the money, and surprisingly, he hung up.

So Rob, who once told a gay man that he wanted to insert a body part into his body, now offers, then denies, access to his children to me for some reason. He dangled his kids in front of me for a reason that I can't even imagine.

Maybe someone should talk to Robs' wife about her husbands' interesting offers. Not me. I'll find out about the money, but I don't really want to know about the other stuff that goes on in that house.

Now that Rob has used his kids inappropriately, I guess I should be allowed to tell them all about their Daddy. But I'll let them find out on their own. The Odds Makers have Rob down as the next domino in the Chip Butler-John Capoferri-Frog Walk Parade.

Thanks Rob!

They Do Herd /The Morning Line

Territoriality Among the Chromosomally Engineered by Dr Benjamin (Benny Southstreet) Leakey

Mark Keintz may well be spending more time with his family, because I reached him at home at 11:30 A.M. on Saturday. I told him I wanted to help, but he politely declined.

But I do. Because his resignation was not an act of free will, and I thought I could offer him some.

So let's go through the possibilities. John Lombardi's conjectures serve well as a starting point.

Theory# 1 Mark's given Reason. Odds 100-1 Where have YOU been?

There is no way in hell Mark would have given up a post that he worked so hard for, licked so many nether reasons for, and lied so much to keep, for any reason approaching free will. If you saw him gamely defending the CHCA, the group that just took a shit on him, at the Chestnut Hill Residents' meeting, you might just cry for the little fella. Mark gave up that free will stuff long ago, to be able to escape the Dilbert Cubicle of the Eternally Ignored he has occupied since childhood.

He was finally allowed to play with the bigger kids. They even gave him a title. Treasurer. That Mark had no professional experience in any financial arena only increased his usefulness.
Although a charming personal experience may indicate his willingness, if not his expertise at budgetary exploration.

While teaching at Penn, I would occasionally observe Mark and a co-worker comparing prices at the food carts, searching for the best lunchtime deal. My criteria being culinary and service quality kept me loyal to two or three dispensers of Mobile Cuisine, Aluminum Clad Division.

I know the reason for this bargain based odyssey, because I asked him, and he told me. He was still speaking to me then. When I expressed my confusion on the subject, due to the fact that the lunch carts were the same ones every day, staked out at the same spots every day, with the same dishes and the same prices every day, he replied, "Well you know, something might change."

That response always indicated a kind of longing in Mark. His days of hunched computer genuflection, where nothing ever changes, his lunchtime freedom to hope for something to happen outside the bounds of zip code 00110111000110110.

No, Marks' willingness to do whatever it took to be in the greatest, most prestigious job he ever had would not have been relinquished for anything as tired and overused as personal or professional reasons.

Theory #2: Investigation Fear. Odds 8-1. Don't Go near this

The ongoing investigation, springing from the findings of the oversight committee, duly constituted by the CHCA board during its' brief tenure of being run by folks who were not lining their pockets, padding their resume's, or feeding their pathology, has been the reason for a number of resignations.

The first to hide were the profession/political climbers. Their financial sights were set on larger amounts of fish than Hill business could ever provide. Big white shoe law firm/City money makes Hill lettuce comically small time. I chronicled the exodus of Jeremy Heep and his bourgeois treadmill partner Tia Burke as they went from the CHCA's prom King and Queen to undisclosed location dwellers, literally overnight.

Dropping off the face of the earth is not an overstated metaphor. No explanation in the Local, not even one blaming official "evil ones" (including me), or board disfunction, nothing. When you don't even have an official story, the only motive is one of self preservation, where every minute out of spotlight increases your chance of escape.

More recently we have the cheese eaters of the money and pathology groups who saw a duck and cover strategy as a way to not only wait out a potential legal shitstorm, but as deep cover for their real Darwinian reason.

Back to Mark. He knew about the investigation, but stayed all this time. He has no pipeline whatsover to any inside timetable that may tell him that the gettin' out time is now. And the longer he stayed, the more he did as he was told, the more he implicated himself. Even he knew that.

Since I know you read this Mark, let me say that even you know this move will not help you. That's a compliment, right? And here's another one. I don't think Mark stayed on to line his pockets. If you want to ascribe that non-action to a particular category of ethics, go ahead.

But as one who ascribes to instinct above intellect, I see it more plainly. If Mark ever tried to take a pencil home from work, he would have a diaper full of shit before he hit the parking lot. To be kind, I'll just say, "It's not in his nature."

No, as we now see on the board, the great partnership is the one between money and the balls you need to do anything to get it. It's what makes the world spin, and reek like garbage and decaying flesh. If people lied and died for principles like they do for money, we would all still be naked and avoiding One particular Tree.

Those that are left at the board are there for the money, or following inner demons that they can't control, or both. Along with a few innocent innocents who, I hope, are enjoying the Theater.

Theory #3. Punishment for Telling some version of the Truth. Odds 3-1 Place bet as part of the Daily Double

While this theory has its proponents, it's just part of the big bet. Mark's minor financial faux pas as smoking gun is overstated. The emperor has been naked at board meetings for so long we have given names to every one of his venereal warts.

Any truth, especially a bit as insignificant as the one Mark let slip, would have been acted on as aggressively as; two purchased elections and counting, one case of bank fraud, tax cheats as trustees, nonresidents as vice presidents, ( I get tired telling you this so often), and everything now controlled by a middle aged Village-of-the-the-Damned cast member who, if Mother Earth had boots, would lodge one so deep in a particular locale of his, three board members would have "Timberland" embossed on their foreheads.

Theory #4. Richie's House Cleaning. Odds-Even Money- Bet the Coal Mine

As I have stated on these electrons before, the exodus of those who saw the future was almost complete before the last "election." Stuart Graham, Man of Litmus, lead his Children out of the Library in silence, as he had so often during his tenure as Chestnut Hill's own Karl Rove. Hey, I know the comparison is easy, but it's worked so well, why stop now? Always the power behind everyone except the reformers, hogtied as a republican in Philadelphia, this was Stewey's power base, albeit one where the base was the only place on which he could assert any power. See, I told you it was a good comparison!

Stewey saw a little danger coming with badges, and he is a cautious type. But he has kept so many personal and professional secrets for so long, he could have toughed out any storm. So while his, Ned (proud of my racism) Mittinger, and Frau Becker's retreat have an element of line-of -fire to it, its' real reason was the Darwinism I mentioned earlier, with a healthy side of finance.

Stewey is not only an incredibly minor Pol, he's also owns real estate in the Hill. How he got it is another story and a pip. (Thanks Lloyd!) But any minor player knows who daddy is. And guess who Daddy is?

When Richard Snowden (start typing employees-but use grammar check this time) created Positively Chestnut Hill, with Zondercommando Greg Welsh as Dov Landau, Stewey knew it was time, and he gave his usual sage advice to those who had always followed him before.

But so much of the world functions like the children's board game, chutes and ladders. As one who has reached the top of certain area of endeavor, I saw that, in so many ways, how its' pinnacle was located directly under the ass end of another.

