Time for Legal Action
POTTSTOWN, PA – With the increased amount of gun violence occurring almost regularly in Pottstown’s core neighborhoods, it’s time for concerned residents to rise up and revolt.
Our good friend Roy over at Roy’s Rants posted an excellent article yesterday on an important meeting taking place next Thursday. If you haven’t read it, you need to do so now and mark your calendar:
Local attorney Adam Sager will be speaking at a 7:00 p.m. meeting next Thursday at the Pottstown Diner to discuss how civil law can be used to hold criminals and slum property owners accountable for the violence in our neighborhoods.
It’s time for concerned residents to take back our town. For way too long too many of our so-called “leaders” have been dragging their feet on the real issues facing Pottstown residents. They know the problem areas of town…but take no action. Looking the other way and hoping the issue revolves itself doesn’t cut it anymore.
Spread the word among your neighbors and friends and please make every effort to attend this very important meeting next week.
Last night, oh around 9:30 I was driving down Chestnut St. In the 500 block, (same block as the Police substation). There were people in the streets, people pouring out of houses, lanquishing on cars, sitting on stoops, yelling, little kids running amuck. Nine FRIGGIN Thirty at night! Where were our Police????
Thanks for bringing this notice to your blog. It is important. It seems the time has passed to ask why our fair Borough takes no meaningful action on this very dangerous situation. Oh sure they have addressed a few ordinances but by the time they get around to enforcing them…there will be more shooting, more drug dealing and maybe the death or maming of an innocent. We are a small town with big city gangs. You would have thought that Mayor Heath or Cheif Flanders would issue a statement on the heels of this revelation…but not even a crumb of reassurance or a plan…yes A PLAN.
Here’s a little primer, courtesy of the US Department of Justice. We have the power and we have the right to protect ourselves and WE CAN DO IT:
http://www.neighborhoodlink.com/article/Gangs/Civil_Remedies_Gang_Harm
Whirled, I feel your frustration and I share your contempt for people who have no regard for others and behave as though everyday outside their house is akin to going to a carnival. This is the type of so-called clientele that Pottstown attracts. What is the solution? Well it’s a generation away as the babies who are now having babies, continuing to live on the government dole, flock to a town that is flush with give-aways and social services. When kids are raised as wolves on the street, they raise their kids like wolves.
We can create a vibrant downtown and build a destination for arts and entertainment and thereby attract educated, better income people as homeowners – that’s a few years away but it’s possible. This will reduce and/or contain the blocks where the socially irresponsible habitate.
To your point, though, what illegal activity did you witness? Being a jerk and loafing on vehicles (presuming the owner knew), hanging out on stoops and yelling is not against the law – it’s uncivil behavior but you’re probably talking about people who have no idea how far “out of the acceptable norm” their behavior is, because it’s their day-to-day manner.
Maybe its time for a dose of bitter medicine, maybe there should be shame on having multiple babies that you can’t afford, not have the education yourself to nurture. Maybe there should be limits on what services we provide forever. Maybe child protective services could become more robust in designating who is fit to parent and who is not. How many small children do we need to see being cursed at and dragged through WalMart by their arms or going home after school to a crackhouse or a drunken mother?
None of these questions have easy answers, but making a reward system (what we have now) for having multiple babies when you have no means to support or educate them must be addressed before we chase after the police, the landlords, the mayor and other convenient targets of our anger.
I’ll get off the soapbox. It’s not my intent to anger anyone but you’re kidding yourself if you think creating ordinances, citing people for public drunkenness, chasing people off corners is doing anything more than treating symptoms without addressing the root cause. Fine, it makes people feel like they’re doing something – but it’s not sustainable. Bottom, line, I’ll say it again, the use of ordinances and citing people is not sustainable. (It’s like having a pain and taking Tylenol so much you go into liver failure without ever addressing the cause of the pain) The Borough has far more than its fair share of incompetent citizens. The landlords are not attracting them, the town and the welfare state are.
Welcome back, SP!! It is always nice to see you on watch.
Whirled… Great link. I’m hoping Adam Sager will bring some of the same sorts of ideas to the meeting. Really interesting info. Thanks for sharing.
