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There’s trouble in
Mayfair, with a capital T
Something needs to be done before one of our children is seriously hurt or killed.
The crime in Mayfair in the last month has escalated to an all-time high between fights, store robberies and kids being robbed while walking in their neighborhood.
We need more police presence in Mayfair and the surrounding neighborhoods — Lexington Park and Sandyford Park.
We pay our taxes. Let’s see them at work. Get more bike officers and patrol cars patrolling the neighborhood.
I work in the neighborhood and have seen drug deals, kids smoking dope, and luckily have just missed three robberies while delivering the mail, all in a day’s work.
Could you imagine what a trained police officer would see?
Madeline McColgan
Lexington Park
• • •
One of my best friend’s sons and his friends were held up at gunpoint by four black teenagers on a recent Friday night while walking near the Austin Meehan Middle School.
While at the police district, they found out that this was one of 20 muggings in Mayfair the past weekend. I know of one other that we believe was done by the same group of teenagers.
Something needs to be done about this! Our kids have nowhere safe to hang out. Mayfair playground is off limits due to the continuing racial problems, and now the problem is venturing out to the surrounding streets.
Mary Ellen Lavelle
Mayfair
Ooops, sorry about
that, Reese
I apologize highly to the Mayfair CDC president, Mr. Reese Hartey, his family and everyone associated with the Mayfair CDC, who have done so much for the Mayfair community.
In my letter to the editor last week, I mistakenly said Mr. Hartey had stood by and watched a beating in the neighborhood.
If there is anyone who did not deserve to have their name bashed, it is he. I hope everyone who read last week’s letter will also read this letter to view the discrepancy that I mistakenly put.
Also, a great applause goes out to the Mayfair CDC for all the accomplishments they have made for our neighborhood!
Heather Pace
Mayfair
Thanks, Rick, you did
us all a favor!
City Councilman Rick Mariano decided to make his unofficial announcement to resign during an interview with a colleague, Councilman Frank Rizzo, on WPEN radio.
Seemed rather out of the ordinary to me, to air your resignation before you submit it to the president of the Council, but then, this whole saga with Mr. Mariano is out of the ordinary!
Or is it?
He does not want to go to jail. Can you blame him? He messed up…committed a crime…got convicted…and now he is expected to do the jail time. That seems to be the way the system works.
By his own omission, he did not commit a violent crime, and his talents as an electrician and other skills he has acquired over the years would be best put to use sweeping the streets of Frankford and Kensington (or teaching youngsters the trade.)
Funny, why is it now that Councilman Mariano realized that he could put his skills to work, not during his tenure as a neighbor and trusted representative of the Frankford and Kensington area, to sweep and clean up the area?
Maybe the course of the past year has awakened his leadership skills and community responsibility, which must have been dormant for all those years.
Mr. Mariano’s skills and knowledge might be wasted in a jail cell. That being said, I am assuming that he now realizes that to be sentenced to jail over a $30,000 credit card and club membership debt (when many Americans are trying to figure out that they have to pay that for their children’s college tuition per year) is stupid!
But, he might be onto something.
Philadelphians need more help with their health club memberships and their payments for furnishings and vacations! I can’t and won’t dispute that! He sure did bring that to the limelight with his own financial misery!
But, what he might really be onto is this:
If we can get all of the city elected and appointed officials looking at each other wondering about the next indictment, maybe their leadership skills will also be sparked and they will come out to clean the streets!
Suzy Drinan
Northwood
If you build them
they will come
A woman in Atlantic City’s casinos recently won $10 million on a nickel slot machine.
Gov. Rendell is also playing games here in Philadelphia. They are political games with the voters, and they are not pleased with Rendell, because he has closed the construction of casinos on the riverfront in Philadelphia until the November election, but the voters want the casinos today. Voters like to win money, not promises.
Rendell has a big problem with the voters here in Philadelphia and Pennsylvania in the November election. Build the casinos now on the riverfront. Time is precious.
Walter Pieczynski
Mayfair
Face these facts of life
about immigrants
Regarding your recent editorial Alien Nation, like a popular TV detective use to say, "The facts, ma’am, just the facts."
FACT: Pennsylvania is the state with the second-oldest population. Undocumented aliens provide much needed labor and economic activity in our city and state.
FACT: The federal government has failed to enforce laws holding employers liable for knowingly hiring undocumented aliens. Business interests, at times, have stopped the former INS from enforcing the law.
FACT: Laws governing wage rates and fair labor practices have not been enforced for some time and so, vulnerable Americans have not received fair wages. So, while undocumented aliens impact low wages, it’s not the whole story.