Politics, particularly city politics, has such a relationship with business, particularly business that has a stranglehold on the same district as the politician in question.

Frankly, that Richard had to see how another local realtor bought an election before he figured it out doesn't speak well for his intellect. But he's got it now.

Stewey and his people got out of the way, knew they couldn't win, Stewey hoping for later consideration, and there you have it. Velociraptors leave when T-Rex shows up. Of course the real players, the Ultrasaurus' in 19118 can't be bothered with Richie's obsession and, if they pay any attention at all, probably giggle just like I do.

But who was left? The fools like Kientz, the crazies like Dina, and the useful puppies, like Piatrowski. Dina is still the mystery. Has she made a deal, or does Richie just consider her Jane with an extra Y? To be privy the unspoken interplay between the two, I would give my leather bound copy of Krafft-Ebing's Psychopathia Sexualis.

But Treasurer is too important a job for someone not completely in Richie's pocket. All the other positions are window dressing, like the new Treasurer's business.

So someone gave Mark a choice. Like Rommel, only with a better retirement plan. Resign or we will toss you. Since Mark has always thought this childrens' play he was involved in had something to do with the world of duty and honor he has seen in old movies, he "took the honorable way out." A living parody 'til the end. The only thing left for him to do is dress up in his Treasurers' Uniform and get the Lugar out.

Now a man who got his lovely house decorated for free, just 'cause he likes animals, is gonna figure out how to throw the final shovel full of dogshit on the Local. David Mansfield installs windows. Richard owns buildings that have windows. God bless America.

Pete, I told you. Doing what they want only makes them do it harder. You had a chance with Mark. Yet another sentence I never thought I would ever write. But as Boswell said, the more more you discover, the freakier it gets. Observing Snowden, it wouldn't surprise if his real punishment for you does not come in the form of termination, but in the humiliation of firing all of those who have been loyal to you, as you say nothing.

If I were what I perceive him to be, that is exactly what I would do. Exquisite sadism.

To All My Readers

Note to Jim F. and John L. This blog should be used to do what the Local has been pressured into not doing, reporting the movements of a small group of greedy Hill business people, power addicted suburban psychopaths, and their one or two manipulators, whose profiles fall into both categories, as their shenanigans are too entertaining to miss.

To be reasonable, let's compromise. For every piece about evil Obama or Crazy Pop stars, you write one about what's going on in our favorite chintz appointed halfway house. How's that?
Now back to my delightful obsession.

The desperate ones, the ones who - by their own admission - are losing money in this economy, have followed the lazy way to stop the bleeding. They believed a messiah. Rather than change their own failing business models, read the marketplace, improve their mediocre product or just pack up, they believed someone who, up 'til now, has treated them with the same regard he has for all the "help." The same regard he showed for them when he put up signs that, while in his foot-stamping-spoiled-rich-kid mind punished the Local and others, hurt the businesses of the Avenue more than anyone.

I'm talking to you Richie. I see you read this blog most every day. I know because people you trust tell me so. They also tell me that your attorneys read it. And also your Mother. So you must all be interested in what I have to say.

I have exposed your plans to pack the board with employees, tenants, friends and ass lickers to get control for your upcoming zoning and for your continued revenge on the neighborhood that does not give you the love you deserve.

Don't get me wrong, Richie, my darling, for Ass Licking, as I have said before, is something that, both figuratively and literally, is weird at first, and then, when you get used it, quite pleasant. It only becomes unsavory when you come to expect it, and demand it, as you do.

But what can we expect from someone whose fortune is built on the ravaged bodies of West Virginia coal miners, tricked out of their land by your ancestors, their mountaintops ripped to expose your fortune below, while the debris pollutes their steams for generations unborn. And all it takes for the Williamson, WV, newspaper to take your picture and thank you is a $40,000.00 scholarship for some local college students. Extrapolating that out for the early death and misery caused by the strip mining you finance, no wonder you hate the Hill. Fran O'Donnell, Greg Welsh, and the board are much more expensive, per capita, than those simple mountain folk you play tricks on.

Fashion note: Richie wore a pink shirt for one of the Mingo county photo op's. What WERE you thinking? Them thar folk ain't as broad minded as we'uns concernin' our sartorial symbolizin'.
But more about Richie later. Much more. Because I have been doing my research. On Cotiga, Tigaco, and other companies Richie uses to line his pockets with green, while lining other peoples' lungs with black. Tales of the sewing machine "salesman" - a key player in obtaining mineral rights from West Virginia Hill People, and of the King Coal Highway, of a desperate visit to the EPA in Philly, by the Governor of West Virginia, to allow mountain top removal, attempting to beat a moratorium by the pesky Obama people. That Richie's two groups of victims are both identified as "Hill People," yet separated by hundreds of miles and thousands of dollars of per capita earning is an irony that may earn it a place in a book title someday. Soon.

Richie, do you array your toy soldiers in dress rehearsals for these real life maneuvers? If so, who plays me? And do I stay erect, and if so, for how long?

This is the stuff the Local should cover. It's the stuff that gets you readers, recognition, and awards. But I guess paychecks are important too. So just be quiet, Local folks. Cash your paychecks, use your health care. And lose your souls.

Me, I ain't got no soul, so full speed ahead.

Jim Albrecht, who used to live next door to me, and who was warned by me about the weak DNA strain that governs Hill ethics, mentioned a "circle" that closed with the arrest of John Capoferri. John was part of the consortium of Hill "players" who helped get Richie his committee to mediate his dispute with the Local. John's buddy Richard Maloumian was involved too. John and Maloumian were joined at the hip back then. They used to go into the Local's office together and tell Pete how to run his newspaper, as a Real estate goniff and a rug salesman who married well have a right to do. Dick Doyle was part of the "let's get Richie his apology and he'll thank us somehow" club too. Hey fellas, what exactly did Richie do for you in return?

Now Maloumian and Capoferri aren't friends anymore. I've never known whether I should be happy or sad about the phrase "There is no honor among Thieves." Maybe I'm ambivalent about it 'cause I ain't got no soul.

Will Richie be a character witness at Johns' trial? Is it something that a call to Donna Reed can fix? Do you think he'll make that call for a guy who tried to be such a good friend to him in the past? If you can hold your breath that long, you should go work in one of the mines leased out by Richie and his Momma.

Was Richie a character witness after they led Chip Butler away? After all, Chip did sell the CHCA property to Richie, contrary to the boards' instructions. How did Richie repay that favor?
See, Richie doesn't pay back, he only leaves you the change, and he deducts the change. Coal dust kill your husband? I'll send six kids to community college, with my tax breaks included. Mountain rubble in your drinking water? I'll build a road with what's left, again with deductions, so my product can be transported. I'll screw the ungrateful Hillers by not renting my properties, and deduct those losses off my taxes too. Do any of you Keanu-bright pawns see The Matrix yet?

