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Fox Chase decides
to make no decision
The Fox Chase Homeowners Association (FCHA) voted to remain neutral on the Fox Chase Cancer Center’s proposed expansion into Burholme Park at our last community meeting.
For more than three years there has been much discussion about this project within our organization. The dialogue has been thoughtful, healthy and respectful and never was this more evident than at our most recent gathering.
Over the last 15 years FCHA has earned the respect of community and elected leaders through involvement in issues critical to our neighborhood’s quality of life. Furthermore, our robust membership is comprised of hundreds of dues-paying members.
The leadership and members of the Fox Chase Homeowners Association will continue to work hard to keep Fox Chase a place we can all be proud to call home.
We welcome all Fox Chase residents to become members, attend a meeting or simply visit our Web site at www.foxchasehomeowners.org
The next Fox Chase Community Meeting, which is a joint meeting of FCHA and the Fox Chase Town Watch, will be 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, March 12, at the Loudenslager VFW Post located at 7976 Oxford Ave.
Matthew Braden
President, Fox Chase Homeowners Association
Protect Burholme Park
now and forever
This response is directed at the letter by Mr. Ken Milgrom (Life vs. trees? Give life a fighting chance, Feb. 14 edition).
I would like to respond specifically to Mr. Milgrom from Modena Park. Since you do not live in this community, how can you understand the feelings for the vast majority of residents who want to protect Burholme Park now and for future residents?
I remind you and the community that Burholme Park was a gift to the residents of Philadelphia and surrounding counties. It is a park and zoned as a park. People use this open space regularly and we take great pride in our minimal open space in this area. Also, I remind you that the homes built along Pine Road were not on park grounds but privately held grounds.
I remind everyone here that as long as we stay glued to our televisions and the Internet without experiencing what our community of parks can offer us, we will gradually lose them. Corporate conglomerates run our airwaves, media and lobby for control now of public land.
As much as I admire what Fox Chase Cancer Center does, they are in fact making the community very angry by giving the city an ultimatum of "we build here, or we leave the city." This is insane. We are now in a recession. There are many open areas that can use re-development and not the use of our parks, because once it is done, we will see a pattern of this develop again.
I, for one, hold Burholme Park and all of its parkland sacred to my family for many years of happy memories of picnics, strolling along its beautiful woodlands and the use of the batting cages, golf and entertainment.
The issue here goes far beyond the destruction of a park. It involves keeping Robert Ryerss’ intention, which was to use this land for the enjoyment of the community. If he would have wanted a hospital, he would have done so in his will, as the Jeanes family had done with their farmland just next to the park.
The open space in Burholme Park must be preserved in its entirety. I suggest anyone who has reason to differ with this opinion, please take some time out, and walk its beautiful picnic grove and experience it for yourself. The park is nearly 100 years old and we would like to see it as it is another 100 years from now for future enjoyment.
David Carlin
Burholme
• • •
Ken: Very sorry that you have cancer, but Burholme Park’s trees did not cause this, nor will paving over the park cure you. Fox Chase Cancer Center is not some altruistic organization for the benefit of mankind, but is indeed a profit-making business whose primary focus is to make money. (Nothing wrong with this, just put it in proper perspective).
Your rather specious argument could be used as justification for paving over all of Fairmount Park, which is owned, by the way, by all the people of Philadelphia. The Fairmount Park Commission is supposed to be a good steward but they have failed and sold out to the special interests.
Fox Chase could easily expand elsewhere in the city and not destroy forever a little bit of serenity that still exists in our neighborhood. Once it’s destroyed it can never come back, but Fox Chase can always pick up and leave whenever they get a better deal, and we’ll all be poorer for the congestion and pollution they’ve created.
John E. McDevitt
Burholme
No room for Jews
at Rockledge fire hall?
I booked a party at the Rockledge Fire Company Hook and Ladder Room in November and it was wonderful. So I called them again, this time to have my daughters’ bat mitzvahs. I spoke to Carol and was told they "Do not do bat mitzvahs!" I asked why and was told they had trouble with parties for children so they have a rule that they do not book any children’s parties. Funny — their Web site clearly says they do christenings, communions and graduations!