Lotos – I can’t argue against your lamentations on the Welfare State. In large part, I agree with you. However, if that was the answer, then EVERY town would have the same problems Pottstown has. I believe we also have the good old American Free Market System at work against us. The “haves” can afford to create depositories in places like Pottstown for all the poor, unsavory elements of society. If Pottstown citizens can’t get it together to rise up against that, then we will continue to be the place that gets stuck with all the drug dealers and gangs and teenaged mothers, etc., etc., etc. From my point of view, landlords who buy property in Pottstown then rent them to low-lifes from Philadelphia, Newark, New York, WHEREVER are contributing to the problem. Do they have the right to do that? YES. Should they have a moral compass that deters them from doing so? I think this should also be answered with an emphatic YES.
You just can’t blame the Welfare State unless you can prove to me that Pottstown doesn’t have way more poor people living in it than every other town in SE PA.
Of course Pottstown has far more poor people than neighboring communities – it’s by design. It’s restrictive zoning in the Pottsgroves, Coventries and Limerick combined with having a preponderance of social services, handouts, public transportation – Pottstown was designed to be a convenient place for the poor – no doubt. But poor does not equal crime. Crime was low during the great depression, people didn’t shoot each other up, play loud music and hang out creating public disturbances – so I hear and read – I wasn’t alive then. What’s the difference? – the nanny state.
I don’t understand your final question. Pottstown’s crime is far below Norristown, Philly, Reading and Allentown – all of these ‘towns’ suffer from the same design – a center for social services with convenient access to services causing them to deal with a disproportionate number of so-called poor. Remember poor was never synonymous with crime until the welfare state began “raising” that demographic.
Pottstown like all towns has bad landlords and they should be dealt with – no doubt but let’s not kid ourselves to think making and enforcing rules targeting landlord and tenant behavior is going to solve the structural issues facing the borough. It’s a much more deeply seeded problem than code enforcement and keeping things quiet.
Although I will agree that up to code housing and quiet will be a big improvement. I believe it would be useful to engineer a pilot program in a certain quadrant to begin a “broken glass” policy to see how effective borough wide rules might be enforced and whether the pilot would show if it’s truly a viable program. You just can’t expect police and borough to evenly enforce new restrictive, borough wide rules with their current staff and we certainly don’t need any more overhead at borough right now – except maybe getting the Community Response Unit back to 8 officers.
I beg to differ, Lotos…. As someone who was born and raised in Pottstown, I can assure you the town was NOT “designed to be a convenient place for the poor.” Many of the people who control Pottstown’s destiny are fools, but none are quite that stupid. Capitalism has created the economic disaster that Pottstown is today. Yes, Reading and Norristown suffer from the same capitalistic abuses that have destroyed their economic and social fabric.
My fear is that Pottstown is going to become another Norristown… another Reading… another Chester… if something isn’t done to change the direction in which we are moving.
I agree that the problem doesn’t rest ENTIRELY on the shoulders of the landlords. That does NOT mean they get off scott free. They are a part of the problem, and precious few (if any) are trying to be part of the solution. What I see them doing is trying to protect their own interests, which are purely financial. Almost none of them live here, which speaks volumes in and of itself.
Which came first:
The chicken or the egg?
The poor people or the social service agencies?
The drug dealers or the methodone clinics?
The Section 8 housing or the failing schools?
The increase in rentals or the decrease in property values?
The lower per capita incomes or the failing tax base?
So many questions to ponder. Rarely is the answer ever so simple as to fix only one thing when many are broken. Tom Hylton has shown us over the past 30 years what happens when a collective community focuses solely on one solution and denies underlying pressures and problems elsewhere. The last thing this town needs right now is another “leader” who will focus on only one potential solution (especially one that has no hope of ever being resolved on a local level).
Your Welcome W.A.Y.F.2 P.
Loto’s, it wasn’t that I saw anything illegal, but it is impossible to discern the armed drug dealers from the every day guys hanging on the streets in the dark at 9:30. It is one of those quality of life issues, when examined as an isolated incident, may seem harmless but combined with the summer of shootings, gangs, fights, vandalisms and defiant acts of drug dealing on the streets it is intimidating. Just to drive down the middle of these crowds with the doors locked and windows rolled up because in the back of your mind you know a bullet could penetrate your car and there could be 10 or more witnesses but nobody would say a word. The Police are not in control. I’m not convinced that the cops here are doing the best they can and it is becoming a lame excuse that they are down by 4 officers when an elder gentleman on the same block reports seeing cop cars parked in front of the substation for hours at a time but no officers in sight.
The families that bought homes in that neighborhood, over the past few years, believed that the Borough had every intention of making it a priority for revitalization and they are deeply disappointed, hanging on by a thread, and some are even thinking of walking away just to assure their safety and sanity.