So Wendy, Art and the Missus, Greg and Fran, do you really think that you can trust him? I know Greg thinks he can outsmart Richie, that's in Greg's DNA. But you're stepping way up in class here kids. Greg, this guy and his family were screwing Americans out of their land and then sending them to their doom beneath that land when your people were still ducking cossacks. And Fran, your people were digging potatoes when Richie's forefathers had their hand up the back of the Irish maids' uniform while she served them Au Gratin. So read up Richie. You'll never guess who told me about your interest in my work. But try.

I. F. (Izzy) Feldman

Not Everything in America ...

Bill Maher at Huffpost offers a new rule on which enterprises should be profit-driven. CHCA, take note.

Writers Respect One Another

As a semi-responsible journalist, I followed up my first person account of Buzz Bissinger's end-of -presentation Snowden statement with a call to the speaker himself. I had accurately recounted my time at the event and I had accurately recounted the statement itself. But I wanted to get any backstory and clarification on Mr. B's experience. We had a pleasant conversation.

Mr. Bissinger told me that the statement was glib, and in jest. Knowing his style, I had felt so at the time. Mr B told me that he retracted his statement soon after, and should not have said it. He wishes no harm to anyone. To clarify, as his statement was worded, the death of Mr. Snowden might well have come from natural causes at an advanced age. So violence is not a component to be addressed.

But Mr. Bissinger was clear that he regrets the statement and I believe him. Toothpaste and tubes being what they are, and speaking as a man who licked varnish on a live television show once, I know the depth of his regret. He added that his entire presentation was peppered with humor and its attendant exaggeration. I get that too. My work, including my extensive reporting on Mr. Snowden's activities in West Virginia and the Hill have been laced with humor. That, and the law regarding public figures keep me out of court. And although I have never wished him ill in print, in our one extensive meeting, I did suggest that he sell his properties in 19118 and leave.

So the lesson here is clear. Context and style. They count. But my Mom used to say something about words said in jest, and she ought to know about such things, because she called me a bastard almost every day. So to those who soiled themselves following a silly comment, lighten up. And next year get the guy who writes the "Thomas the Train" books.

Oh What a Night!

The Scene: Snowden's McGarrity Showroom
The Time: Saturday July 11, 8:55 PM
The Event: The Capstone of The Bowman Properties/Chestnut Hill Business Associations' Book Festival

At the most heavily attended Festival Event, and with the derelict Bowman property filled to capacity, Buzz Bissinger, Book Festival Headliner was winding up his presentation. I was there, in the back. Standing room only. I was ready to ask Mr. B, nearby resident, what he thought of Richard Snowden, primary financier of the festival, owner of McGarrity, and Principal in COTIGA, a firm that has leased West Virginia land for strip mining for more than a century, and lately a despoiler-turned benefactor-turned-Positively Chestnut Hill SugarDaddy. I thought, as a fellow journalist, Mr B might have an opinion. Perhaps we could even discuss my ongoing work on this subject.

Earlier in the day, I had asked a similar question at a sparsely attended panel discussion group on non-fiction, at the same venue. When I did so, two-count 'em-two business association ladies, (whose names I can never remember), sprung up simultaneously and said,"you don't have to answer that question" to the panel, a group of mature, professional women who seemed as if they could speak for themselves.

Too bad a Panel Discussion on Censorship was not scheduled for the weekend. maybe next time, if books on paper are still being published by then.

As it turns out, I didn't have to ask Buzz the question. He answered it in his final remark.
Before he did, I scanned the room.

There was Greg Welsh, ostensible organizer of the event, whose restaurant is listed second, after Bowman, as sponsor. Greg seemes to have a full time position, directly beneath Richard. Greg was looking around, beaming at their mutual triumph. "Finally, a capacity crowd, for our front-page-of-the Local Star Attraction!"

Although I couldn't see Richard, so many of the other organizers were there that, when a policeman showed up minutes after my arrival, I sensed something more than serendipity.

As Buzz was winding up, speaking of his love, and his hopes for Philadelphia, I began to raise my hand to ask my question.

And then he said it. In his final remark, concerning the future of The City and the neighborhood in which he and his family lives and loves, Buzz said, "And Snowden Should Die!"

"AND SNOWDEN SHOULD DIE!"

Wait. Say it over to yourself. I didn't say it. The Principal Speaker of the Bookfair sponsored by Snowden said it. What followed was a sound I had never heard, but read about, before.

It's the sound that rises up over a battlefield after the first deadly volley.

A great gasp of surprise, followed by a moan of pain by the fallen, as if their mortality had, up until that point, been a fact denied, and then accepted, all within the span of a second.

It was a sound heard at Gettysburg, at Verdun, and at Balaclava, at the moment of imagined triumph for all causes doomed, not by circumstance, but by the hubris of their protagonists.

I looked around the room. Greg looked as if his annual prostate exam had started early, and he had forgotten to fast for the day. The CHBA ladies all looked as if they were posing for Munch. Again I looked for the Middle Aged Boy-King, but I couldn't pick him out-these Anglo Saxon gene pool gatherings make discrete ID's difficult.

The closed glass door, (and what ARE the Maximum Capacity and Emergency Exit Rules for that building?) rattled as the air simultaneously rushed out of more than a hundred previously pleased-as-punch attendees.

And I applauded. I also shouted, "You know he owns this building!" Buzz replied,"I don't care."
That was good enough for me. I left before the organizers got a chance to edit the tape that recorded the event, or if Buzz had any aftermath to deal with. Besides, I had a Limerick Contest to get to.

I also didn't see any Local reporters, although they may have been there. On Monday, I will ask Pete if he had anyone there and if he intends to report the story. I will ask him if, in lieu of my response to Walter Sullivan's attack on the Chestnut Hill Residents' Association, if I may furnish my first hand account. Whether any of this makes the Local should be seen as a Litmus test of its independence.

My conclusion is obvious to anyone not so completely divorced from the ethics of the world outside 19118, that they think "parochial' applies only to those attending Our Mother of Consolation. What response did you expect from such a man? He has examined evil and corruption for a living. He knows it when he sees it. He sees the situation clearly. He, unlike the CHBA or Greg or Fran O'Donnell, or the Howes, or Wendy Kern, doesn't need Richards' help to earn his living, or to keep his kids out of the Public Schools.

I don't know what the aftermath of Mr. Bissinger's statement will be. I can't predict the extent or the character of the cover-up. But there will be one. Unless we take the words of the Hills' most respected journalist, by the Business Association's own admission, to heart.

Don't hold your breath.

And Buzz, if want to see my notes on Snowden and COTIGA, e-mail me.

These are easy

Dick Snowden owns more than he oughter
Just bought an election day slaughter,
Now the Chestnut Hill Local,
Will not be so vocal,
'Cause it's owned by a coal barons' daughter

Another

McNally was never a quitter,
But other bars make her quite bitter,
She used Board position,
To fight competition,
But Joe's face still looks like a Schmitter

Win Big Prizes Through Ridicule

Ed Feldman announces a new contest! Win a genuine Furniture Guys T-Shirt! Yes, Ed's award winning TV shows (just like Art Howe's Pulitzer) type T-Shirt, featuring Graven Images of its two Producer-Writer-Hosts, Ed Feldman and Joe L'Erario, identical to the ones worn all over the US, Canada and Europe by thousands of fans, Heads of State and Strippers, can be YOURS!