FACT: Most readers benefit from the labor of undocumented aliens. If you have eaten fruits, vegetables or chicken in the last week, you are part of the economic magnetic force that brings our decent hard-working neighbors over the border. You are also part of the economic force that encourages American employers to hire undocumented aliens. Yes, my friends, we are all in this mess together.
FACT: Mexicans working in the U.S. send between $16 billion and $20 billion back home to help support their families and their communities. If there were massive deportations, Mexico would be very adversely impacted by this loss of income and the ensuing large unemployment. An unstable Mexico will weaken our borders.
FACT: The children of undocumented aliens learn English. The third generation is generally no longer bilingual. People falsely believe that past immigrants shed their identity, culture and languages immediately. In our own Pennsylvania, there was a German paper until the 1950s.
Let us honor our traditions of family, faith and justice by working together to come to an honorable and just remedy for our hard-working friends and neighbors.
Paulette M. Rodriguez, Esq.
Castor Gardens
Readers fuming
over gas prices
Dear Philadelphians,
First I would like to say that we have one of the greatest cities in the country, despite the garbage that is taking up valuable space in City Hall.
As Philadelphians, we are known to be very passionate and vocal, so I have an idea. I highly doubt that any one of us is happy about paying more than $3 a gallon for gasoline. If we band together and boycott one of the oil industry’s largest companies, Exxon/Mobil, they just might get the idea that we are tired of getting robbed every time we fill up the tank.
In addition to taking steps to reduce gas consumption, maybe a good old-fashioned boycott might help us out a little.
Philly is a big city with hard-working people. (This does not apply to you, Mr. Mayor). Our elected and appointed leaders at every level do not seem to be working on our behalf, so let’s do it ourselves. Stop buying Exxon’s gas, and they will stop making money.
Let’s apply some of that Philadelphia passion to these greedy SOBs that violate your bank accounts on a daily basis. Don’t stand for it any more.
G. Moran
Highlands, N.J.
• • •
There are a group of us trying to spread the word to "walk on Wednesdays" through the month of May to protest gas gouging and outrageous profits to gas companies.
Please join in. If you do not have to drive on Wednesdays in May, don’t! If you must, please make only the necessary trip.
Stop buying gas on Wednesdays in May. We can make a difference. Join us, please. Walk on Wednesdays. Thanks. Maybe we can make a difference. Tell your friends.
Rita Wenderwicz
Torresdale
• • •
Attention, all citizens who are tired of high gas prices:
Concerned Americans, can we sacrifice one week of gas if we can force oil companies to come down in price? Anyone who drives casually can take one week off from driving. Emergency workers could carpool, if possible. If we need milk, food, etc., we can walk to our local store. We’ll be a bit healthier. Perhaps if they lose, we will win. Please, please, let’s be loyal Americans and try it!!
Bonnie Long
Fox Chase
Earthquake letter
brings aftershocks
In response to Ross Schriftman’s letter last week regarding the 1906 San Francisco earthquake (Mr. Bush, you’re no Teddy bear):
While the federal response to Hurricane Katrina is an issue with differing opinions, I write to clarify why federal troops responded so quickly (three hours) after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.
The first federal troops to respond were located in an army base called the Presidio. The Presidio is located within the San Francisco city limits today and is about five miles from downtown, hence the troops’ ability to quickly act after that disaster.
My writing is by no means to diminish the valiant efforts and sacrifice made by these men, it is simply to make clear the San Francisco geography for my fellow Northeast Philadelphians.
John Patrick Kilty
San Francisco, Calif. (formerly of Mayfair)
• • •
Sure, old Teddy Roosevelt may have sent federal troops in San Francisco three hours after the Great quake in 1906. They were sent in to protect the Mint and its gold and money on hand. Great, they marched in on foot, but it was an earthquake, not a flood. They could march all over, except where the city burned for days.
I wonder if they blamed old Teddy that not enough fire trucks were on hand. What did he know, and when did he know it?
New Orleans was a disaster waiting to happen, and for nearly 100 years those levees were not repaired or upgraded because the politicians decided to divert those federal dollars to things people really need, like casinos!
They were on the scene within the third day. Also, even with our great military, National Guard troops will tend to float if they attempt to march through six to eight feet of water, which took about five days to recede. They are not the Navy.
Also, with a city under water, where are they supposed to set up any type of base camps, and how would these people get to them, Ross? Maybe Mayor Ray Nagin knows!