I had a friend call and try and book a party for almost 100 children. He said it was for a communion, and Carol told him that was fine. This was the same person that told me no parties for children.
So I ask Carol and the Hook and Ladder Room: Do you have a problem with all children or just the Jewish ones?
Heather Smith
Castor Gardens
FOP: No interaction
with deputy mayor
As an administrator of the Fraternal Order of Police Legal Services plan and a member of the Philadelphia Police Department for the last two decades, I am compelled to respond to last week’s letter from Raymond J. Dougherty, Esq. The FOP does not "routinely hand out contracts to law firms" as the writer stated. The FOP employs the services of dedicated attorneys who are on call day and night to protect the interests of our members in a variety of legal areas. Mr. Dougherty revealed his ignorance of the issues by referencing a law firm that has not represented FOP members for almost 20 years.
The FOP routinely defends officers who are subjected to scrutiny or investigation as a result of our officers’ ever-vigilant work in maintaining public safety in our city. These awesome responsibilities often place officers themselves in potential legal jeopardy as they carry out their duties. That is the basis for the FOP legal services plan.
As for the deputy mayor for public safety, the FOP position has been crystal clear and consistent. Our members feel that we should not have to interact and share a forum or stage with an individual who chose to defend a cop-killer. Our members remember and honor those who have made the ultimate sacrifice in protection of our citizens. We do not shirk from that responsibility and we will not tarnish the memory of Police Officer Gary Skerski or any of the 272 Philadelphia police officers who have given their lives in the service of others. Interactions with the new deputy mayor would not be consistent with these solemn obligations.
John R. McGrody, Esquire
Vice President, Michael G. Lutz Lodge, Philadelphia Lodge 5
Costello is the right
man for the job
Richard B. Costello, former president of the Fraternal Order of Police, is running for state representatives in the 172nd district.
Rich’s experience and knowledge as a captain in the Philadelphia Police Department, combating crime and manpower issues, as well as his implementation of a health care system that has been in effect for more than 20 years and remains the standard for other unions to follow, is the foundation of his challenges that lay before him. His 35 years on the force, after taking two bullets to the head, proved to be an extremely tremendous benefit to all of our officers. His command presence and his strong concern for all of our citizens and law enforcement officers make him the right man for the job.
So ask yourself — are you satisfied with our current state of affairs, or do you want more? If you want more, then Rich Costello is the answer! It’s time for him to lead our community into the future. With your support and vote, he will make the changes necessary for a better life for you, your family and our children. Your vote for Rich Costello on April 22 is a vote for all of us!
Robert (Bobby) Eddis
Past president, FOP Lodge 5
• • •
Rich Costello might be running against ex-Speaker John Perzel in November. Good Luck. He’ll need it.
Costello should ask himself if he can do a better job than Perzel has done. Does he have the stamina to stay up to 2 a.m. and vote on an unpopular enormous pay raise?
He must also have the guts. Perzel drove convicted Republican Rep. Thomas Druce to Harrisburg, failed to return the rescinded pay raise, and begrudgingly reimbursed the state for his "historic moment" DVDs.
Does he have family members that own for-profit companies that need "Strategic Grant Funding" funded with our tax dollars? Can he get non-profit entities to have buildings named for him with our tax dollars? Has he ever had important positions like head dishwasher at Moe’s Deli or maitre d’ at Pavio’s?
I didn’t think so. Costello was just a high-ranking member of the police department and president of the FOP. I’ll bet they didn’t make him president emeritus of the FOP.
How many years did Costello spend in high school, four? Perzel has more experience with five years.
Rich, why don’t you try a new career that pays more than a state representative, like a cow milker or tattoo artist?
Mayer Krain
Modena Park
Torrie needs a little help
from her friends
I am writing in the hope that someone will hear my plea and help. I have someone who I very much love and care deeply for. She is a part of my family. She is in heart failure and is very ill. Her medicine makes her seem healthy but it is very expensive! I work three jobs to try to cover her medication and my bills.
Recently she was rushed to the hospital again and nearly wiped me out. I am referring to my dog Torrie. Torrie helped get a heart failure medication approved by the FDA for dogs.