Here's all you have to do. Write a piece for this here blog.

Subject - "How Embarrassing is the Chestnut Hill Community Association?"

You can use personal experiences, factual third person reportage, or heresay. I bet you have stories that even I haven't heard! And if all you can contribute is a creative treatment of what we already know, that's OK too!

Because it's all ART. Make us laugh, cry, or raise a single eyebrow in typically understated Hill Fashion! No word limit, but bear in mind the Walter Sullivan effect, too long and I start to think about all the free porn I could be watching.

All entries will be commented on by the Usual Gang of Idiots, but, since it's MY T-Shirt, I will make the FINAL RULING! Just like Walter gets to do! I'll even sign the shirt, so you can wear it to the next Snowden Daisy Chain at the Library!

In the Event of a Tie-don't worry-I've Got Several! In the Event of an Anonymous Winning Entry. You'll have to prove Authorship. Don't worry, we'll figure it out!

So get to writing kids! Or I'm gonna have to have to post 'em myself under aliases, and don't need another shirt. Yeah, but if I already have the shirts......never mind. Hey. They're 100% cotton!

Ed ( COME ON DOWN!) Feldman

A Conversation About Hill Real Estate ...

A Phillyblog post (Ed Note: the Phillyblog site has been erratic Wednesday afternoon - off and on) features a discussion on Bowman Properties adventures in Chestnut Hill. It's a chance to participate in a quiet conversation about real estate on the Hill (with a few detours through CHBA/CHCAland).

The Undressing of a President

by Theodore H. Feldman

Now we see it. Now that we have lured Walter Sullivan into the open, away from( some) of his ridiculous rhetorical flourishes that add nothing, save cover, to his discourse, additionally providing cover for those who employ him and screw the Local, we see it. He answered my suggestions as to what he could do as President to make us feel that he is not a tool, not a fool, and not an asshole.

He has provided substantive proof that he is all three, and has done it so amateurishly that my brief hiatus of treating him as an adult, as someone who could be treated with respect is now over. I never doubted the result for a moment, but I gave him a chance . But he exceeded my expectations. He blew it with crawling colors.

He responded to my suggestions thusly:

1. To come clean about Snowden's involvement in the "Positively Chestnut Hill" Slate - Walter said it "must have cost little, one ad in the Local and some nice and useless buttons-if Richard paid for them, it must amounted to nothing."

I can't find out what the buttons cost - Jackie, Snowdens assistant, won't tell me, but there were four ads in the Local, two half pagers at $520.00 apiece and two at $117.00 apiece. That's $1274.oo. I'm gonna throw in the $50.00-a-pop CHCA memberships he bought for nothing, his people are too scared to talk.

Walter, couldn't you even look at the Local and count the ads ? Or did you bother to do anything at all to respond accurately?

All communication for the slate came out of Snowden's Bowman Property's office, by paid employees, except when Greg "The Shill" Welsh ladled his bullshit to a recumbent Local reporter, saving any Snowden mention for the Inky. Richard, give Greg a big wet one. The Local knew the connection, it took calls and e-mails from Bowman about the Slate, but wrote nothing. Pete, meet Greg.

2.Regarding conflicts of interest: The new conflict of interest Policy, to be signed by all board members states that if a member has received direct or indirect remuneration, or gifts or favors in excess of $150.00, then that constitutes a conflict of interest. Would $1274.00 be more or less than $150.00?

It further names any member having any compensatory arrangement with any organization with which the organization (CHCA) is conducting a negotiation or arrangement as having a conflict of interest.

Walter, in an astonishing display of legal and evidentiary ignorance, states that only Richard must recuse himself. Is Walter additionally ignorant to the fact that one Positively candidate is Richard's tenant, that her husband was elected too (the Howes), that Wendy Kern, fellow supplicant does architectural work for Richard? I wonder if she helped to design his "Ghetto Store" signs - or was that Jane Piatrowski?

Even if they deny the ad buy, you can't miss these other serfs to the Snowden feifdom.
Walter, you idiot, you're blowing the easy ones.

None of Snowden's electoral vassals can discuss or vote on the variances that he got them elected to pass, according to this policy. Ironic, ain't it? But if Walter doesn't know any of this, how the hell is he gonna get Irony?

3. & 4. Walter claiming ignorance and "denying the premise" about threats to the Local is even dumber. From the illiterate Joe Pie, to the thuggish yet cowardly Remus, to the small timer Howe, the Local's bullying by those from outside the profession to those outside the city has been reported on and known to everyone not in a coma for years.

If Walter had only copped a plea that all this interference was actually "help" and that the Local employees, or me, or all the people who have written to the Local about the exact same thing were mistaken, or wrong , or stirred up by the axis of evil (Feldman-Foster-Recko), then I would have had to recount all of the incidents - again, as I have in print in the Local, without contradiction from the board. But Walter just denies "the premise."

Does the name Jim Sturdivant ring a bell? At a board meeting Walter gave Jim this advice - too late, as he had already quit - about telling those who were telling him how to do his job to" get the hell out of his office." I was there Walter - I heard you say it. Why would you give someone this advice and then "deny the premise?"

Walter, did they tell you that this non existant pressure has already wound up being handled by lawyers once, and that another complaint is coming?

Maybe that's why lawyers other than yourself are getting these jobs.

5. About my demand for a forensic accounting. Walter responds by asking, "what exactly do I mean" by that phrase. Walter, are the only cards in your deck marked "ignorant?"

There isn't a board member of your vintage that does not know of the two-year teeth pulling extravaganza of the SOC, then its' remnants, trying to get the board and its' trustees to follow its' own rules and finally reveal how it's been using its money like Michael Jackson used Webster.
It was written about in the Local, and discussed at about a dozen meetings. When the board pled poverty, we got a 100% donor. They still refused. Come on Walter, don't you remember? You were there. Didn't you read the Oversight Committee report? The PA State Attorney General has.

Which brings me to:

6. Since we now know that Walter has not read the Oversight Committees report, for it covered the reasons for a forensic audit that Walter now wants me to tell him about, Walter states that "no such concerns will arise" during his administration, and if they did, he would appoint such a committee "in a heartbeat."

This is the capper, my friends. The Dirigible Mooring Mast on that Empire State of Ignorant Responses to my impassioned pleas for honest governance.

I must admit here that I expected Walter to use his usual smokescreen to cloud the issues and nickel and dime me into some reasonable expectation of his future leadership.

But, although it may surprise some people to read this, for they know my low expectations of you already, this is a new low.

Walter, Oversight Committees, any committee observing and reporting conduct of board members cannot be unilaterally created by an individual whose position and conduct may well be the subject of the committees ' investigation. It doesn't work that way, Walter. IT DOESN'T WORK THAT WAY WALTER.

Such a committee is "independent." If it is only created if you see a need, then it is "dependent" on your opinion of it. Do you see the difference in the two words?