The fools that have run this Borough are also culpable. They were not ignorant of the revenue this neighborhood would generate as capatalists snapped up the multiunit homes and turned them into Section 8. Was it in their best interest to “turn a blind eye” to the codes violations, the trash and the crime? Was begnin neglect of the infrastructure, the street lights, the streets and sidewalks in their best interest? Sure it was. Even now, with such a large tax debt among a few of the landlords, the majority of them have paid their taxes over the years. This Borough took the easy way out. They didn’t have to innovate or plan or process, they turned a blind eye to their core neighborhood and collected the revenue. They still don’t want to do the work to revitalize because the same mentality that co-created this mess has every intention of co-creating another one, just like it, on the river. All in the name of capatialism, or as some council people would say, “we can’t turn down revenue when it’s being dropped in our laps because we need it so desperately.” Desperation isn’t attractive.
Well, we won’t solve all the problems by fixing this neighborhood but I am glad to see the people there empowering themselves and not sitting around in fear waiting for the Govt. or the Police to fix it. We need more of this kind of citizen action in Pottstown.
Clearly, the poor came long before the social service agencies. Social services were a function of churches – hence their non-profit status. That has morphed into churches retaining non-profit status (I think 84 in Pottstown alone) in addition to an explosion of government social service agencies acting up to the point of surrogate parents providing health care, food stamps, utility discounts, school lunches and walking around money.
Section 8 housing is just one facet of a growing welfre state. The increase in rentals, most notably beginning when Bechtel started construction on the Limerick plant, cast the dye for Pottstown’s diminishing property value issues – that coupled with “the town being designed for the poor” (I’m sticking to that comment) The town fathers had to know that skilled labor wasn’t going to remain here after the construction, so what happened?…. The path of least resistance was low income tenants to fill the vacant apartments (shabbily converted from once beatiful homes,I might add).
When I say Pottstown was built for low income tenants I’m referring to the relative ease at which people can walk around town and access most county services, church services and private organziation who provide household and monetery assistance. Consider Limerick. You might think a section 8 tenant would prefer Springford schools for their kids, but, they have a system of support in Pottstown that does not exist in Limerick (perhaps not to mention that school test scores are not a priority for a mother receiving the benefits of a housng voucher).
I’m also not sure what you meant by scot free – I’m neither Scotch nor accustomed to getting anything for free – I pay more in taxes than the Borough Councilors, Borough department heads and the solicitor and mayor combined.
Lotos – I can assure you that there are LOTS of poor people who would LOVE to live in a Section 8 apartment in the Spring Ford School District – would far prefer that to a dingy little hovel in a slummy Pottstown neighborhood. Why don’t you find us some Section 8 apartments in Limerick? Scan and post the advertisements for them. I will wait… patiently…..
But I suspect you will not find them. Why? Because slumlords prefer to buy low and rent high. And the county governments allow them to concentrate all of their Section 8 money machine rentals in towns helpless to prevent the onslaught and its destruction of schools, neighborhoods, communities, and, eventually, tax bases.
It is a simple matter of the Free Market system loved by many of the people who despise the Welfare State. Buy low (property in Pottstown), sell (or in this case rent) high (guaranteed income on time every month by taking the Section 8 route with no regard for what it does to a community that is innundated with far too great a share of the county’s poor).
Having watched Pottstown fall deeper and deeper into an economic abyss while waiting for it to start what everyone always seems to believe will be an inevitable turnaround, I will stand by my assertions, too.
You are right about the buy low and sell high (or rent high). I’d love to sell high
The issue you didn’t mention was the paucity of lower income housing in Pottstown’s neighboring communities – maybe by design in my humble opinion. When sprawl occurred and farms were sold to build houses, zoning laws prevented low income housing (cluster homes) and an effort was made by those communities to keep the poor in the older boroughs (N Town, P Town C Ville, Chester)
Your emphasis on landlords is understandable – it’s what everyone sees everyday, but to blame landlords for Pottstown’s systemic condition – one which was created by design (maybe by our neighbors and town fathers who allowed wholesale changes to once majestic houses)is only part of the problem. I know some landlords are part of the problem but can’t you can’t seem to see that lower income people “want” to live in Pottstown – I know first hand, they’d rather be with people in similar situations than isolated in Limerick.