She is my sunshine and I am requesting all animal lovers to please help us. Donations of any kind would be greatly appreciated. Donations may be dropped off or sent to:
Attention: Torrie Iannaco
Brees Animal Hospital
7436 Frankford Ave.
Phila., PA 19136
Thank you and Gob bless!
Jennifer Iannaco
Somerton
PSPCA investigating epidemic
of “horrific” animal abuse cases
A helpless dog left to die in a West Philadelphia apartment without food and water when his owner moves out.
The body of a fighting bait dog thrown out in a North Philadelphia street, with a heavy chain and lock still tied to its neck.
A pit bull dumped in a box and set on fire under a railroad bridge in Northeast Philadelphia.
The seemingly endless list of shocking animal abuse cases in Philadelphia has Pennsylvania SPCA (PSPCA) law enforcement officers puzzled as to what is happening in the City of Brotherly Love. Why are so many helpless animals turning up dead or near dead throughout Philadelphia?
In recent weeks, PSPCA law enforcement officers have investigated an epidemic of animal deaths and cruelty cases in Philadelphia.
The organization is calling on the public to come forward with information to identify individuals involved in this crime outbreak.
"In almost twenty years as a humane officer in the Philadelphia region, I have never witnessed this many horrific abuse cases over such a short amount of time," said PSPCA director of investigations George Bengal. "Since the Michael Vick case broke last summer, the number of cruelty cases we’ve responded to has skyrocketed. We used to have maybe two starvation cases every six months, but now we get at least that many every week."
On Feb. 21, the PSPCA removed the emaciated bodies of four dead dogs from railroad tracks near the SEPTA R7 Wister Station, a day after the humane officers were alerted to a pit bull set on fire at State Road and Magee Avenue in the Northeast.
On Feb. 22, Philadelphia police called PSPCA officers to Sixth and Rockland streets in North Philadelphia where they found the body of a dog that was most likely used to bait fighting dogs. That dog had lost part of a leg and had a heavy chain and lock around its neck.
In addition to these cases, PSPCA is investigating numerous emaciation deaths. Necropsies performed on the bodies of many of the starved animals found dirt in their stomachs, indicating that the dogs were eating whatever they were able to find to survive.
"This disregard for living creatures is mind-numbing," said PSPCA CEO Howard R. Nelson. "If anyone has any information on any of these cases, please call our cruelty hotline. We need the public to come forward to help us save more animals before they are subjected to even more despicable, senseless acts of violence."
Anyone with information on these animal abuse cases, or wanting to report suspected cruelty or neglect, should call the PSPCA’s confidential toll-free hotline, 1-866-601-SPCA, or send an e-mail to cruelty@pspca.org.
The hot line is staffed with live operators 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Citizens who wish to contribute to the PSPCA’s Etana Fund to investigate animal abuse can call 215-426-6300 or visit www.pspca.org.
It’s time to clear the air
for each and every one of us
Tobacco use is the leading preventable cause of death in the United States, killing more than 400,000 people and costing the nation nearly $100 billion in health care bills each year. About 90 percent of adult smokers begin in their teens or earlier. Every day, another 1,000 kids become regular, daily smokers, and one-third of them will die prematurely as a result.
I believe that Congress has an unprecedented opportunity in 2008 to pass life-saving legislation that will finally give FDA the authority to crack down on the tobacco companies and their new deadly products. A report was issued recently by a coalition of public health organizations entitled, Big Tobacco’s Guinea Pigs: How an Unregulated Industry Experiments on America’s Kids and Consumers.
The report highlights how the tobacco companies have manipulated their products to recruit new youth users, create and sustain addiction and discourage users from quitting. New products such as R.J. Reynolds’ Camel No. 9 cigarettes — a pink-hued version that one newspaper dubbed "Barbie Camel" — is marketed directly to young girls.
A growing list of products has been marketed with unproven and misleading claims that they are less harmful than traditional cigarettes. Claims have included, "may present less risk of cancer" (Reynolds American Eclipse cigarettes) and "reduced carcinogens. Premium taste" (Vector Tobacco’s Omni cigarettes).
The best way to reduce the 1,200 tobacco-related deaths each day is to prevent kids from ever starting to smoke. We need FDA regulation of tobacco products, and we have a great chance of passing this legislation in 2008.