Must I speak to you as I would a child? Either you really are as ignorant as these answers make you seem, or you have been told to deny everything so childishly that the only research I needed to expose you was a single, anonymous call about ad prices to the Local. Either way, you are unqualified to captain the Good Ship Lollipop, let alone be charged with task of covering up for an organization so corrupt that people all over the City, the Region, and thanks to..... me, all over the Country simuntaneously laugh and shudder as I report on its workings.

So farewell Walter, I can't even pretend to take you seriously any more. You're just not worthy. This is why all those who have really run things for so long keep their mouths shut. And why the new order will follow suit. If they spoke and gave their "reasons" for their actions, they would be as exposed as you were. Remember Dina's "feminine intuition"? Absurd on so many levels, all the way down to chromosomal.

As I said about you originally, you're there to draw the fire, an easy target. But they know the truth about your abilities and your role in their little theatrical troupe. You're Falstaff. Someone to laugh at. But the battles are elsewhere, and you're not a part of them. I won't ask you any more questions. This is why W didn't hold press conferences. God, but these allusions are obvious.

Ed ( Fish in a barrel )Feldman

Follow the Money

Walter Sullivan has just told us that he is his own man and denied there was any manipulation in the CHCA election this year to insure an outcome that would clearly benefit the new-found arm of the business community and its founder and financier, Richard Snowden. If you buy any of that, please line up to purchase a bridge at wholesale from Bowman Properties.

Let's assume for the moment that all those purchased memberships just before the election and mass meetings of business types and their acolytes were not strategy sessions and pre-vote counting strategy a la Maxine and Dina, and that you won fair and square on the basis that the very limited number of participants in this last election wanted you at the leadership role because you represented independent integrity, legal expertise, and a willingness to run the organization using the By-Laws -- for a change.

Since I know your personal political history of having "found God in the Democratic Party" after being nurtured and maturing as a Republican and realizing that the needs of the people should triumph over the desires of the powerful (I think that is how you put it) let me ask you to transmit those beliefs directly to how you plan to run what remains of a once-legitimate community organization that actually did at one time deal with the needs of the majority over individual power players - - and there were always plenty of them in the Hill.

I see a conflict right off the bat with the Snowden Empire and your deep personal beliefs. This is the man with the deepest financial pockets who jettisoned the needs of the community years ago by keeping as many prime properties empty as a payback to a community who did not accede to his wishes and give carte blanche to his vision. What must have been more revolting to a "man of the people" like yourself than those huge racist bigoted billboards that Richard Snowden placed in the most prominent locations all over Chestnut Hill as a warning of things to come if he was not given his way - - can you even stand to recall the sight of them? This wasn't a page from Birmingham Alabama in the 1930s, this was darling Chestnut Hill just a couple of years ago!

And who is the entire community lining up to worship and follow as if it all never happened because his says his money and connections will make the Hill some combination of what it was and what it should be - - the very same individual who in his own mind must be laughing all the way to the bank he owns now having had the "Chestnut Hill Establishment" say UNCLE.

Your first mission as your own man is to restore confidence in this organization by picking up the pieces, and that means telling the truth to the larger community about what was done to destroy its image, and that goes to that well-worn path of following the money, who misused it and who covered up its misuse - - and why? For it is not whether the state DCED grant and community trust fund dollars went offshore versus being used to pave over reckless and self-serving management right here, but it is that a few clever manipulators took the Association you now preside over and ran it according to what they openly characterized as a "corporate model" but the corporation they must have chosen was Enron.

They moved the money, cooked the books, and now hide behind legal technicalities that even prevent their current auditors from telling the truth about how previous audits were incomplete, inaccurate and misleading. On top of that there is still an open investigation into financial irregularities by the State Attorney General. You must know that old adage about wheels grinding exceedingly small. It would be a shame if they ground to a halt on your watch and you were not prepared.

First order of business is to reinstate the Oversight Committee which was severed just as it was about to fulfill its two-year mandate. The first year it examined and reported on the CHCA. The second was to be the Fund, and that is where the money is, or I should say was. Sadly, the new trustees have done all they can to keep the Fund's history in the dark, even to the point of misleading the board for years now as to what kind of fund it was. The fund is the financial sandbox that has been misused and mismanaged going back many years, and claiming it could not have been stable and yielded reasonable returns while supporting the community with earnings rather than losing millions is nonsense - - but nonsense that much of the membership and most of the board has bought into.

Run the meetings with the community priorities ahead of personal agendas and according to the By-Laws, form committees with new and fresh leadership that don't do back channel work for insiders. Replace all the trustees as they serve at the pleasure of the board and can be removed at any time for any reason. Have the auditors do the right thing and report to the board quarterly while at the same time clean up the bogus and inaccurate reporting that the internal statements provide, and while you are at it, return to providing monthly internals for the Fund, which the current trustee president discontinued a year and a half ago so the board would have trouble monitoring its activities.

Lastly, do not let the CHCA become the zoning tool of the business community, for that is the primary reason they stacked the board in their favor at this election. There are massive plans in the offing and they will require multiple and far-reaching zoning changes and challenges to the Special District Controls that Chestnut Hill enjoys in the Zoning Code. Using you as a tool, along with the LUPZ and DRC is the master plan; make no mistake about it. Be that good committed Democrat you claim and don't let that narrow power base turn Chestnut Hill into Stepford on Fairmount Park.

So you have had power foisted upon you that you might have not imagined and are promising good things. We have seen those occasions before in our political history where unlikely individuals were parachuted into high positions and had the opportunity to do the right things and change course. These are often difficult decisions, and during the time the individuals are in power they have been sometimes vilified for what they do, sometimes worshiped, but only time tells who did the people's business legitimately. The big question for you Walter is - - will you be Harry Truman or Huey Long?

Remember that great film where the people triumph over arrogant power in the Community? Remember George Bailey? You and Kris can be Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed, and Chestnut Hill can have "A Wonderful Life." I think we all know who represents Mr. Potter.

Jim Foster
Still close by

My Thanks ...

My thanks to Walter Sullivan for identifying himself and addressing me directly. [Note: For back story, see the comments in In Camera Obscura] I don't know if it was the flattery or the ultimatum, but it worked. I will break my recent pledge and respond, one more time. But after I do, regardless of his response, I will not counter. As I have said before, he is not the one(s) I'm after.

Neither was Tolis. Stewart Graham, Dina Hitchcock, Jeanne Hemphill, and Richard Snowden are the ones who are the movers behind the various plans, from financial malfeasance to newspaper censorship that offend me. The rest are just helpers. So let's begin.

Walter says he never signed a comment as "anonymous". Why then, did he first sign his name to respond to the ultimatum I gave to "anonymous"? That thread never mentioned Walter, it was between me and "anonymous." Shouldn't "anonymous" be angry right about now? Hey "anonymous," why didn't you respond and tell Walter to stay out of our conversation? Right.

Next, the vote count, and the reason for Walter's election. Sorry, but I have never revealed my sources before, but since this story is all over the street, perhaps you can figure out how it got out. Just like the concept of you being better equipped than Tom Hemphill to "handle" Recko, Feldman and Foster. Sound familiar W.S.?