Matt Zukowski
Fox Chase
Gee, our president
is such a clever guy
Now let me see. The president of the USA must be an intelligent person to have that position and if I disagree with him, I must be stupid. He just hired a new press secretary, Tony Snow, who worked for Fox News Channel.
In the past, this man called President Bush "something of an embarrassment," a leader who has "lost control of the federal budget," the architect of a "listless domestic policy" and a man who has "a habit of singing from the political correctness hymnal." He also told Bush to "stop cowering."
I would never hire someone who said those things about me, but that shows you how dumb I am and how clever Bush is.
Now that Snow is working for Bush, in the future he will not be able to say those nasty things about him, even if they are true. I must stop thinking of Bush as one of the three friends that Dorothy met in the Wizard of Oz.
Fred Staffieri
Mayfair
Bush has no right
to ignore the law
My dear Mr. Gibbs, it would really be great if our leader was all that you say he is in your letter (President Bush is doing his best, April 20 edition).
By the way, have you noticed the price of gas lately, or the rising death toll of our youths overseas? You said that we need to "stay the course." This isn’t the Revolutionary War...or is it? You don’t like Bush bashing. Does that mean that you are one of those idiots that voted for him?
Sir, anyone who circumvents the Constitution of the United States is a criminal, including the president. His office does not give him the right to ignore the law.
You say that you support the president for his decision and for not wavering under the pressure of the left. How many sons and daughter have you lost to this regime’s ‘demoncratic’ process?
I hope you don’t feel unkindly toward me for my absurd accusations.
Michael Kane
Bridesburg
A few lessons from
a Town Watch leader
Guest Opinion
By Angelique Cianci-Hartman
I would like to respond to a few comments made by Heather Pace of Mayfair in her April 27 letter, What’s the matter with kids today?
Though I agree 300 percent that kids today run wild, and I personally feel it is due to lack of parental control and lenient laws, I am concerned with a few comments that you made, and I personally want to educate you and the readers.
First, regarding your comments that "Town Watch members stood by and watched" as you and the neighbors were getting beaten up on: Town Watch members are trained to be eyes and ears ONLY. We are trained to report suspicious behavior and work in cooperation with the Philadelphia Police Department. We are not police officers, and we are not permitted to get involved other than assisting to make a phone call to 911 and reporting.
We go through constant training and are run under a city of Philadelphia program called Town Watch Integrated Services. Some Town Watches have actually been around since 1982, and here in the Northeast we have some of the most devoted Town Watch volunteers you could ever have.
Mayfair Town Watch is no stranger to ongoing problems in their neighborhood, and they have worked ongoing with the police department to resolve these issues.
Second, you stated "the police were called numerous times, but it still took them 15 minutes to respond." When a police officer responds depends on a few factors, such as how the call is put in and what information you provide to the call taker decides how the call is dispatched, or whether the call taker flagged it as a priority call and forwarded to the dispatcher as such (i.e., just a fight on the highway).
Or were there any other priority calls ahead of yours, such as burglary in progress, rape in progress or medical situations, or were there any police cars available in the area or available at all because we didn’t have enough cops on hand that night, or there could be a million reasons why that police officer was not dispatched out immediately.
I must educate you that a cop does not decide when and where to respond. Each police officer is dispatched and they must follow command and respond accordingly. So for everyone who chews out a police officer for not responding as quickly as we would like, remember, they didn’t choose which call to take!
Third, we in the Northeast have a hard time dialing those three numbers — 9-1-1. Why? We don’t want to get involved until we are in the middle of it all. But I must tell you, that unless Compstat (the little monthly report our boys/girls in blue go by) shows we have a need for police, we don’t get them in our area. The only way we show a need is by dialing those three numbers — 9-1-1! No politician or petition can get us cops — only dialing 911 can!
Fourth, you stated "we have more problems in Mayfair from outside teens." I ask you, have you or your neighbors been to a Mayfair Town Watch meeting or gone to a 15th Police District captains forum for assistance? Have you contacted the community relations officer at the 15th Police District to bring this to their attention? Unless you do, then they have no idea what is going on specifically on your block and they cannot help you.
Crime is hitting the Northeast, and there is no way that everyone is aware of what is taking place in every sector of the 15th Police District. It is up to us, the residents, to work with them and come up with a resolution.
Lastly, don’t take my comments personally. They are not 100 percent directed toward you. But before people start blaming everyone else, they must first take a look at what they have done to help stop crime in their neighborhood.
Let’s face it, we can only do so much, but any little bit you do counts. Consider this a lesson learned — get involved! ••
Angelique Cianci-Hartman is president of the Tacony Town Watch and a community activist since 1982
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