This is a call to action for all members of Congress to pass S. 625/H.R. 1108. Few steps could have a greater impact on our health.
Deborah Brown
Vice president of community outreach and advocacy, American Lung Association of the Mid-Atlantic, Camp Hill, Pa.
Please keep Fido
on a leash!
I’m writing this letter to express my frustration with a scary experience I recently endured. I was walking my two dogs around the block like I always do. then it happened. Across the street, a little beagle comes running up. His owners call his name but the dog does not listen and makes his way near my dogs. Now under normal circumstances my dogs are good dogs. When they see someone walking a dog, they look but continue their walk, because that dog, like my dogs, are on leashes.
My dogs have a rule. You leave us alone we will leave you alone. Simple as that. But this was not under normal circumstances. The dog was off the leash and came toward my dogs. My dogs saw the loose dog as a threat and began to follow him.
Luckily I got my dogs under control and after countless pleas to the people to get their dog, their child finally picks the beagle up. There was no apology, no "sorry it won’t happen again." Instead, I heard a man say "put the dog in the yard." Now if they would have just done that in the beginning, this turmoil would not have occurred.
This kind of thing has happened many times. No dogs were hurt, but one day there is going to be a loose dog that comes from behind and my dogs won’t have time to defend themselves. Please leash your dogs. I do not care if it’s too cold out, or too hot, or raining or too much snow, if dog owners do not feel like walking their dogs then please put the animal in a fenced yard where he or she is safe.
I noticed the majority of dogs off leash are small dogs. People believe it’s OK for little dogs to be roaming at will, telling themselves they’re not a threat to anyone. But their small size make more things a threat to the dog, not only larger dogs that walk by but from cars that may not be able to stop in time if the animal darts by a vehicle.
For the owner of the beagle and other people that have leashless dogs, please obey the law and confine your dogs. Thank you!
Gina DeNofa
Normandy
Close the wiggle room
for child predators
As I See It
By John Scanlon
Five concise paragraphs, that’s it, just 16 lines that serve as the epilogue to the tawdry tale of how the Rev. David C. Sicoli got caught up in Philly’s investigation a few years back of clergy sexual abuse of kids but has moved on with his life because there’s not a damn thing law enforcement can do about it.
Well, he did turn in his collar. That’s what the Archdiocese of Philadelphia news release, those five concise paragraphs sent to the news media about three weeks ago, wanted everyone to know. Nearly four years after being pulled into this god-awful mess, Sicoli has no standing within the archdiocese. He’ll no longer use the title Rev. before his name. That’s what the news release wanted everyone to know.
What’s interesting is that the archdiocese, while acknowledging that it substantiated those accusations of sexual abuse against Sicoli, never gave him the boot. Sicoli asked for it himself, and the Holy See — basically the central government of the Catholic Church — had informed the Philadelphia archdiocese that "the request of David C. Sicoli to be removed from the clerical state was granted," according to the news release.
I wonder how his victims of those unpleasant encounters two decades ago greet the news of Sicoli’s defrocking. Do they feel vindicated that it finally happened? Or are they just flabbergasted that Sicoli had to request it?
I have no idea if there will be hell to pay at the Pearly Gates, but it’s obvious that justice here on Earth leaves a lot to be desired. Sicoli and hundreds of others like him around the country, exposed in the glare of unraveling scandals earlier this decade once prosecutors started doing what reticent archbishops should have done years ago, are on the streets somewhere these days because of a fortuitous legal loophole.
It’s called a statute of limitations. It puts handcuffs on the legal system and keeps them off clergy members who should be in prison jumpsuits, not vestments. What it means is that time passes — either because young victims feel ashamed to come forward, have been intimidated to keep mum, or have been failed by a nervous church hierarchy that prefers to see no evil — until the clock strikes 12 and legally closes the door on criminal prosecutions or civil lawsuits.
That’s why life goes on for Sicoli. In fact, of the 63 archdiocesan priests identified as predators by the Philadelphia grand-jury investigation four years ago, with some cases of child sexual abuse dating to 1967, 54 clergymen who were still alive at the conclusion of the probe could not be charged and prosecuted because Pennsylvania’s statute of limitations on reporting such crimes had expired long ago.