I see no criminality in you actions. Everyone should read more carefully, and not project. Criminals are those convicted of crimes. Chip Butler was. The board never asked him a single question about his actions during his term as trustee, during which he was under the investigation that led to his conviction.

I have written factual accounts on board misconduct for five years. My art includes some evocative imagery, as does the work of other writers, but I have always always included the issues. If someone else could have disputed my facts, they never did.

As for my comment on the Missus, well, gee Walt, you've got to know what I'm talking about.
But I can't hold Walter in the same contempt I have reserved for those mentioned above, for a lot of reasons. His foibles are surface mounted, and strangely lovable. He, unlike those others, is neither secretive, (well, not for long,anyway), mean, sinister, pathological, or profit minded.
But he has been willing to stand by while the others ran their games.

And here's where, and why, everything can change. And I will now speak directly to Walter.
You stood by while Maxine did things that you knew were wrong. That you and the rest of the board cut her loose is an admission.

You stood by while Dina embarrassed the community during the '08 election. You knew she did wrong, but you did nothing. She took a demotion. Another non-admission admission.
Your ethics, your standing in the community, and your voice could have been used to set things right, but you were silent.

Now you have the chance to set your past, and the CHCA's past, right. By listening to your heart, and to me. Because, despite your criticisms, I know what you think of me intellectually, ethically, and artistically. I can see it in your eyes Walter, and that finally, is why I don't hold you in contempt, why I don't think you're like the others.

And, in a political sense, see the difference in the National Political party you belong to and the neighborhood one you have worked with. And then think about the National political party you helped defeat last November. Where are the similarities? Where is the disconnect?

1. You must start by writing in the Local all that transpired in secret about the Positively Chestnut Hill Slate. The extent of Snowden's involvement must be revealed by someone who was there.

2. You must then follow through, stating that anyone who benefited financially from his electoral largesse must recuse themselves on any vote concerning zoning regarding his projects.

3. If anyone involved has revealed to you plans to change the Local, you must reveal them also.

4. You must then state that the Local will return to the freedom it enjoyed before unrelenting pressure from the board and specific board members turned it into a place where fear, rather than security, is the norm. You must guarantee Pete's job and his independence.

5. You must move for a forensic accounting of the Fund that has been fought by the board for so long

6. You must restore the oversight committee, with a non board membership. I will recuse myself from serving.

The Dina's and the Snowdens will not help re-elect you. But they will not be able to stop you during your term.

And here's where the inspirational stuff happens. Walter, the neighborhood will rally to you. All those people who have run from the board because of all the things they have done for so long would give you a REAL majority, not the "mandate" of the lowest vote turnout ever, so many purchased by the CHBA.

The numbers that would return because of your inspirational leadership will make the Dinas and the Snowdens and the CHBAs look like the small timers that they are, in both vote numbers and stature. You won't need their support, you'll have the people's. Some board members will support you also. You can use the Local as a bully pulpit for this reform.

If anyone knows what Dwight Eisenhower and the Republicans expected from Earl Warren, and what they got, you do. It changed America, Walter. It gave us freedom, it gave us equality, it eventually gave us Obama.

But Warren had to listen to his heart, not to those who gave him the job. He had to endure the "Impeach" billboards too.

Greatness never comes without sacrifice. Up 'til now you have been sacrificing the qualities that I think you possess; the qualities that can make you great.

Do any of those who helped you get elected talk to you this way? That's because they only care about themselves. Two parting thoughts, because after this, I'm done talking about this.
Of all human endeavors, the most admirable one, and the one most requiring courage, is redemption.

Courage exists in limitless amounts inside of us.

Norman Vincent Feldman

The Record Shows...

I don't usually do this. In fact I never do it . When someone criticizes my work without actually contradicting it, I just let it lay. If you don't have counter facts, or equal style, why should I ? I don't argue with people who just say I'm wrong, or mean, or ...something. And threats don't work either. But since so many of you still may not get it, or don't read ANY newspaper, and since, after putting off finishing that last Walter-like fog-bowl response of journalistic parvenu, I felt perhaps some parallel facts may be in order.

He accused me of judging others wholly on the basis of their having opinions differing from my own. I assume that he assumes that other local citizens who have run from the CHCA like Bambi's family from the forest fire has nothing to do with them seeing exactly what I saw. I also assume that he assumes that the oversight committee, made up of two attorneys and a former banker made up all of the report that was never contradicted by the board before, during, or after it abolished the oversight committee before its term expired.

But perhaps my accuser, who may or may not have a law degree, or be a member of any city democratic infrastructure, would listen to some others who, after a little investigation, have come to ally themselves with my "personal" agenda.

I called Trustee Chip Butler dishonest and a bad liar. In print. In the Local. I presented corroborated facts. Within months, he was arrested, charged, convicted, and sentenced by the Eastern District Court. I had no prior knowledge of this. But I wasn't shocked.

I called John Capoferri some similar things in the Local. He has been arrested on multiple charges and will appear in the Dock on June 11.

The Pennsylvania State Attorney General, who, at last look, doesn't investigate organizations because their opinions "differ" from my own, or their own, or from anybody's own. They investigate on FACTS. Some of the facts I, and others have given them, are the same ones I have written about in the Local, and here.

So Walter, or whomever, or whomever is telling you to threaten me or Scott with legal action because of what I accuse you and your masters of, know that three different law enforcement agencies have found precisely what I have .

That the board is dirty. That the trustees can't be trusted. That those who the board has harbored and defended are, by the LEGAL definition of the word, CRIMINALS.

Want me to call the same law enforcement officials who investigated, arrested, charged, and sentenced the same people I accused first to the witness stand? I'd like that.

We can also discuss Dina and the ballots, Richard and the signs, and Walter and the vote count electing him to the CHCA presidency, that he pretended not to know at the meeting, but was actually told about before the meeting, before the vote was taken. I guess he confuses the big "D' in the the Democratic committee he belongs to with the little "d" in democracy that secret ballots are supposed to represent. We could talk about that too.

That the emperor has no clothes has long been known around the hill. What the emperor has been doing with a certain portion of his exposed anatomy is a matter of record.

Some People Care..

I'll send something like this in to the Local and it won't be published. Pete told me that people just don't care. I told him he was half right. Those of you who have lives look at the CHCA's behavior as a combination of amusing, childish, and disgusting, but who cares? I dig.

The fact that, in an affluent neighborhood, the community government defrauds the community should engender little concern. That's always been my fallback position. I get to tell creeps what they are, tell you what they do. It diminishes their smugness, it makes them a little less happy. And I enjoy myself. But if I fail to thwart their plans, who gets hurt? More affluent whites. Who gives a shit? It's win-win for Eddie.

But some people DO care. They're the people on the board who will brook no breech of discipline. We saw a couple of instances of that at the May meeting, when the old Dina-Tolis -Stewie dynasty gave way to the Snowden-CHBA order. If you remember Caligula to Nero, without Claudius in between, you get the picture.