The so-called slumlord who owns a rental property in Pottstown and rents to a section 8 mom is the same person who owns a home in Limerick and rents to a middle class family. The difference is the quality of the tenant pool. There’s no such thing as a section 8 apartment – the voucher can be used on any rental property in the county and a 3 bedroom voucher has a value limit @ $1500/month. That makes a lot of choices available to prospective tenants – but they choose Pottstown and Norristown. Why? Because the landlords attract them? Of course not – the towns are designed for them. Look this can be a painful,exercise. Looking in the mirror is difficult and I hope to work with anyone else who wants to improve this town and make it a destination for the arts and entertainment in the hopes of changing demographics and improving home ownership. What’s the disease and what’s the symptom? Too much lower income housing and a high degree of rentals is a symptom of Pottstown’s problems.
It looks as though, unless we can get a grip on this situation, we could be in for more of the same – buy low, rent high. For one, there have been alot of investors buying cheap property in the core this summer. What their intentions are is anybody’s guess. Rents are so high here that decent, life long residents cannot find affordable rental housing but they don’t qualify for Section 8, (nor would their pride allow them to accept it either), so these people are being squeezed out.
It is difficult to tell exacly what the Federal Govt is up to, as with most things, the obsfucation grows thicker and thicker. HUD is gaining steam, money and more programs for “low-income” developers. Of course, this trickles down to the County who loves to behave as though they really do care about Pottstown and lays little “gifts” of even more low-income housing opportunity at the feet of our local decision makers who, in turn, cannot refuse a “good deal” when they see one *** especially if it involves little to no thought on their part, (intelligent thought & compassion are in dangerously low supply at Borough Hall), $$$$$$$$$.
I have a feeling that HUD is dangling the carrot of tax credit programs, funding, ongoing support, etc. in front of developers who will create, and modify more housing for the “poor” – lured by maximum profit and very little critical thinking or compassion.
Just look at the design for the low-income senior housing that was presented by PIRHL – cookie cutter, anywhere USA, right out of a box of Cheerios. They probably don’t even employ an architect. A good CAD system and anyone can piece together components from all the existing, lifeless designs from every blah new housing development and strip mall in the nation and WALA….low-income housing! No matter that it doesn’t take location or the beauty of a riverfront into consideration. Americans have become acclimated to uninspired design and even seem to like it.
It’s almost as if the Govt. really is setting us up to be a society of “haves” and “have nots” with little to nothing in the middle.
If we don’t have local leaders, private investors and Pottstown-loving residents who will stand up NOW and say “NO”, we want better for our community, we will keep heading the same direction. For one, you saw how easy our Council rolled over for the low-income senior housing on the river? This is just the tip of the iceberg. If this development goes forward we are forever marked as a “warehouse for the underpriveledged” who’s ranks are growing. Once we take another big bite out of the HUD carrot we will be forever putty in their hands. The money they hand out is never without strings, permanent strings.
So, even if on the surface, it appears that the blighting of the core neighborhood has nothing to do with the proposed senior housing project, I believe it could be the second giant leap that will seal our fate. Next, as a for instance, the beautiful old homes will be used up by the unscruplous money mongering Section 8 property owners, (many nearly are), the Govt. will come along and offer an unseemly sum of money to said investors to sell their hovels and the hovels will be torn down to accommodate more HUD development.
Do you think that the County is still pissed at Pottstown for lacking the good judgement and insight and refusing the Pot of Gold to build the Central School? Is this driving their decision to encourage more low-income housing here? Cause, of course, unless the county spends that money the Fed won’t send anymore – so let’s feed it to Pottstown, yeah…Pottstown will approve anything with “low-income” in the name.
Just free forming here – that’s why I love, and missed SavePottstown!
All great points, guys!!
I just can’t help but wonder what would be going on in Pottstown had that ‘Pot of Gold’ for the Central School been taken to the bank???
No use crying over spiled milk, huh? I agree – we must show steps at a local level and commitment toward making something big & positive happen before money starts streaming our way. The hard part there is to convince enough people (aka voters) that there will be a big pill to swallow to move ahead and the returns will be found only with a gamble. Is this a sure thing – absolutely not. The only sure thing, at present, is that left unchecked & carrying on as has been patterned in past years AND elections is proving to be a step toward nothing. A small snowball is set to roll down a large hill, if allowed and what it picks up along the way is the key to the future success OR failure of this town.
I hope for the best and believe in those that wish to help that snowball go speeding down the mountain with no trees to smash against.
My hats off to WAYFTP, Whirled & lotos for having such a well-thought debate on the root problems of the town. They are a shining example of the type of dialogue that is MANDATORY for progress & success!!! Of course, to SP!! for stepping in at the right time – just like they promised they would!!!
Be well, ALL!