It’s time for our state legislature to repeal the statute . . . in its entirety. It protects the wrong person.
Actually, ever since the transgressions of priests in the Boston archdiocese came to light in 2002 and triggered a domino effect of fallen clergy in parishes around the country, thus reminding us that these gentlemen don’t walk on water, many states have examined their statutes of limitations that address crimes of sexual abuse against minors.
Nearly two years ago, Gov. Ed Rendell signed legislation that eased the legal restriction in criminal cases — alleged victims of sexual abuse as children have until age 50 to come forward in Pennsylvania, instead of age 30. Another bill that has languished in the House would establish the same benchmark to file civil lawsuits.
The legislature would do better to abolish these restrictive statutes, in both criminal prosecutions and civil litigation. It would do better to act on two Senate bills that pretty much would do just that, though these measures don’t seem to be going anywhere.
Beyond the growing number of states that have taken this laudable step, the compelling reason for Pennsylvania to climb on the bandwagon can sadly be understood by reading the findings of the Philadelphia Grand Jury on Clergy Sex Abuse. The report isn’t new; its release nearly three years ago chronicled the investigation and testimony that documented four decades of sinful perversion and manipulation in the Philadelphia archdiocese, conduct long enabled by a hierarchy whose obligations to God’s children were trumped by such mortal worries as scandal and financial ruin.
To this day, I feel disappointment at how Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, Philadelphia’s former archbishop, sacrificed his legacy. The report chastised his willingness to simply move embattled priests from parish to parish, rather than summon law enforcement, and it seems so hypocritical now how he was praised in 2002 for anointing the Commission on the Protection of Children and Clerical Conduct, a local response to the broadening scandal around the country.
The shock of this grand-jury report still delivers anger when the David C. Sicolis of the archdiocese are mentioned now and then in a terse news release to the media.
He’s defrocked, true, but it’s certainly not as damning as it could have been if a technical loophole — Pennsylvania’s statute of limitations — hadn’t spared him a trial on allegations of destroying young lives.
The emotions still engendered by this extensive report — revulsion, anger, incredulity — enforce the wisdom of eliminating any restriction on the reporting of cases of child sexual abuse. The clergy report is rife with details of long-ago youngsters made pliant by faith and trust, and even drugs and alcohol — in some cases to the point of addictions.
As for Sicoli, the grand-jury testimony of witnesses who accused him of molesting them as teenagers — scandal that followed him even to St. Martin of Tours in Oxford Circle during the mid-1970s — made one thing quite clear. If not for the protections of the statute of limitations, Father Sicoli wouldn’t have had a prayer.
The Philadelphia archdiocese and the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference, which represents 10 dioceses in the state, have been on record as opposing any elimination of the statute of limitations. Over time, they say, witnesses die. Memories grow hazy. It is not the best situation going into a court case.
The points are valid, but that’s actually the prosecution’s problem. The burden is on them to prove to a jury that an abusive episode had occurred; it’s not on the archdiocese to prove that it didn’t.
It is time for Pennsylvania to follow the lead of states like Wyoming and South Carolina, which have no restriction on the criminal prosecution of child sexual abuse, or Alabama, Rhode Island, Kentucky and Alaska, which, to varying degrees, have enacted code reforms that favor the child, not the predator.
Locally, there is no reason more compelling for this change than the case of Arthur Baselice III. Nearly four years ago, the 1996 graduate of Archbishop Ryan High School came forward to detail two years of alleged sexual abuse by the Rev. Charles Newman, a former Ryan teacher and administrator, and how the clergyman groomed him with drugs and alcohol, leading to addictions that followed Baselice to adult life.
Baselice detailed these events in a 2004 civil lawsuit filed against Newman and the archdiocese, but a state court eventually dismissed it. The statute of limitations had expired; the suit could not be pursued.
Newman, who was indicted two months ago on charges that he embezzled $900,000 from the school and his religious order nearly six years ago, has been living in a Wisconsin retirement home.
Baselice never could overcome his addictions. In November 2006, at 28 years of age, he died of a drug overdose. ••
John Scanlon is editor of the Northeast Times.
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