Tolis gave his valedictory, in which he gave special advice on learning and following the bylaws. Atheists everywhere should rejoice, for the fact that no lightning struck the outgoing president as he said those words prove that no god exists. Three feet away, Dina, who with Tolis' complicity has broken bylaws the way her pit bulls eat, sat mute. For the first meeting in ages, she did not have to whisper instructions into his ear before he acted. This little speech had already been prepared. Had only they been this organized before!

She may have been mulling her fate under the new order. For while there IS overlap in the Dina-Snowden Pathology, Dina's motivation has been simply sociopathic. Never smiling, always looking down, always starting her statements with the phrase, "what you have to understand," the earmarks of a life of non-engagement with others, except for the purposes of condescension and control. Richard on the other hand, while no stranger to vengeful foot stamping, does have a toe dipped in the pool of real-world commerce as motivation, if only for the continued obedience of Greg Welsh, Fran O'Donnell and the rest of the marginal Hill businesses who need every edge to move "product."

But what of Dina's future? She must know that there's a new sheriff in town. And he must know, for I have mentioned it, that she, along with Carol Cope and their then-numerous disciples, blocked Richards apology - for a while - and was even against his purchase of 8431. That was before his sweetheart deal with the convict-trustee Chip Butler got him his last CHCA scalp.
Richard has a beltful now. We shall see in the upcoming months, whether Dina, in a move to retain the power she has so single-mindedly amassed, will make a deal with Richard. It may already have happened.

But Dina may just be allying through surrogates. And certainly the culture of Hill businesses (or for that matter , any businesses) can supply them. For while the pathology of both Richard and Dina have a strict "cross me and I'll cut you" dynamic, business folk can't afford that luxury. Even the most hated of adversaries are potential customers.

This explains the always -for-sale Lou Aiello smiling at me, the slumlord thousandaire Sanjiv Jain calling me on the phone to make peace, and even Hate-Criminal Rob Remus claiming no ill will towards me after the May meeting. He's probably a new disciple of Sanjiv's "make people like you-it's easier to cheat them" Landmark business success course.

So Dina had Mike Hickey as her partner in the nomination manipulation scam we saw. Mike, so big and brawny, yet I got him to wimp out in the Town hall lobby two years ago, and now he attacks Ron Recko in a meeting from which Ron is absent. Pussy stuff, Mike.

But maybe you missed some hits carried out recently, perhaps a last show of force by Dina before she finally has to share power with the boy-kink.

In a arcane bit of interlocking representative-titty-twisting, Meredith Sonderscov, one of those hard working volunteers that the board always lauds, got kicked to the curb and replaced by a more loyal-to-Dina volunteer. Meredith had agreed that Dina had broken the election rules, and had the bad judgement to say so. That was enough for her position as Senior Center to be -1. eliminated, and -2. reinstated with a different, now hyphenated name, with someone else in the position.

That the center is now located in the building that Snowden got Butler to sell him, against the wishes of Dina, is a concept that would have baffled Richard Feynman. It may or may not be unraveled in the fullness of time.

So Dina succeeds where the White Citizens Council, (one of Meredith's past sparring partners failed.

And now, a lesson in loyalty vs " reasonableness". Pat Moran is a reasonable guy. He tried to bridge the gap between those who have used the CHCA as their pigsty and those who told you all about it. He was so reasonable that he never even spoke to me. He defended the board often, but said it could improve. I do not think his partners' position as community manager had anything to do with any of his actions.

But Pat went too far too often for Dina. He said he was "appalled" at the way the ballot destroying election played, and at this election he was cut like a mackerel. No more board for reasonable Pat. He sat, face down, at the meeting. I couldn't get him to look at me. Pat-It's OK- you can talk to me now- They screwed you for being reasonable and having morals.
I called Phil and left a message. In it I mentioned that sitting on their hands while Jimmy Pack got Hate-Crimed didn't help them. It's all or nothing with Her. I wonder what Rob Remus thinks about Pat and Phil?

So, two disloyal volunteers down and, well no more to go, unless someone new, with the knowledge that even reasonable objections are treated like so many turds in a cut-glass punchbowl at the Holiday House Tour, will take put their board membership in jeopardy by.......objecting to something!

Certainly that's why Tom Hemphill didn't have a chance at President over Walter Sullivan. Even if the vote outcome hadn't been known before the meeting and been told to Walter, who in a nice bit of asymetry, neglected to give the count after the results were announced, as per the rules......rules? election rules?

Tom dislikes my tactics, and me personally,I think. But he got screwed here too. He has, like Pat Moran, reasonably defended the board, most recently at the inaugural Chestnut hill Residents' Association meeting, but he made two critical mistakes. He said, at the CHRA meeting that Pete would be fired, "over my dead body", while Mark Kientz was in the room. He may as well have hired a sky writer. And during his pre-vote speech, said that he would restore trust in the board if elected president. The cardinal rule of the CHCA has always been denial and admitting fault gets you, well, Tom lost by ten votes. See, I got the vote count even though they didn't announce it!

But for comedy writers like me, even when stuck in black comedies in white neighborhoods, all is not lost. For in Walter Sullivan we have found our touchstone of buffoonery, a Punchinello of Pomposity, the big wind from Winnetka, a man so rife with comedic possibilities that the anticipation of his stewardship of meetings makes me think that I could make money selling tickets.

I will, at every opportunity, video tape these public meetings, as is my legal right, and You-Tube the shit out of them. Walters' Foghorn Leghorn obliviousness to his obfuscatorian bombast will make him a star on the order of Keyboard Cat. Christ Almighty, I CAN'T WAIT!

Walters election is due, of course, to his past obedience to Dina et al. But rather then his willingness to follow orders in order to acheive the cubic zirconia of a career of always being outrun by speeding ambulances, I think his natural ability to make any audience's eyes glaze over and think about other times, other places, anything but the drone of his basso confoundo, got him this job.

Since no one ever knows what the hell Walter is saying, since he never makes his point , but sounds like he might, it's the perfect smokescreen for a board who does all it's work outside the board room, in secret. All this entertainment, and I haven't even gotten to Richard yet. Or Stewie and the plight of a Republican in Philly, or Doug Doman' s Institute of False Hope, or Marie Lachat's $26,000.000 blackmail, or Jane Pietrowski's racket.

I LOVE MY JOB!!!

Speaking From Strictly An Advertising Standpoint

On Friday, May 1st the CHBA decided to cancel the Garden Fest, an event that brings 15,000 people to Chestnut Hill (that's CHBA's numbers, not mine), due to weather. Good call, the weather on Sunday, May 3rd was a horrible rainy day.

Mt. Airy Day lucked out: the weather on May 2nd and the event was tons o' fun.

I noticed that by 5pm on 5/2 the banners across Germantown Avenue advertising Mt. Airy Day were already removed, however the banners for Garden Fest on Germantown Ave were still advertising the wrong date (5/3, which was canceled the previous afternoon).

There really should have been some kind of alteration to the banners (it must be easy, they are the same each year with the date changed) so that all the foot traffic and drivers on that beautiful, sunny Saturday knew that the Festival date had changed.

But then again, I'm just a lowly piano player who knows more about tri-tone subs than the politics of this kind of neighborhood.

The Chestnut Hill Residents Association (formerly CHNU) Goes Public

The Chestnut Hill Residents Association held its inaugural meeting at the Chestnut Hill Library on May 6. It was great! Originally called Chestnut Hill Neighbors United, the 50 or so folks who assembled voted to change the name after initially laughing at well known Hiller George Spaeth's objection to the name as sounding "radical.'

George is funny in so many ways, the reason for so many doctor-as-God jokes, you hear one on George any time you have lunch with a Hiller over Sixty.

But the assembled, being a tolerant lot, decided to change the name anyway. Tolerant? A Hill organization being Tolerant? This is Already Radical.

The Proposed Organizational guidelines will be published on the CHRA website soon. Only a page and a half. Proposed, because members can propose changes or additions. Sounds weirdly democratic-easy even. Unlike the piloting of the Titanic-like CHCA, PEOPLE will actually be involved in the decision making process of the CHRA.

Wednesday Nights' meeting had a vibrancy rarely seen or heard in 19118, possibly due to the fact that NO gavels were present, and all the folks, with two notible exceptions, displayed a conspicuous LACK of that pervasive Hill quality, Entitlement. And everyone got to talk.
The two unsurprising exceptions were CHCA board members, Tom Hemphill, member of the Richard Snowden Financed Positively Chestnut Hill Slate, and Mark Keintz, the Uniquely Financially Unqualified CHCA treasurer.

These two seemed to be dropped into this meeting from a completely different movie, one where the CHCA mattered. They spent their time defending the CHCA, saying it had done GOOD THINGS.

Mark even continued his attack on the Local by saying it lost money last year. That Mark is a computer progammer by trade is a perfect analogy for his actions, for his personal programming is evident each time he speaks. His bytes are all aligned to continually grease the rails for a complete takeover of the Local's editorial department by detailing its financial woes. Doesn't make sense, does it? Their justifications never do. Remember Dina's "feminine intuition"? The reason she gave for ballot destruction? Minerva made her do it.

But in the middle of a meeting concentrating on organizing a viable organization for the betterment of Chestnut Hill run by people who LIVE THERE (more radicalism), Mark was still attacking the Local.

Mark, (for I know you read this), nobody cared what you had to say. You may as well been blaming the Spanish for blowing up the Battleship Maine. Because the people in that room, and the thousands who will join the free-to-join CHRA have, in the parlance used so often by the CHCA board when their hands were caught in cookie jar after cookie jar and were then unwilling to confront their own crimes, MOVED ON.

Tom and Mark may have sensed that by their presence. They both certainly have a record for hitching their political wagons to any group that might help them get into a position of what passes for power in 19118.

Yet for someone as Realpolitik as Tom, who pledged at the meeting that Pete would be fired over "My dead body," he was certainly willing to have his candidacy financed by Lord Snowden, who is known by my dead Cat as one who sees Pete's departure as job one for the "Positively Richard" slate. My guess is that Tom's role model in his political life is Arlen Spector. He's so busy checking which way the wind is blowing he never looks into anyone's eyes.

He did however, during his defense of the CHCA at a meeting where everyone knew better, rarely take his eyes off me. I guess I'm just that magnetic.

Tom, it's too late for you and me, just like it's too late for anyone to defend that group of power freaks. Besides, you've got enough problems within the board. I welcome tales of the Dina psycho faction and how they interact with the CHBA-Snowden Zoning Bulldozer.

In the only instance on record of me agreeing with the Lady-who-Munch was in the Matter of Snowden. Dina actually agreed with me on the Boy Kinks degree of despicability, and she blocked a vote on his apology once, with Carol (Lithium-isn't strong-enough) Cope's help.
It was our last civil conversation. But Greg Welsh used to say how insane Richard was, often, at his Bar, and that sure changed.

But Tom and Mark have not. After they had their say at the CHRA meeting, the new members simply moved on, with plans to organize a free-to-join, open Association with NO telephone Book of By-Laws to be selectively followed, No standing-interlocking-excuse-for-a-power-base-committees, No officers, No Suburban Busy Bodies trying to run a neighborhood they don't live in, No Corporate-Model-Question-Stifling-Meetings, and No Gavels. I can't even join, but I got to have my say, and so did Everyone Else.

The CHRA website will be set up soon to take residents' information and issue memberships.
There will be tables and sign up sheets at the Jenks School Flea Market on Saturday May 16.
There will be multiple sign up tables at the Garden Festival on the Avenue, Sunday, May 17.
Members can comment, propose action, and even vote by secured email or at the free and open monthly meetings

The residents of Chestnut Village, whose existence has been so conspicuously ignored by the CHCA for so long have shown great interest in joining the CHRA.

When I tell them what has been said about them by CHCA board members they will be even more interested.

9600 people live in 19118. The CHCA has 2046 members. No one will tell me how many live outside of Chestnut Hill.

If everyone fed up with the CHCA, the CHBA (which is now the same thing), Snowden, Sanjiv, Dina, and Some people being more equal than other people, would join the CHRA, its numbers would be so large that the City would not listen to CHCA on Zoning and on many other matters.
Just join and win. Democracy is always worth a try.

I hereby apologize to everyone at the CHRA meeting for not bringing cookies and punch. This will Never Happen Again. You were a nice group of people and you deseved refreshments. I'll do better next time.

Ed (I can't join but I like cookies and punch) Feldman

PS: My next Posts will be thematic: Good byes to all outgoing CHCA board members with previously unpublished factual tales of malfeasance and pathos. Ned, Stewie, Marie, Carol, all the usual suspects — I got a million of 'em.

It Continues

Yes, there will be a new Chestnut Hill Community Association board of directors installed soon. But to expect great changes in attitude toward the independence of the Local may be too much to ask. CHCF member McGuckin rants behind a digital screen about "two-bit peddlers" Recko, Foster and Feldman in a Rushbo imitation. Rob "n of 4" Remus continues pushing his dim assessment of what a newspaper needs to offer to be a success and the Local personnel policy simmers in the background, waiting to boil over.

Maybe we need a print version of this digital rag...

CHCA Board Election Results: Stamp It Paid

As requested in a comment post, we list the winners in this year's balloting for the Chestnut Hill Community Association Board of Directors. We understand that about 380 people voted, but it isn't our job to post the official tally. We do understand there were 36 "invalid" ballots. Was it only last year the ballots were hidden and destroyed on official orders? My, how time flies when you're unemployed.

The winners, ballot order:
Lou Aiello, Stephanie Chomentowski, Michael Chomentowski, Vanessa Mullen, Mary Anna Ross Cowper, Lisa Webb Howe, Wendy S. Kern,Fran O'Donnell, Mary Regina Wedgwood, Chris A. Padova, Jay Valinas, Tom Hemphill, John Ingersoll, Brien P. Tilley, Thomas Cullen, Arthur Howe, Walter J. Sullivan and David Mansfield.

Next post, WATB of the Week. Hint, last name begins with M and he hides behind a list-serve curtain. And Petee, give it up.